And as always, in the beginning - there is shaky fear, the world so loud and so bright and so real, and the knowing that I’ll have to meet it, crawling at first, bruised ego, bruised knees.
And the last line that you take when you know it must be the last line, know that if there’s a next line, you are likely to die — that last line is a form of insanity; one final gamble for the road.
The last line was last night, some time around 11pm, and the last drink sometime shortly before. It is 4:18pm, and this is day 1, sitting in the grass of Marsha P. Johnson park, documenting the end in hopes there’ll be a long, sunlit path that’ll bloom from it.
10:42 pm
Still here. I met Mom in the village and we went to a meeting together. I felt small, like a child. She introduced herself when they asked about newcomers to the meeting, but I couldn’t bear to speak up, just shrunk smaller and smaller. I could listen and I could laugh and I could feel, I felt so much, but as much as I knew that I needed to speak, I felt paralyzed, like my throat had frozen over.
The meeting progressed, and the closer it got to the end, the louder my inner voice became, and I knew that this was it — the powerlessness, that ‘gift of desperation’ - because I’ve dipped in and out of meetings this year without ever speaking, succumbing to the fear that I have nothing worthwhile to say, and that’s a fear that keeps me sick, that makes me use. The fear is that only when I drink or sniff or swallow enough, only then can I avoid this confrontation with terror— the terror of being seen, of being known, of being loved (or possibly hated) for who I am.
It passed through me so quickly — I knew if I didn’t speak then, then I would relapse, and quickly. And I still might, if I balk from the next trial, but this was the first - and so at the very last moment the meeting chair asked if anyone had a burning desire to share and I shot my hand up before I could talk myself out of it, and my mom gave me this smile of both shock and pride, and I said the words I’ve said many times, but which held such a different power in that room: “Hi, I’m Jomé, and I’m an alcoholic.”
And I started to shake again, and every word that left my mouth after was full of fear, and every word I said after was full of truth.