little stone

It was a red scooter sort of thing. A motorized two-wheeled zippy little thing. They were called Sprees and they were all the rage. Especially if they were red.

We were standing in front of the high school and for some reason he told me I could drive it. I think I’d driven one before, but by myself. This time, my friend Angie hopped on the back and all I remember is that it was harder to steer. But the high school had a circular drive and the first thing I had to do was round a sharp corner.

It didn’t take but seconds and we were down, turned sideways and under the scooter in the drive’s edge, little pebbles bouncing away.

She said, Why didn’t you stop?

She was in so much pain and she was angry and shocked. I had no idea how to answer her. For some reason, when I started to lose control, when the butterfly wings started frantically flapping in the core of me, I sped up, a desperate attempt to right our course, to get back on track.

The spill wouldn’t have been so traumatic if I had just slowed; laid that thing down.

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I always knew I shouldn’t drink at all, that it was somehow different for me. I never gave into peer pressure in high school. I mean, the most rebellious thing I ever did then was ride another person’s red mo-ped. I had no problem saying no, didn’t care about peer pressure, and when I did start to drink, it wasn’t a moral issue that sent butterfly wings flapping in my heart-gut.

I just knew.

But I got on, so to speak. I turned the key and felt the weight of instability. I just kept going, not knowing why. There was no room for thought, just a panicked sort of pressing on the gas and heading toward the gravel.

Tires spin out so easily in the gravel.

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Why didn’t you stop?

We stood up, pulling small stones from wounds in our arms and legs, both of us biting back tears. We went inside and tried to wash them out but the impact kept them stuck. Going home to show my parents was painful and so was trying to sleep at night, one side of my body raw and open, bandaged.

I still have scars from that day. For the longest time, I could feel the lump of a tiny pebble under my skin, next to my knee. A reminder for years.

Now, after all my years of drinking, memories rise up from underneath in the same way. Little reminders of what it was like to lose control and spin out. Pebbles under my skin. They remind me but no longer hurt me. I am feeling more and more healed but never unguarded. Because the truth is, no matter how many days go by without a drink, I’m always capable of getting right back on.

Some of us just shouldn’t be handed the keys. We don’t know how to handle the shifts and changes, the balancing and the normal of a social or night cap kind of drink. At times, in a moment, I forget that. I wonder if I really had a problem at all. I think that maybe, just maybe, one day I can drink normally. What I need right then is a reminder, a little lump next to my knee. I’m so grateful to have my friends in recovery, to share their stories that reflect my own, keeping me aware and certain, sober and free.

Please congratulate one of them with me–Ellie celebrated FOUR YEARS of sobriety yesterday. It is a true honor to call her my friend. Before I quit drinking, her story reached through my screen and changed my life. There aren’t enough words of gratitude for that. And now, she’s my sister-friend, one I cannot imagine my life without. She brings laughter and wisdom to my everyday. She is proof that redemption and freedom are for the taking, if only we surrender.

It is largely because of Ellie that my husband and children will not have to say, Why didn’t you stop?

Congratulations, Ellie. You are so loved.