Catharsis: A Story of Healing
When I said I needed a break I didn’t mean this. The quiet of the home that used to comfort me after long days was now a deafening silence. Being in my little green bedroom for what seemed like forever brought me back to the days of being 15. Back then I was so young and naive, I had yet to face the real world. Those four green walls brought back memories like waves that washed over me. Drowning, I stared up at my ceiling knowing that the coming days would be the same mundane routine. Wake up, get ready as if I had somewhere to go, call my friends, go to sleep. This was my life. Parallel to my everyday life but yet so different. No thin veneer of routine to shield me from what was there, what was always there. Sadness.
Being in that room brought back the days where the 10-hour long naps didn’t make much sense. Nights where I’d wake up and cry at my reflection in the mirror. Mornings and nights where the smell of beer on my father’s breath would make me sick. To say I’m thankful for a global pandemic would sound strange to most, but having to sit with my problems, and no reprieve, might have brought some good to me. All of the times my mascara leaked, thick and black into my eyes, pink and gold eyeshadow swirling into my vision as I blocked out the world. Around here you don’t have problems -- at least not ones you couldn't fix yourself. My friends would come to school, reeking of liquor at 7:30, right before homeroom. There wasn't a thing a little alcohol or weed could solve for them. Depression doesn't really exist, at least not when you're smoking or drinking. Those sad red eyes on early mornings or late nights. Are you tired? Are you high? Have you just cried? Who knows?
Hot July nights were the hardest, searching for flights to France, Germany, England, Jamaica, anywhere but here. Maybe there I could start over. In a new place, where I’m unknown, somewhere quiet, but not deafening. July was the month meant to change me. As I washed my hair, a song I found playing in the background, the thrill of a piano floating through the speaker. “I shut my windows and demanded a breeze, I'm wondering what's wrong with me, I'd like to be an open book, But honesty strides like a crook, I'm struggling to find a way, One day soon I'll find my place, Life's gotta get easier. I'm dressing wounds I cannot see, Someone else's beasts are riding me, I know this pain isn't mine, Yet I feel it all the time.”
In my family, we are all aware that my father has a problem. The pain of seeing someone you love destroy themselves robs you of your innocence. It reminds me of the nights he’d ask me to pass him a beer, already smelling of alcohol, and I’d do so begrudgingly. Memories of running to the kitchen to pour his beer down the sink so that he wouldn’t have any left. The words he’d slur were never nice. It’s not like I know him well but when he was like this, it always scared me. He was loud, rude, and brash. Mean, his words were so mean.
I never understood my mother. “Kelly, your father has a problem. He has to want help for himself,” she'd tell me. But if he has problems, shouldn’t we help to fix it? Being so young and trying to fix a parent is no easy feat and believe me, it doesn’t get any easier. Those nights I prayed for my parents to not yell at each other, turned into wishing my father wouldn’t come home drunk and embarrass me in front of my friends, then to me growing indifferent. But the indifference made me sad, made me cry in my boyfriend’s car about why I’m so sad and why I hate him and why I care so much still. But these feelings made me accept what they were. I needed help and my sudden apathy towards everything happening wasn’t me. Even though every time I’d bring up my sadness my mother brushed it aside, at least until I just couldn’t console myself to the point of bawling and that’s when she understood how deeply I felt. And in my eyes now months later, looking back on my former self, I can say it’s truly never too late to get help when you need it.