I ran across this photo yesterday, and it made me very sad.
It was taken a couple of years ago up in Tennessee. I was living on a dead-end street in a town I hated, with my loving cat Piper.
That blue cup was my drinking cup. It was full of vodka and water.
It amazes me now that I was able to drink as much as I did and stay alive.
Piper was beside me, safe on her porch with me. I had brought her there from Idaho.
Eventually she got old and sick, and I had to have her put down. It broke my heart. She cried out one last goodbye meow as the vet gave her the injection, and I buried her in the flower bed beside that porch.
A couple of weeks later, one night, I woke to what sounded like her cry.
I took it as our last contact.
After Piper died, I pretty much gave up on life. I drank myself into oblivion night after night.
I still don’t know exactly how Shelby found out how bad things had gotten. Maybe my neighbor Daniel called her down in Pensacola. Whatever happened, Shelby rescued me.
She moved me down to Florida and took me into her home.
A lot of shit has gone down since then.
And now here I am in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Alive. Healthy. Sober.
And trying very hard not to let my past beat me up badly enough that I fall back into depression.
Seeing this picture of the drunk me, sitting in the sunshine with my baby Piper, reminded me of where I’ve been.
I really don’t like everything about where I am now. I’m lonely. My mobility still sucks. There are days when life feels much smaller than I want it to be.
But I’m also strong.
I’m determined.
And I’m still here.
I will become a new man.
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