The catalyst

The catalyst 

I should have known better than to drive so recklessly in the rain. It started with a light trickle, going 40 down a backroad I’ve driven hundreds of times previously. Then a trickle of rain became a downpour, and 40 became 80 on the dash. It was a hard day mentally for me, harder than most. I was angry, so angry all the time. My therapist says it from unresolved trauma but I never really took that to heart. Pushing that aside and blaming something else for why I couldn't just be at peace. Always moving on to what’s next. I was filled with so many thoughts pushing through my mind that I didn't realize how fast I was going. The world moved past me so quickly spinning until I felt that weightlessness in my whole body, a weightlessness. The feeling so foreign that in that moment I relished it. A moment was all I needed though, it was blissful. Even now, as I slip in and out of consciousness, blurry faces come and go just as blue and white lights grow dimmer and dimmer. I can't feel when they left me on the gurney, I can't feel when I’m put in the back of the ambulance. I can’t feel anything at all. No sound. Nothing. No longer angry, scared, or in pain. Worry does not consume me about any of it. All that consumes me is wave after wave of tiredness, an exhaustion I can’t ignore anymore so I let it take over. 

I wake slowly, opening one eye at a time. I see the popcorn ceiling first, then turn my head and see my old yet familiar dresser that was at my parents house long ago. I sit up, looking around to a room that no longer exists. It looks the day it did when I left so many years ago, the blinds open letting in the afternoon sun, my dresser covered in items long forgotten and clothes scattered amongst the floor. One foot after the other I step out of the bed, and head out of my old room. I hear it before I see it, Mother yelling and my own voice raised as well. I pass by my brother's room, he’s a young boy again playing with his Legos, listening to his favorite station on his favorite old school radio. I want to turn it up a bit more to drown out the yelling going on in the other room, I don't want him to hear this but, I can’t. Stepping around the corner in the kitchen I now see Mother standing leaning on the counter and I am across the kitchen, were both arguing and I instantly remember this day. I feel my chest tighten, my breathing quickening and all I want to do now is stop this before it continues to what I know will be the outcome, but there is nothing i can do, this is a memory I realise. This was years ago, the catalyst in my life per say and I hate it. I hate that this was the moment, the reason I am who I am now, the experiences that I’ve had since are because this day happened. “You won’t leave, you wouldn’t, couldn’t, where would you go anyways?” my mother says to me and even now that triggers me. I respond knowing this all so clearly. “Oh yea? Watch me. I wont come back. You have lost me” I say and my own tears threaten to fall. I see myself leave the room knowing that she, I, will now call her friend and ask her to pick her up while she packs her bag. Taking all of ten minutes. I stay with my mother this time wanting to see a different version of this story I’ve replayed in my head for so long. She puts her head down and shakes her head, seeming to go back to what she was doing before this argument happened. Like nothing happened, she really doesn’t believe in this moment I will do anything. Not long passes when I see my old friends pull up and dad walks in the house asking who is here, I respond it’s my friend and i’m leaving. Mom drops what she is doing and leaves the kitchen, I follow her watching her watch me load the car with my bag and peel off out of the driveway. “Oh my god, she actually did it. She left. I didn't think she would actually leave. I thought it was another fight like the rest we have had in the past” my mother says with tears in her eyes and dad looks at her confused. “What do you mean?” he says, walking to her. “We had an argument like the ones before and she threatened to leave and not come back, I didn’t believe her and she said “watch me, I won’t come back” she dropped to her knees, tears now flowing from her eyes. “I did this, I lost my baby girl, this is my fault. She won’t come back, I know she won’t. I know she was angry, and upset. I tried to help. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know why I challenged her like that. Why did I say that, I know her better than to do that. She’s gone, she’s gone. My baby girl.” I watch my father drop to his knees to hold her. Not saying anything because he too knows she won't come back, and they were right. I never did. They broke me just as much as I broke them. Really though, I broke myself. I chose this. I chose to leave, I chose those words. I broke me more than they ever could, at the expense of what I thought was a decision best fit for me. How naive I was. I don’t regret the life I had after this day, I grew up for sure and I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t gone but, this day haunted me. There was always a crack in my heart from this a piece of it I could never fix, no matter how much I tried to forget or reason or blame, no matter the amount of therapy sessions. Nothing would make that ache go away. I thought I was doing what was right for me, and in a sense I was but at what cost? I see what I did to my family. My mother, the woman who gave up and risked so much for the betterment of MY life, is now broken on the floor. A piece of her cracked matching my own. I was always so stuck in my own world, hellbent on what I was feeling, how I felt that I never took into consideration what that did to those I love around me. I kneel down, dad gone to check on the kids and I face her putting my hands on her face then around her neck. “I’m sorry mamma, I’m so so sorry. I was just so angry with you, myself, the world and I took it out on you. I thought I was doing the right thing.” In a way I was but, I see now that what I thought was true was altered by my emotions. She was exhausted too. She was struggling and I refused to see. All those late nights she couldn’t sleep, constant headaches, the medications she always took, days where she couldn’t get out of bed no matter how much she knew she should. Random days of happiness, then days where everything was a trigger. Compulsive shopping sprees to make herself feel better. Agreeing to plans when she was social that day then canceling when the day came because her mind told her no, not today. I didn’t understand then, making her out to be lazy, and selfish in my mind then. Not understanding that she was just as frustrated with herself as I was with her and I did nothing to help. I get it now, selfishly I understand now, having gone through the mental turmoil she went through. I hate that it took me going through what she's feeling to see her side of things. I was angry for so long, for so many reasons. For what? Things in my past I couldn’t control or understand. For things that I caused myself? “You were hurting, you were trying and no one was helping you. No one looked out for you.. I left you, when you never left me. No matter how hard things got. Not when it was just you and me alone in the world. Before dad, before the kids. Before you could afford this nice house and the food we eat every night. Before, when we had so little and you made it seem like everything was alright, because you wanted better for me. When you gave me everything and left yourself with nothing, just so I wouldn’t know that you had to choose between the light bill and food that week, or when you chose to get me a new pair of shoes for school, instead of putting gas in your car. You made sure that I didn't worry about something kids should never have to worry about. I see you.” I kiss her forehead, knowing she can’t hear me or feel that I'm holding her. I look up and see that my vision is blurry, this memory fading out. I scream out not wanting this to go away. I want to hold my mom a little bit longer because I know I won’t be able to see her when this goes away but the memory continues to fade until it’s completely gone. 

I wake again slowly, one eye opening at a time as I did before. This time the lights are above me, bright and blinding. My body hurts and there is a slight beeping in the background, steady and rhythmic. I feel a tear slide down my face remembering the memory still. I know I’m not in a memory again because there I didn’t feel the fabric touching my body or feel every muscle ache. I turn my head and see the beeping coming from a machine and I'm laying in a hospital bed. Flowers and cards sit on the table by the window that's letting in the morning sun. I turn to my left, towards the door and in the corner of my eye I see a figure sitting curled up in the chair next to me. It was my mother. The last person I would expect to be here. “Mom” I say hearing how scratchy my voice sounds, barely able to get just those words out. She snaps her head up looking right at me. Tears fill her eyes and she presses the call button. “Your’e awake! You have been asleep for so long. They told me, they didn’t know if you would.” She holds my hand just looking at me. The nurses rush in and start swarming me. I just look at my mom, tears filling my vision. “I’m so-I’m sorry momma, fo- for leaving you” I try to get out between my voice feeling scratchy and my throat clogging up from trying to hold back my tears, failing masterfully at it. I see her try to reach out through the doctors and nurses now surrounding me, she manages to get a hold of my hand. “It’s okay baby, It’s okay. I’m here now, you're okay.” I just look at her, holding on to her hand and I feel the heaviness in my chest that never left me, slowly slip away. That part of me behind a door now closed and vanished.