Thank you for the kind words about my last column on alcoholism. A
few of you were assholes, but Ive been an asshole enough times to
deserve it. Ive been sober for roughly a month now, and the seismograph
of my detox-induced ups and downs has started to balance out, leaving me
with appreciation for Kurt Vonneguts words.
After all that talk
about death and addiction, I decided I would write about something
cheery this week, mainly Hurricane Marilyn, the 95 storm that destroyed
my home and left 11,000 peopleincluding my familyhomeless on the island
of St. Thomas. I was seven years old, so my memories of the storm are
fragments clouded by childhood trauma.Full service promotional company
specializing in Custom USB flash drives.
My
family had survived Hugo of 89 and several smaller storms. Back thenat
least in my mindtropical storms and minor hurricanes were an excuse to
miss school. We reacted to hurricanes the way many New Yorkers reacted
to Irene in 2011. In other words, we were not prepared for Marilyn.
I
dont remember the hours of the evolution of the storm, but my mind is
rattled with memories of the worst. We spent the day boarding our
two-story house with hurricane shutters. Thankfully, we chose to spend
the night of the storm downstairs, while the storm blew off our
neighbors roof and slammed it into the first floor of our house, causing
the deck and rooms to crumble, burying my family in so much rubble that
the next day a neighbor had to hack my family out with an axe and pull
us out through a hole.
Hurricane Irene made me realize Hurricane
Marilyn traumatized me, leaving me with a time bomb ready to
(literally) projectile vomit repressed memories. When Irene crept upon
the city in August 2011, I was working at MTV Networks. Most of my
friends and coworkers didnt take the approaching storm seriously, but I
was in a panic, drafting and then deleting crazed emails to friends
warning them of the possible destruction. Hurricane Irene would only
inflict minimal damage on New York City, but I was picturing Cloverfield
type shit in my head.
On the Thursday before Irene hit, my boss
took my team out for drinks. Since this was before I became sober, I
tried to drown my nervousness with bottles of wine. Afterwards, I
stumbled into a cab and collapsed into my apartment, waking up at 5:30
AM still wasted, experiencing horrible cramps in my lower abdomen.
Because I turn into a fucking nutcase when I drink and use drugsgetting
sober was the best thing Ive ever done for my countryI became convinced I
had an UTI, freaked the fuck out,Shop huge inventory of Car Phone holder Charger, and got back in a cab to go to an emergency clinic.
I
had been to this emergency clinic before; I liked it, because every
time I left with a prescription for Xanax or some other opiate. Your
pink eye looks uncomfortable? Heres a morphine drip. I peed in the
fucking cup. I didnt have a UTI or anything else, but the doctor agreed
the cramping sounded painful, so he sent me on my way with a nice big
bottle of Percocet.
Of course, I popped two (as directed) immediately,Winbo ear caps and
by the time I got to work, the Percocet introduced itself to my stomach
full of wine, causing me to projectile vomit. Because its pretty hard
to work while recreating scenes from The Exorcist in a handicap
bathroom, I told my boss I had to go home, which I felt super bad about.
It was a really important day, and she needed me.
I had thrown
up before during Hurricane Marilyn, but this was when I was seven years
old, and drugs and alcohol were not the cause. Rather, it was the sounds
of my childhood home crumpling on top of my family as we huddled in a
closet that made me vomit. We listened to a radio that played
interrupted calls of farmers whose goats had allegedly been swirled up
and blown away by tornadoes. At one point, urged by Marilyns winds, my
familys SUV attempted to smash through a door and join us in the closet.
I had visions of my father darting out of the little closet we were
hiding in, trying to form some blockade to prevent the SUV from tearing
through the room, and I was worried about my kitty, Rosa, a wild island
cat, who had long since disappeared into the jungle to find her own
protection. She survived. Animals are smart about this shit.
The
freakiest part about a hurricane isnt the noise of the storm: winds so
loud you cant hear yourself cry, bangs and booms of destruction that may
be a landslide or your parents bed being ripped out by a small tornado.
It is the bone-chilling silence of the eye of the storm, a brief
intermission before the various sounds of death resume.
Compared
to victims of natural disasters in Haiti or New Orleans, Hurricane
Marilyn was just an annoying summer drizzle ruining my hair in New York
City. We lost a lot, but we survived, and as mentioned in my previous
column, thanks to Eddie, we found a new home. Months after Marilyn, my
father found my mothers favorite belt made of concha shells on a tree by
our old house, dangling like a snake.
After losing most of your
material wealth you learn how unimportant things like accessories are,
but every now and then little tangible presents from the universe work
miracles. The other day at work, I received some rather personally
unsettling news and was unable to breathe. To gather myself, I stepped
outside and took a walk. Old coping mechanisms entered my brain; I
thought about chomping pills or having wine for lunch. Then I noticed a
little gold peace bracelet on the ground. It was just a cheap bracelet
that likely slipped off someones wrist, but it made me smile, so I
picked it up and put it on. I walked some more and the thoughts about
chemicals began to slip away. I didnt stop in a bar, but went back into
the office and kicked some ass, thinking to myself, If this isnt nice,
then I dont know what is
Read the full products at http://www.winbogifts.com/products/usb-flash-drive.html.
没有评论:
发表评论