Day 1
The alarm goes off at 8:30AM, an hour after I had set it for, and somehow this time the incessant repetition of artificial wind chimes jolts me awake. My head is swimming, mouth dry, a sour, acrid taste coating my tongue and teeth.
I’m on the couch of my friend’s apartment, still dressed from the night before, the smell of tar from the cigarettes I’d chain-smoked early in to the morning is caked in to my hair, skin, and sweatshirt. I don’t smoke.
I reach up to feel the bandaid that’s taped to my chin which simultaneously brings an awareness to the throbbing in my knees, and in turn triggers the faint memory of falling, knees first, the rest of my weight landing on my chin on to asphalt sometime at the end of my night around 5AM. I wonder who saw.
I am already thirty minutes late to pick up my daughter from her father. She is a forty minute drive away. I text her something about having an emergency and that I’ll need to come get her later in the day. I’m not yet sure that I am sober enough to drive myself home, let alone with her in the car.
I let myself out of the secure building, barreling down the two flights of stairs. Every step filled with a searing pain and sharp inhalations of air. I’m afraid to look at my knees. I step out in to the muted steel blue-gray of morning light. Across the street my car awaits in the parking lot of the bar where the night had started. A small drive up coffee stand sits in the Eastern corner of the lot, and I can’t help but notice the line of people in their cars waiting to grab coffee, on their way to work no doubt, in stark juxtaposition to my presence in this moment. I keep my head down. I make myself as small as I can. I hope no one notices me in my disheveled, unkempt appearance.
Anxiously, I drive home, the mixture of alcohol, three hours of sleep, dried blood and injury swirling inside of my body and on my skin. Of the moments I can replay from the night before, I am instantly filled with shame as I recall each embarrassing memory. I shudder while abruptly cocking my head to one side; an unconscious attempt to crawl out of my own skin.
Forty minutes later I pull up to my house, turn off the car, and walk to the front porch where I pull each shoe off by pressing the toe of my foot against the heel of the other foot and stepping out. I enter, walking straight to the kitchen. I fill the biggest glass I can find — a wide mouth mason jar — with water, and drink. The room is silent but the ringing in my ears makes the silence feel deafening right now.
I set the jar down on the counter next to the sink and proceed to undress myself as I walk to my bedroom, leaving a trail of my shame behind me like breadcrumbs, remnants of my mistakes strewn about the floor in every room of the house.
I make my way to my bedroom and crawl under the covers. It’s 9:22AM. I will sleep, I tell myself, and be better by 3:30PM which is when I’ve decided I will pick up my daughter. I will apologize to my friends when I awake, deciding that I will never do this to anyone I love ever again. And then, as I slump in to a deep sleep, I decide one last thing: I will give up drinking for an entire year, and today will be Day 1.
