The Moment I Met Myself

Hiding wasn't an option

I found myself suspended above my bed, floating and looking down at a movie, a silent observer, witnessing the desperate phone call between my wife and my brother, a physician. Their voices reverberated in my ears as my wife declared that I wasn't moving. The urge to scream inside clawed at me, to announce my presence, but my mouth remained sealed, and my body a vessel. I officially hit rock bottom.

Suddenly, a breakthrough. I managed to move from the bed, leaning on Courtney for support as we staggered toward the car. The hospital ahead, a beacon of hope in the dark.

In the chaotic whirlwind that followed, nurses fired incomprehensible and disorienting questions at me, while my wife's words seemed to morph into an unintelligible hum, like the garbled speech in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

Shuffled from blood labs to a hospital bed, I felt like a puppet in a puppeteer's merciless grip. It was only when they handed me a miraculous pill and started an IV that the numbness began to lift, granting my body the grace of sensation. As the fog cleared, I faced the harsh reality in another moment. Yet another night of reckless indulgence had brought me to a new low.

At that moment, I met myself. One I didn’t like anymore.