—Grace
I am God’s child. I place my life in the care of God. I am one with God and the universe. God, I can’t, but You can, so please do. If He’s too far removed, who moved? If you’re trying to pray, it’s praying. Let go and let God. I am powerless over people. I am powerless over my children. I am powerless over drugs. I believe in a power greater than me. Faith without works is dead. Faith is spelled a-c-t-i-o-n. When we do all the talking, we learn what we know. We are only as sick as our secrets. We either are or we aren’t. Where we go, there we are. Sponsors: Use one. Help is a call away. I help others by asking for help. Drugs: an equal choice destroyer. Do it sober. Easy does it, but do it. Don’t quit before the magic. Be grateful. Be sick and tired of being sick and tired. Before you say I can’t, say I try. Life starts when you stop. Listen like only the dying can. Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself. I forgive myself for hurting myself and others. I forgive myself for letting others hurt me. I deserve to be loved by myself and others. I like myself. I love myself without condition. I accept love. I am not alone. I am able to change. I am the change I want to see. I am the one who makes me whole. Using is death. One hit is too many, a thousand is not enough. F.E.A.R. Frustration. Ego. Anxiety. Resentment. F.E.A.R. False. Expectations. Appear. Real. F.E.A.R. False. Evidence. Appears. Real. F.E.A.R. F—. Everything. And. Run. F.E.A.R. Face. Everything. And. Recover. Give time time. Give it away to keep it. Forgive to gain forgiveness. We didn’t get here on a winning streak. The choice is yours: Choose wise. There will be pain in your progress. The pain I might feel by remembering can’t be any worse than the pain I feel by knowing and not remembering. Have a good day, unless you planned to have a bad one. I am liked. I am loved. I am free. I am worthy. I am humble. I am happy. I am patient. I am valued. Just for today, I will be vulnerable with someone I trust. Just for today, I will respect my own and others’ boundaries. Just for today, I will act in a way that I would admire in someone else. Just for today, I will take one compliment and hold it in my heart for more than a fleeting second. Just for today, I will try and get a better view of my life. Just for today, I will be brave. Just for today, my recovery will be my world. I am human. I am full. I am new. I am good. I am strong.
If you’ve seen this place once, you’ve seen it forever: a windowless room with beige walls and gray tile and new residents serving meals. Today’s menu is yesterday’s, the day before—Cream of Wheat, poached eggs, and fruit juice in cups the same size they use to test our urine. I grab a tray and find an empty table near a girl who was new when I left. She chatters at a girl who, by her face, is too young for these scars. Maybe they gossip of an expert released one day who stumbled back in the next, of fast friends who won’t be friends outside these walls. Or maybe her story is the story of what happened to me. I pick at my plate, dump most of it, and loaf back to my tiny box. I unpack my bag and square my tenny shoes against the wall and as might my eldest—what will happen to my eldest?—leave my laces loosened just so. I hang the picture of my boys, my beloveds, from Canaan’s first birthday in the corner of the mirror, trace the picture’s scalloped edges, press them flat against the glass. Then I lie on my bunk and listen for rain. Here, when doesn’t it rain? Times it could have been the rain. They slip a note under my door for me to report to the office. There’s no need to fix my face, but I fix my face, and lope down the hall.
The counselor is squaring portraits on the wall of champions. She turns to me and hikes her frames up the slope of her nose. Her hair is wound into a fall-red bun.
Good morning, she says.
Good morning, I say.
Well I called you down to welcome you back. So, welcome back and I mean it, she says. Grace, we come to know there are much worse fates than this.
We do, I say. I do.
She reaches out to me—both hands. You have to leave it, she says. Leave it be and push on. Because it’s this time. Not ever the last time but this time that counts.
Yes, I say. Yes. This time this is it.