Life’s not difficult. It’s the person we are that makes life a nightmare.
It doesn’t matter if you have a successful career. If you fuck up, you’re done. I went to school for four years just to feel like a worthless alcoholic. Someone that meant well. I take care of people. I’m a nurse. I was one of the best. At least that’s what people told me.
You start to realize you have some sort of problem the first time you wake up not knowing what the fuck happened the night before. You tell yourself it was a one-time thing. Then it happens again. Except this time you wake up in a different house. You don’t know where your phone is, your keys are missing, and you see the tan hairy arm stretched out underneath your neck, but don’t remember his face.
The next weekend you go out and as the first drink slips away you wake up naked on an empty bed. Who was with you? Who were they? Did you use a condom? Let’s be honest. For once you think to yourself you’re a wreck.
You get dressed and meet your friend for lunch. At the restaurant, your friend is laughing with you as she reclaims the nights events until she’s interrupted with an older man in his sixties coming up to you with a smile calling you by name. It’s then your best friend recalls the story of how you pulled him to your room the night before. You notice the gold ring on his left hand and feel the wave of disgust fill your body.
You’re a mess. You try to figure out how you got to this point. How you put yourself in so many situations with more traumatizing endings then the event of that night. You hate yourself. It’s then you walk to the bathroom with your bottle of wine and empty wine glass. You fill the tub full of hot water and strip out of your dirty clothes. After swallowing the first glass of wine you step into the tub. The overbearing urge to try and cleanse your body is overwhelming. It’s your last attempt to free yourself. You pick up the razor sitting on the ledge. It’s brand new. You introduce the clean razor to your scarred wrist and pull down as hard as you can.
The hard knock on the door makes you jump. You’re forced to come out of your imaginations. The happy ending you created in your head disappears and you reach for the glass on the edge of the tub and take another drink and you realize you’re too much of a coward to exit the pitiful life you created for yourself.
