I was early this morning. I came here early in a self serving fashion bringing to these people that must have found their rock bottom. What I have. I know because I am them and without living in a rock bottom you will not willingly submit yourself to this place, and the bars in the windows with the medication and the withdrawal and the Librium to get through it.
So self serving in my sobriety I walk in with the idea of departing information to them. I walk in confident in my sobriety, ability and where I find myself in life and love and on this planet surrounded by some others like myself. My own personal reminder of what still haunts me and drives me and eats my dreams at night.
Self serving, while serving. The idea not so foreign. Even not always rewarding. However it helps waste precious time sometimes and eats the idle seconds at others.
The quiet of this place is eerie. The raw bark of the young Witstinkhout’s all around, bare with a few burnt brown leaves clutching in their tops to the last juices it’s allowed from within the tree. A reminder of what these people in here have in common with them and me.
Like always, I am their centre in the small group. The questions always the same but asked by different people on a weekly basis. Small nuances in the way they ask it; bears stark witness to what causes them to ask. I know; I was there….. I lived their lives before in my own fucked way, and in my own reality of white noise.
When I was broken I was and in some way will always be a part of each of them in my, connected, disconnected way. They are me.
The grey woman, reserved. Aptly quiet and shaking. The loud Policeman with the swollen stomach and stories of hemorrhoids and his need for his lifeline and not understanding that we are each other in a stupidly connected fashion. The Guy with the shades and broken knuckles but shaky hands. The girl that closes her eyes to memorize telephone numbers instead of writing them down. Unaware that I notice… and understand her so much better suddenly. The older lady provocatively dressed and cleavage spilling out and drawing even my unwilling eyes. Hiding her thoughts behind the sunglasses as she fiddles with their position, holding her shaking fingers out and saying. “I do not know why I am shaking” She looks up and I realize again, we are all each other.
The tiles in our kitchens might differ but we still walk each on our own tiles in the condition we leave our kitchen in. We all have a chipped plate in a cupboard somewhere. Or an old piece of crockery or teaspoon that’s gone a brassy color due to age. We all collect memories and fuckups and ponderings on them. We all deal with them in the same fucked up way.
Half way through; the Policeman has tears rolling freely down his cheeks. His daughter is eleven and he knows what she has to deal with because of him. Because he was there in that same place with his own father. I just had to remind him of it.
The grey lady is following close in his footsteps. Her son died in rehab through punishment for running away from them. The people that was supposed to have helped him. Another legacy of a place called Nauwpoort… When her tears come it’s because she has been reminded that although he was only sixteen he still lived before that ugly death. He had good memories for her, if she could only look back past his last days to happier ones he has left her.
The knuckle man wants to know what he must do to safely be normal and not fight when he gets aggressive from booze. He soon walks of when the answer is not what he wanted to hear. His rock bottom has not found him yet…..
The quiet girl listened attentively. Taking in more than she thinks I give her credit for. I know.
The “hot” older lady continuously strokes her empty ring finger and confirms without touching her sunglasses, that she needs one on one counseling. I reluctantly give my number but know already that her answers; to her questions is an elusive few lines that will not depart my lips.
I assume a lot when pondering these people.
But I know that I do not assume one thing about the lives they live. The fuck ups they face and the warmth my addiction will have on them when they again start using.
I know because I am them in my own connected, disconnected way.
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