"Where was I last night?"

Back in my last semester of college about 1 1/2 ago, I took up a creative writing course as an elective required for my graduation. It was one of the very few I took at MCC that I actually enjoyed attending and actually enjoyed getting homework done for.

Anyway, sometimes when I'm bored I like to read through the text book that I bought for the class, and I like to look at old assignments. Call me a nerd if you want.

For lack of anything better to write about tonight I'm going to share something with you that I wrote for the class. Here goes nothin, sorry ahead of time if you're bored to death.

P.S. In this particular assignment, we needed to make up a story that started in the middle and then gave readers background, rather than most stories that start at the beginning. This is kind of long so I'm probably going to finish it the next time I decide to sit down and write. Okay here ya go.....



"Where was I last night and how did I end up here?"

My head pounded and I could still taste the alcohol on the back of my tongue. My eyes slowly opened adjusting to the brightness of the room and as I lifted my head from the pillow, my neck would not budge from complete stiffness. Where I was still had not registered as I stumbled to the bathroom. My reflection in the mirror resembled a train wreck, and I sort of laughed in spite of myself at how simply awful I looked and worse; how simply awful I felt.

I rumaged through the medicine cabinet searching for something to ease the pain and finally found some aspirin. I took three at a time and pounded a huge glass of water. I took a seat on the edge of the bathtub and desperately tried to recall the night before.....

It was my birthday. My 30th birthday to be exact. To me, being 30 meant being really old and I had let it become quite the crisis. In fact I was in denial about turning 30 the day I turned 29!

Anyway, my friends simply would not let me stay home with my dog and 2 cats so they forced me into a dress and took me out. I went out all right, I went out hard.

About 4 years prior to my 30th, my father passed away. This devastated me. My father raised me. He wasn't just a father to me, he was a very good friend as well.
My mother left us both when I was 7. She had suffered from severe depression and was diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder after a year's worth of symptoms. She blamed it on me. I was quite the "handful," as she ever so subtly liked to put it and she didn't know how to properly look after me when my father was at work or doing other things, so she left.
Sometimes, late at night I could hear my dad sobbing into his pillow down the hallway, begging God to bring her back to him. For years I lived with this guilt. I felt ashamed that I could be such a rotten child. I even ran away from home one day in faith that this would bring my mother home and my father happiness once again. When he found me later that evening at the park down the street from my house he scolded me good. He begged me never to leave him again and for some reason, as sad as my dad had been after my mother left us, me running away was the best thing I could have ever done for him and I. I never heard him cry again after that day.
When he passed my friends tried desperately to cheer me up and for months it simply wasn't possible.

Shortly after the funeral was when I met Nate. Just thinking about Nate puts a smile on my face. He sure knew what to do with a girl like me. When I say a girl like me, I mean a high maintence, career-driven, know-it-all, alcoholic. I hate admitting my problems out loud, it causes me to feel the shame I felt when my mother left so many years ago, and unfortunately as I got older I picked up a few of her tendencies, one being alcoholism. All I ever drank was Jack on the rocks, Jack straight up, Jack with Coke, but I drank it often, and I drank it a lot.
I blamed it all on being a girl raised by a man, who was dumped by her mother, and who has a very demanding career that requires constant attention and gridlock deadlines.

When I met Nate I was at the high point of my alcoholism, if there is such a thing. My dad was gone, I was turning 30 right before my very eyes, and all I wanted more than anything was to crawl into a hole with a never-ending supply of Jack Daniels and never come out again.

How perfect Nate was. He took me to my AA meetings. He showed me how enjoyable life can be when you're sober. He treated me like gold every opportunity he had. However, there was one catch; Nate was a recovering alcholic as well, and Nate's sponsor?? His beautiful wife, Ellen.

Gotta love my luck. I fell hard for Nate. Apparently so did Ellen. I wasn't one to break up a marriage however happy or unhappy it may have been, so I split. He didn't stop me like I wished he would have, but it went smoother that way, and honestly what did I expect? Did I expect him to love me as much as I had loved him?? Did I expect him to see in me what I saw in him?? Did I expect to touch his life in the ways he had touched mine??

Totally.

Of course I fell back in love with the only man who's never left me. One could say I fell off the wagon and I hit ground hard. My friends began to give up. They stopped calling as often. I wasn't ever leaving my apartment unless it was for a new bottle or a pack of smokes. I got fired from my job and really had no reason to exist. My 30th was quickly approaching and I wondered if anyone in my life was even going to remember......

People remembered all right. I sat on the cold side of the bathtub and rubbed my temples ever so slightly and asked myself again.....

"Where was I last night and how did I end up here?"