This last week has been kind of a lull for me.
First off, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for getting a full-time job. I know a lot of people that have worked there one time or another, and they have all told me the same thing: you would be perfect for this job.
The place is called Piney Ridge, and it is, in the words of the woman who hired me: a locked facility designed to restructure the social behavior of juveniles who have been charged with a sexual offense. I know it sounds like we are brainwashing kids into the "proper" way of thinking, and the fact that all the residents are referred to as "patients" is a little irksome too, but rest assured the children there are not being tucked away out of view from society. Rather, society has been tucked away from them.
One of the things that solidifies my decision to accept this job is the fact it will carry a responsibility to others that outweighs what seems like my own monumental problems.
Which brings me to my next point. Last Sunday, I went out with some friends as usual. I drank a lot, as usual. But something very unusual happened. I fell, hit my head, and woke up in the hospital with four stitches holding a chunk of my scalp together.
I know what you're thinking. "Nice!"
That was my thought too, for a very brief moment. I don't remember the ride home. As I walked into the door, my sister had seen that I was hurt. She probably noticed in terror the purple wristband with some medical information printed on the outside. She probably saw my shirt collar, the blood diluted by rain. That feeling of "nice" dissipated very quickly. I suddenly realized how badly my head hurt. It had never occurred to me to look at my hands. They were stained in red. It must have looked like I'd just been shot.
Today, I'm completely without the concept of time as the chain of events unfolded that evening. At some point, my mother had come over. Soon after, my father was there. And there I sat on the couch in my living room, drunk, covered in blood, soaking up the streams of concern pouring from my family's mouths.
My sister was quiet. Her only offerings were brief defenses when my mother had made a generalization that was too broad. Mom, of course, was quick to develop a psychoanalysis of the past two years of my life. I wondered if in some sick way, she wanted to see me cry. I saw where her questions were leading, and she finally busted out the big one. The bazooka of inducing pity. So there, I wailed about my one lost love, how I'd done everything for her and fell short. I engaged in a stretch of self deprecating babble until my father stepped in. His angle, as it always, was logic. Fortunately, he knows that I am enough like him that I will respond to it. I felt much better once I realized that everyone was there for me. In a sick way, I lapped up the spotlight. Of course, I was still drunk, so I had to resist the urge to make jokes or entertain. We had all basically arrived to the fact that I had a drinking problem and that only a serious attitude adjustment could help.
As I said, I have no concept of time from that evening, but at some point the sun asserted itself as a cue to disperse and my intervention concluded.
After my father left, I sauntered into my mom's car and she took me to her house to get rest. The early morning light screwed into me like a bad smell. I felt slow. In fact, I pretty much sauntered everywhere for the rest of the day. The realness of my injury hadn't quite set in until I went to the bathroom, and almost fainted while standing over the toilet. My mother said it looked like I'd just seen a ghost. Later that day, I went into what my mom calls "the computer room" and saw the ghost she referred to. The computer room is actually a shrine to all things related to her children's past. Pictures of us as children were everywhere. I sunk back into an age of innocence. Even the screensaver on her computer put on a slideshow of when I was thin, healthy and in school.
"Where the hell did you go?" I asked myself.
So now, I'm coming back to the heart of it. I think there's a song that goes like that.
First off, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for getting a full-time job. I know a lot of people that have worked there one time or another, and they have all told me the same thing: you would be perfect for this job.
The place is called Piney Ridge, and it is, in the words of the woman who hired me: a locked facility designed to restructure the social behavior of juveniles who have been charged with a sexual offense. I know it sounds like we are brainwashing kids into the "proper" way of thinking, and the fact that all the residents are referred to as "patients" is a little irksome too, but rest assured the children there are not being tucked away out of view from society. Rather, society has been tucked away from them.
One of the things that solidifies my decision to accept this job is the fact it will carry a responsibility to others that outweighs what seems like my own monumental problems.
Which brings me to my next point. Last Sunday, I went out with some friends as usual. I drank a lot, as usual. But something very unusual happened. I fell, hit my head, and woke up in the hospital with four stitches holding a chunk of my scalp together.
I know what you're thinking. "Nice!"
That was my thought too, for a very brief moment. I don't remember the ride home. As I walked into the door, my sister had seen that I was hurt. She probably noticed in terror the purple wristband with some medical information printed on the outside. She probably saw my shirt collar, the blood diluted by rain. That feeling of "nice" dissipated very quickly. I suddenly realized how badly my head hurt. It had never occurred to me to look at my hands. They were stained in red. It must have looked like I'd just been shot.
Today, I'm completely without the concept of time as the chain of events unfolded that evening. At some point, my mother had come over. Soon after, my father was there. And there I sat on the couch in my living room, drunk, covered in blood, soaking up the streams of concern pouring from my family's mouths.
My sister was quiet. Her only offerings were brief defenses when my mother had made a generalization that was too broad. Mom, of course, was quick to develop a psychoanalysis of the past two years of my life. I wondered if in some sick way, she wanted to see me cry. I saw where her questions were leading, and she finally busted out the big one. The bazooka of inducing pity. So there, I wailed about my one lost love, how I'd done everything for her and fell short. I engaged in a stretch of self deprecating babble until my father stepped in. His angle, as it always, was logic. Fortunately, he knows that I am enough like him that I will respond to it. I felt much better once I realized that everyone was there for me. In a sick way, I lapped up the spotlight. Of course, I was still drunk, so I had to resist the urge to make jokes or entertain. We had all basically arrived to the fact that I had a drinking problem and that only a serious attitude adjustment could help.
As I said, I have no concept of time from that evening, but at some point the sun asserted itself as a cue to disperse and my intervention concluded.
After my father left, I sauntered into my mom's car and she took me to her house to get rest. The early morning light screwed into me like a bad smell. I felt slow. In fact, I pretty much sauntered everywhere for the rest of the day. The realness of my injury hadn't quite set in until I went to the bathroom, and almost fainted while standing over the toilet. My mother said it looked like I'd just seen a ghost. Later that day, I went into what my mom calls "the computer room" and saw the ghost she referred to. The computer room is actually a shrine to all things related to her children's past. Pictures of us as children were everywhere. I sunk back into an age of innocence. Even the screensaver on her computer put on a slideshow of when I was thin, healthy and in school.
"Where the hell did you go?" I asked myself.
So now, I'm coming back to the heart of it. I think there's a song that goes like that.
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