It was thanksgiving sometime in the 90's', 1994 perhaps. My parents had just gone through a 5 year all out war of a divorce and money was scarce. The house sold and I made an unsuccessful attempt to move to Florida with my then boyfriend. I was there less than a week before he kicked me out for my outlandish behavior when i drank. All I remember from that time are a few scenes- him cooking breakfast with a motorcycle helmet on, me drinking Bloody Mary's by the pool in the too bright morning light and taking a cab to his place drunk really late one night. I had no money for the cab fare and he turned me away because of my drunkenness. The cops came and I was arrested. When I claimed to be suicidal, they put me in a mental hospital for observation for 3 days. I came back from that one big Tampa debacle sometime in the spring and moved into a motel with my mother. She had $8000 left which she carried in her pocketbook in large bills. The $100, 000 that we had taken out of the bank 3 years prior one sunny afternoon had gone to lawyers and living expenses. We squandered through most of the $8000 just trying to live. I tried to work, but depression had me in its strangling grip and I couldn't contribute much of anything financially or otherwise. Spring turned to summer, to autumn and the holidays- my least favorite time of year. This year, instead of being in a 4000 square foot home, we were in a motel with hard floors and bright lights. I don't know how it happened, but we had no money. I scrapped together my mothers change, separating the silver coins out of the many pennies and managed to get together $1.60. I went down to the vending machine, my bare feet against the cold tile floor. I got pretzels and something else, I'm not sure what. I never felt so desolate in all my life; even at the mental institution in Tampa, I had more hope. Id like to say this is as worse as it got for me, but it wasn't. There was more to come and thank God I didn't know that then. Shorty after that, I lost another old flame due to my behavior when I drank- he came to pick me up one afternoon and I was bottomless in the outdoor pool. I fell one night on the way home from a bar in a black out and woke up bloodied with no idea what had happened. I later pieced some of it together. I spent a year in bed in a depression. I showered once a week and it took me nearly an hour to get the almost dreadlocks out of my long hair. I rarely went out and when I did it was to drink. My mom and I ate one meal a day- all we could afford on the alimony check my dad sent weekly. We didn't have a car so we got subs delivered from a shop nearby. Usually we split a large egg and cheese. We fought a lot, mostly because I couldn't get out of bed an my mother wanted me to get help. It was awful. I hated her but I had no where to go. Some nights I slept in the bathtub just to get some space from her. Looking back, I don't know how I survived all of this, but I did. Sometimes I couldn't sleep at night and there was nothing to do in the dark room while my mother snored gently in the next bed. These times were excruciating. I was alone in my miserable head and had no drink to comfort me. Sometimes I slept the day through even while my mother watched talk shows and complained of her plight to distant relatives on the phone. One time I remember the maids came in and they were all chatting. My mother wanted me to join the conversation and when I said "I don't feel like talking today", they all thought it was funny and laughed.
