March 8, 2005

Nine years ago tonight, I didn’t know that I was 9 days away from the night that would bring me to my knees and summarily bring my relationship with alcohol to its final days.

What I did know was that I couldn’t write. That what was once my way in to writing had become a blockade I could not get beyond. As was my ritual, I came home from work after a few drinks and poured myself another. My hand hovered delicately over the bottles in my kitchen as I looked around at the apartment I was leaving furnished, rent unpaid, electricity days from being shut off; I spun toward the freezer and wrapped nervous, sweating palms around the neck of a bottle of vodka. I poured myself a glass then walked to my desk, turned on my laptop, and opened a fresh document. The terrifying stark white of the page and the chaos of everything I had to say made my bones shake.  I got up from my desk, went back to the kitchen and grabbed the rest of the bottle.

A few hours later the bottle was empty, the ashtray was full, and the still blank page was taunting me.

I had nothing.  I started to cry, which wasn’t unusual. 

When I woke up face down on the kitchen floor next to an empty bottle of wine, I had 7 messages from by boyfriend from which I gathered that he and I had been talking and I told him I had to go to the bathroom, then I never came back to the phone.

I walked over to my desk and woke my sleeping computer. I was surprised to see the blank page was no longer that. It said:

I hate myself.

I hope I die.

Please let me die.

I can’t do this anymore.

If there is a god, please just let me not wake up tomorrow. 

I didn’t remember writing any of it but the last line was how I had taken to praying myself to sleep at night. I slammed my laptop shut at the sight of the truth of what I had become and, suddenly nauseous, went to lie on the bathroom floor for a while. I don’t know how long I stayed in there but it was dark again by the time I came out.

I poured myself a glass of wine and dialed my boyfriend.

8 days and counting and I didn’t even know.