Recovery
“Katie, wake up.”
“Mhm. What?” I groggily open my eyes roused from a sleep so light one can hardly call it that. I glance at my phone. It’s 3:45 am, barely two hours I had finally gone to bed after an away game and a shower. I glance to my right, seeing my stepdad, . Before I can change my “what” to “sir”, he cuts me off.
“She’s gone.”
It doesn’t take me long to catch his meaning. He had called me before halftime, saying my mom might go tonight, or last night, and I had barely been able to march the show with the weight of the news tightening my throat and stinging my
I slowly sit up as Justin wakes Bekah and they make their way towards the living room, where Nana and Jared are crying quietly. I stay at the edge of my bed, my feet touching the worn carpet, but not moving. I can’t bring myself to join them. I’ve tried to prepare for this moment and the seemingly impossible road to recovery after it. I imagined wailing, suicide, never being able to smile again, hitting someone or something, dying of a broken heart. But I’m completely numb, staring at how the hallway light seeps into my otherwise dark room.
I glance at my phone, seeing ten minutes have passed. Nana comes into check on me, but I briskly move away as she wails and makes it more about her than anything else. I don’t want to be touched and as rude or wrong as I may be, I don’t want to indulge in her pity party. I feel sick and heavy - like everything is closing in and ready to crush me into nothing. My eyes are still as dry as bone, though. Just like my throat. I’d kill to feel at least SOMETHING.
~♤~
It’s late August, . I’m staring into space as I ride with my stepmstep mom and her dad, and it’s been about ten months since my mom died. The haze of grief has finally cleared away and I reflect on my recklessness the past several months. How far I’d gone and almost gone, how close I’d come to death a couple of times, and the people I’d inadvertently hurt in the process. All in the name to feel genuine emotion again. I don’t even remember most of it - just huge blanks of vague blurs and colors that I can’t place for the life of me.
Even though I’ve finally gotten my shit mostly together after my mom’s death, I’m still at a loss. Even beginning the recovery process for all the baggage my mom left me to deal with seems so implausible that I fell sick and crushed all over again. There’s so much history to unpack - let alone how I feel about it all. I’m drowning without water just trying to think about it.
I will my breath to remain even as my chest tightens and my eyes sting with the tears of as panicky attack. No way am I having one in front of two people in a cramped car for six more hours. As impossible as recovery seems, I can at least make the attempt. Without my mom on my back and trying to prevent counseling, I can take the first step - like I should have been allowed to do years ago.
~♤~
It’s August, 2018. Tomorrow, I start school again after recklessly flunking out in the spring semester of 2016. I’m not fully recovered from everything, as I have PTSD and am still coming to terms with the codependence my mother had forced me into, but I’m steadily healing and moving forward. I’m gaining more confidence and freedom with each passing day. I don’t feel sick or stifled anymore. I’ve cut toxic people out of my life and improvedimproved upon my own behavior.
It’s hard to believe that almost three years ago, I thought I’d never feel anything again, and that my future was as bleak and colorless as I thought I was. But now, I know I can be so much more than anything my mom saw - and I have what it takes to do something amazing.