To
the Girl at The Methadone Clinic that I know is Struggling….
I
go to a methadone clinic that is five minutes away from my apartment, which is
AWESOME. That wasn’t always the
case. I used to drive 45 minutes to an
hour Every.Single.Day. It was really
rough and the few times that I didn’t make it on time I had the door locked in
my face. Maybe they did it to teach me
about punctuality and personal accountability, but it just made me mad at the
time. How am I off topic already? Ha. Pregnancy brain has me unfocused and it’s
obnoxious.
I
really just wanted to tell a short story.
So, there’s this girl that I see every time I go into the clinic to pick
up my medication. I go every two weeks
and I think that she is there almost every day because I never see her with a
box. (A lockbox is required if you take
medication home with you). Basically, if
you don’t see someone with a box, then they are probably newly sober or getting
over a relapse. This isn’t always the
case but for the majority it is. Most of
the time, my husband comes into the clinic with me and he’ll play with our
toddler in the lobby while I meet with my counselor and wait in line to get my
medication. He got into a conversation
with a girl that had been going to school where he attended and now every time
we see her we say hello.
There is something about addicts that
never goes away: We can spot our own and
we know when someone is high. I guess it’s
due to having to be so self-aware in our addictions? I’m not sure what the reason is for it, but
we can tell if someone is sober. It’s
like, the lamest superpower ever. Anyways,
for the past few months I would see her bouncing around the lobby friendly and
awake. She would have her hair done and
clean clothes and most importantly: she
was awake. I always liked talking to her,
but we never exchanged information or tried to hang out. It might sound hypocritical, but I can’t spend
time with other addicts. I just can’t. I know myself and I don’t want to romanticize
the “good parts” of my past with someone else like me. I know that my husband appreciates it and it’s
what has kept me clean for three years. I
see this girl in the line to get dosed about a month ago and she looks
rough. She was barely awake, in sweatpants
that were half on her body, shuffling against the wall and she had no idea
where she was. It hurt my heart. I waved to her and she looked right at me and
had no idea who I was. I left and saw
her again two weeks later when it was time for me to pick up my meds
again. This time, she was holding her
infant daughter and zipping around the room.
I didn’t know what to say so I just kind of watched what was
happening. It was like she was present
but not there mentally. She took her
daughter into the room to get her medicine (it’s done privately behind a door) and
the nurse must’ve told her that she couldn’t have her daughter there because
she walked out one second later. She
gave her daughter to another patient who looked confused but took the child while
she disappeared into the room again. He
looked really confused and I heard him say, “I don’t know who she is”.
I would’ve happily held her daughter if I
had known that she was going to hand her to someone she didn’t know…...but she
didn’t recognize me that day either. The
little girl looked a little freaked out too.
When she was done in the room, she flew out, grabbed the child and
walked past the other people waiting as she asked for a cigarette from each
one. I saw her hop into a car with a few
other people and I haven’t seen her since.
I don’t really know how I feel about it to be honest. I purposely kept my distance from the
beginning and now that she is struggling, I feel bad. I’m not sure what happened in her life that
led her back to using but I hope that she finds her way again. I am fortunate enough to have overcome my
addiction before I became a mom, but I know that it isn’t like that for
everyone. When I was in rehab years ago,
I knew a lot of women that had children.
They would always talk about wanting to get clean for them and I
understand it now. I couldn’t before and
I honestly didn’t care. I do now. I get to be a mom. I get to be the most trusted and loved person
in this tiny human’s life. I get tiny
kisses and dirty diapers because I stay clean.
It’s the greatest thing in the world to be a mom, it really is. I don’t care if that sounds self righteous
but it’s my reality…..better than a free bag, better than waking up from an
overdose, better than all of those stupid things that I used to kill myself
over.
