“ALL PARTINGS FORESHADOW THE GREAT FINAL ONE.” 
~Charles Dickens

Humble Hello’s My Walking Everyday Hero’s! 

Welcome to Chapter 2 – Part 1 of 

A MINI-SERIES:

ADDICTION, AFFLICTION, AFFECTION

Let’s Begin!

……..

Lost within myself paralyzed by a fear that is unlike any other; it is a fear that has already come to fruition; it is a fear that has been borne from truth, lying within very real sight. My thoughts lay rampant on what has already occurred, not able to move past that what is, the cause and effect, of my pain. My ability to ease my emotions for hours at a maximum, my only reprieve, until, inevitably, a wave of new reminding thoughts come crashing down, bringing tidal waves of emotions,
endlessly persistent on reminding me that there was one person in this world that understood me and my soul; knowing this person was walking the Earth, I didn’t feel alone anymore. 

The utter absence of light in my atmosphere, my soul demands during this complex process, that I unknowingly signed on for when I fell in love with a soul, not a human being form, is repetitive. Closing, my eyes, I let myself fall back into the darkness of the past. 

…..

The safety of the rehabilitation facility… 

The auditorium…

A nonsensical narrative sending shivers through my soul… 

Parting ways as we left the auditorium… 

“Hey…” I called out.. “You’re awesome!” 

He blushed… smiled. 

I smiled before I turned to go back to my room…

……

‘…And, so, began a connection between minds, souls, and, so intertwined not even death could break it…

….

The next morning I woke up feeling nonsensical myself. I had no idea what I was doing here anymore. 

I really didn’t.

I couldn’t begin to imagine my life without the chaos, the turmoil, and the constant fear: no matter how much I loathed it. My brain had been branded so deep with a pattern of ‘thatlife’ being normalcy, that I didn’t see how there could, possibly be, a Mortal Presence that could transform it magically into something other than, what it was already. 

It was the beginning of December in another province… 
What was I really thinking I could accomplish here?! 
The cold was ridiculous. 
The snow was too much.
 I covered my head with my extremely comfortable white blanket, sunk back into the first bed I had slept in, in over a year, squeezed my eyes shut as tight as they would go… 

And hoped I could wish myself all the way home. 

……

A knock at my door woke me up. 

“What?”,  Quite crabbily I snapped. 

“Time for Group therapy Angel!”,  Came a soft voice from behind the closed door. 

“I’m not feeling well. I’m not going.”,  I, not completely, lied back with a whine. 

“You should go to detox.”,  She replied curtly.

“Not now. I’m tired. Laterrrr.”, I knew who was on the other side, I knew she would go away, had it been another CCS, I wouldn’t have gotten away with that. 

She left. 

I went back to sleep. 

This moment right here … 

….was the beginning of my emotional relapse. 

For a few weeks I barely went to programming. I slept. I ate my meals in my room. By myself. I cried. A lot. I threaten to leave. Every day. I spoke with my councillor. Every day. I spoke with the trauma councillor. A lot. I smoked cigarettes. A lot. By myself. Every day. 

I wasn’t particularly consciously wanting dope. I just didn’t want to be around anybody else. I didn’t want to be involved in the whole recovery process. I was in so much emotional  turmoil that I just wanted to hide. Hide from everyone. Hide from the pain. Hide from myself. 

Continuously, I was asked to go to group. I would try to sit for a few moments. I would inevitably leave. I didn’t have any real plan on how this whole situation would end. I just knew that soon it was coming to an end and I was a mess.  

…..

I had decided that I had a very short time left in the program and if I was going to do this, I should do it right. I only had a few weeks left.

 Time to get up and get at ’em, as people say. 

And so I did. 

……

That Thursday I went to the Grieving Ceremony. 

It was absolutely beautiful. 

I healed immensely. 

……

The next week… 

Thursday…. 

2 Days Before Christmas Eve… 

At noon, I woke up feeling good. Better than I had in a very long time. I showered. I ate some breakfast pastries in my room. I drank a Pepsi. Now, I was great. 

I put on some make-up. Just a bit. Not too much at all. I’m in rehab… I had pulled back quite a bit in the last weeks. I put on my favourite high-waist leggings. They have every colour of the rainbow on them, matched with a cropped blue sweater. My new grey mukluks are so soft and furry that I can’t resist putting them on. 

Stand in front of the full-length mirror… 

Yep. 

I think I still got it. 

I think I might even look better like this. 

A little bit more weight on me now. 

My hair is darker… thicker… healthier. 

My skin is so much more… glowy… yea… it was greyish … now it’s alive … rose coloured cheeks… without blush … 

I don’t have any lashes on … just some mascara … and it’s not so bad … 

Some lip gloss… 

And… 
Away we go. 

…… 

I made it to the 2:00 afternoon activity. They had begun already. 

Fashionably late, as always, the councillor threw me into a group last minute. 

It was a friend of mine … 

And… 

Him.

…….

Activity: Building Gingerbread Christmas House Competition 

I hadn’t done this since my kids were young….

And I hadn’t been particularly good at it then either. 

We sat the three of us. I remember He didn’t have his hat on that day. He sat down first. She, the third party, sat down next, directly beside Him. Leaving me to sit down next to her. 

At this point, I have not even thought about Him twice, to be honest. 

At this point, I have not even considered men in awhile, to be honest. 

And, so, the building of Gingerbread houses began. 

…..

Our team was not very good at this endeavour. I didn’t care personally. She cared too much. He tried his best. 

I found that endearing. 

He wanted it to be good. 

In the end, we lost the competition. 

She got pissed off. 

We both found it funny. 

He still wanted to make it look good. 

He asked the winning team to come over to make our Gingerbread house look as good as it could. 

I found that touching. 

She left. 

Him and I sat at our fabulously dilapidated Gingerbread house… trying to make it look better, but slowly making it look worse…. joking it was the trap house of the Gingerbread Competition…
I don’t know how… 
but, it went from a normal conversation… 
to one that never ended. 

……

We began with me being shocked that someone else would sit, on a routine basis, by themselves, having random conversations about deep life experiences. 

This tumbled casually into how we both secured our homes,

“HOME ALONE” style. 

Eventually, we were outside having a “dart”. 

I definitely made a note of Him calling a cigarette that. 

The conversation never stopped.

 The words never slowed. 

I never got bored of what He was saying. He, seemingly, never got bored of me. Topics from movies, to our childhood, to maybe Eminem is really dead, to what made us laugh when we were 7 years old, to our favourite songs when we went to our high school dances… the list is literally endless.

People came up all evening. They sat. They chatted. They left. 

They came back. They sat. They chatted. They left again. 

We remained the same. 

 A CCS came to tell us it was time for meds… 

Looking up at the clock, I was in disbelief… 

11:00 pm already. 

Much later than I usually go to bed. 

We said good night and headed our separate ways. 

As I headed to get my meds, my whole body was abuzz with excitement.  

Euphoric Energy. 

Concise Connection. 

There was someone else like me in this world. 

There was another person who was… just… like… me. 

I felt truly alive for the first time. 

…….

It was after group therapy I was out having a conversation with some people, smoking, I nervously wondered what might happen when I ran into Him. 

 I saw His black hat turning toward the door to come outside. 

I flicked my cigarette into the ashtray. 

He came out with His buddy. 

“Hey”, He grabbed my attention as I turned, “Hey”.

I turned back to Him.
“Hey”, I said back with a smile.

Leaving Him with His friend. 

…..

After  dinner, He asked me to have a ‘dart’. 

Our conversation began again. 

Tonight, His friend sat with us and the three of us talked, and, laughed, and had a great time. 

Occasionally, His friend would go off to do his own thing… always surprised when he returned to find the two of us continuing on together. 

It was natural. 

It was easy. 

It was bonding on a real life level. 

My soul was connecting to His. 

We weren’t high. 

We weren’t trauma bonding. 

He was truly a nice guy. 

I truly enjoyed being around Him. 

Time was non existent when I was with Him. 

Knowing I needed to focus on my recovery, I put out every flame that lit inside of me. 

Remaining friends was what was best. 

Truly. 

Being friends… it was natural. 

……

As we parted ways to go to our rooms for the night, He asked me if he could read my poetry. My heart fluttered. Then, did a backflip. 

I gave Him everything I had written since I got to the facility. 

Falling asleep that night, my thoughts naturally found peace in comfort that I had found a connection with someone who understood me. 

….. 

Standing nervously waiting to get my meds the next morning, I saw Him coming towards me… quickly. 

He loved the poetry. 

He couldn’t stop talking about how much He loved the poetry. 

It was actually overwhelming how much He loved the poetry. 

I was grateful when I was whisked away to go get my meds.

However, on the walk there…

He was all I could think about. 

My mind sending off electrical short circuit shockwaves due to how many thoughts were running rampant from all the fantastical things He said about my poetry. 

He connected to my words. 

He connected to me. 

….. 

Sitting at lunch, I didn’t see Him. 

Having a cigarette, I didn’t see Him. 

Then, I heard it. 

“Yeah… He just got kicked out.”, a random girl said. 

“Who?”, came half a dozen voices. 

“Both of them, I think.”, was the reply. 

……

Inside, I wandered around kind of numb. Not even sure what I was looking for. 

Then I saw exactly what I was looking for …. 

Him. 

…..

He smiled as He walked towards me. 

My stomach unknotted with anxiety and re-knotted with nerves. 

I loved His walk. 

“Dart?”, He casually said handing me a cigarette as He pushed open the door for me. 

I followed His direction ending up in the warm sun of the cold December afternoon, as He changed His mind to go get a drink without saying a word. 

He was such an oxymoron. He was a gentleman who was so oblivious to what was happening around Him. I found it captivating. 

I couldn’t help myself, but to laugh out loud. 

Back in less than a minute, He truly had no idea what He had done that could possibly be making me laugh.   

“What?”, He asked as innocent as a child, an embarrassed smile on His red lips. 

Again, I had to laugh out loud. 

He laughed too. 

Our eyes locked. 

We stopped laughing for one second. 

Then… we broke into hysterics. 

He had my heart. 

There was no stopping it. 

I couldn’t help it. 

He wasn’t trying to take it. 

I wasn’t trying to give it away. 

It just was what it was. 

I lied to myself that I didn’t feel anything. 

I laughed with Him. 

……

We became close. Fast.

We were best friends. 

I could tell Him anything. 

He could tell me anything. 

And we did. 

We shared parts of our lives that we hadn’t shared with anyone else. 

We bared our souls to one another. 

And the other… saw it for what it was… and thought it was beautiful. 

…… 

Everything was going well. 

We were great friends. 

We went through some shit. 

We made it through that shit. 

We believed in our friendship. 

We believed in our connection.

……

Christmas in the facility was the worst. 

They did literally absolutely nothing to make it Christmas. 

One of the best rehabilitation facilities and the only Christmas celebration festivities we had: 

    – the Gingerbread Christmas 
              Contest. 

Having no family who support me in my recovery, I was feeling down. The next week went by fast though laughing with Him about how stupid it was that the Super Bowl was a bigger deal to the rehabilitation facility than Christmas. 

New Years Eve. 

I wasn’t particularly excited. 

He made it the best New Years I’ve ever had. (Besides the ones with just me and my kids at my house when they were young!) 

He was just in the most uppity mood I’ve ever seen Him. 

Him and his friend put on party hats. 

He gave me a necklace. 

They were all in for this New Years Eve. 

It made me feel so good. 

The three of us talked and laughed all night. 

We found the BEST spot to watch the fireworks. 

In the pool area inside. 

It’s warm. 

In direct line with the fireworks outside. 

And it was just the three of us. 

We turned out the lights. 

He sat in the middle. 

We watched as the facility made up for Christmas with an incredible array of fireworks. 

It was spectacular. 

I brought in 2023 with Him. 

Sober. 

Happy. 

I’ll always remember that. 

I’ll always have that. 

….. 

“I have died everyday waiting for you…
And all along I believed I would find you…
Time has brought your heart to me…”
~ Christina Perri

To Be Continued… 

Always Got Your Back 

Angel Warrior 1Thousand