It was a beginning. Beginnings needed celebrating! Iām not sure why or exactly when I started celebrating with cheap bottles of aristocrat vodka alone, but I did. I loved having a secret. I could be in my own little world and no one had to know. My own little warm place with no pain. Until the hangover. But I quickly learned that a hangover could be fixed really easily with more drink. I was actually terrified of the hangover and would do anything to avoid it, even if it meant sipping shots all day long and throughout the night when I tried to sleep.
Back to the bird nest I went. Day after day I watched the mother sitting in the nest. I watched the eggs closely when she was away. I stayed on the phone with a long distance friend most of the day and night. Iām not sure if he knew I was drinking all the time or if he even cared, really. I was entertaining to him and it was nice to have any kind of attention from anyone at all, even if it it was only through telephone calls.
At my grandmotherās house I encountered many fond memories of my childhood. My grandfather built a barn behind her house with a loft in it for my cousins and I to play in. If you sat up there when the sun was rising or setting it was really beautiful. I donāt have any brothers or sisters, so memories with all my cousins were ones I kept close to my heart. It was nice to revisit all the places we played and explored when we were little. Deep inside my guts wrenched to think that I had actually grown up. How did that happen? When did I get to be an adult? Why didnāt I do adult things like other people my age? I think I was about 24 at the time. I had graduated with a degree in education and was terrified to actually get a job.
So I drank and procrastinated job searching and I found that I cried a lot. Sometimes I drank to make myself cry. I had become so solemn and callous that I couldnāt stand myself. Drinking helped me to cry it out. When I was around people, I could turn on the bubbly, fun-loving, slightly sarcastic persona, but most times it was so exhausting that I avoided people altogether unless I had a few shots in my system. That, or, another type of chemical. I liked to control how I felt all the time. And pills I had been prescribed and alcohol and other substances I could get my hands on were so helpful with controlling my bitter, nagging, bursts of unpleasant feelings.
I donāt know how I remember what happened to the nest so clearly because Iām quite certain I had been drunk for a few days when it happened. I went to check on the eggs. When I walked in the bedroom the sun was still sparkling through the window. I pulled the curtains back. To my utter horror, a disgusting black and white spotted snake was slithering into the nest and coiling up around it. My stomach still drops when I picture it. My hope was in that nest. My sign of a new beginning was about to be devoured by a revolting looking thief. The poor mother bird would never get to feed her babies. I wouldnāt get to watch them hatch. I felt raped all over again. I felt something worse than a hangover, I felt emotion. Sick, black, throat slitting pain. Why Is this always happening to me? Why is everything beautiful in my life sucked out and destroyed?
I had run away from abuse and I was coping the only way I knew how. That bird nest was a sign from God. The nest symbolized my hope. My childhood innocence was in that nest. My happiness and my future. But I was a dead person inside. I went to my bottle and there was plenty. But this time the thought of drinking didnāt appeal. I was lonely and my heart was aching. I wanted to kill that snake but I was terrified of it. Rage filled my heart. The creature moved and crouched so eerily. What looked like all 3 feet of him was dangling there swallowing the little bit of comfort I had found. I went into the living room. No one was in the house. I screamed as loud as I could. My knees hit the ground and I beat against the floor.I screamed and screamed and cried in horror. I know things like this take place in nature, and it was the alcohol turning on me, burning me up inside, along with all the heart breaking trauma I had suffered that poured into my spirit and drained my soul that day. I had no hope. I was dying. And I welcomed death.
After I settled down I contemplated what was happening to me. The alcohol was a symbol too. It was doing to me what the snake was doing in that nest. It was consuming me. Strangling me. Sucking the life out of me. Leaving me disoriented and alone. And I couldnāt go an hour without it. That was a beginning for sure. Of what, I didnāt know yet.
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