Watch Over Me(2)

Just as I've been doing for the past six weeks, I pick up my purse from the floor and walk out of the room with my head down, not speaking to anyone.

I'm not going to lie. When Dr. Thompson handed me the piece of paper with support group locations on it months ago, I crumbled it up and tossed it into my backseat as soon as I got in my car. After ten months of talking ad nauseam about why I'm not happy with my life, I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a hopeless case and is just trying to pawn me off on someone else without making it too obvious. She's certain I've gotten over my "hump" and am no longer a threat to myself. Now, she wants me to lean on others for help with my father.

This is the sixth Al-Anon meeting I've been to in six weeks. I honestly can't tell you why I keep coming back. It doesn't "work if I work it" because I don't care to work it. I never share my story, I never make comments about anyone else's hardships, and I never make friends with any of the people I spend an hour with each week as they pour their hearts out to a room full of virtual strangers.

Except they aren't really strangers. They all know one another, share with each other, and lean on each other for support. I am the stranger in their midst. I am the weird girl who always sits just outside of the circle and chooses to "pass" when the conversation makes its way to her each week. I don't feel comfortable talking to people I know about my alcoholic father and how he's been in and out of rehab more times than I can count in the past year and a half, let alone talking to people who know nothing about me. I used to have no trouble talking to people, no matter who they were, about my problems. But that was a long time ago, and my problems usually consisted of what outfit to wear to school the next day or whether or not the boy I liked would ask me out. Things have changed a lot since then. I've put up walls and I've locked away all of my feelings because I've been crippled by the pain of being so alone, and I'm mistrustful of everyone around me. The people closest to me let me down and left me to fend for myself. How can I possibly trust anyone with my story and my feelings when I know that in the end, they'll just turn their back on me? They always do.

I make my way down to the first floor of Metro Hospital and out the front doors into the crisp night air, taking a few deep breaths as I walk to my car in the parking lot. Every week it's the same thing. I feel panic bubbling up in my throat as I listen to everyone's discussions, and I nervously tap my foot on the floor, counting down the minutes on the clock hanging on the wall until it's time to leave.

I still have no idea what forces me to return each week; no clue what possesses me to get in my car at 7:45pm every Tuesday night and drive the couple of blocks to the hospital and go up to the fifteenth floor to the meeting room. I'm not getting anything out of these meetings. I haven't learned how to "let go and let God" or "fake it till you make it" or any of those other crap slogans they stole from Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have a father who shut himself off from life the day my mother died and chose to console himself at the bottom of a bottle of vodka on a daily basis. I was dealing with the loss of my best friend while making sure my father didn't choke on his own vomit or die from alcohol poisoning. I was a senior in high school with my whole life ahead of me, and I had to check my father into his first stint in rehab a month after the funeral, take on the role of administrator for my mother's estate, and learn how to run a business—all in one day. I was suddenly the parent instead of the child. Up until that point, I was in the National Honor Society and slated for Valedictorian. After we buried her, I was lucky I even graduated.

All of the grief and heartache and responsibilities turned me into a person I barely recognized. One day my mother was here, doling out advice and helping me through life, and the next day she was gone. No warning, no heads up—just gone. Her life was snuffed out like the flame on a birthday candle, without the wish. There was only darkness. The woman who kept our small family together and our lives running smoothly had suddenly disappeared, and I was left floundering on my own.

I pull out of the busy hospital parking lot, swearing to myself for the hundredth time that I won't go to next week's meeting. I make my way across town and pull around back of Snow's Sugary Sweets—my mother's dream and my nightmare all rolled into one.

For years my mother made the desserts for every single wedding, graduation, baby shower, and family get-together. If she wasn't at work or out shopping, her second favorite pastime, she was in the kitchen baking. The house always smelled like butter and sugar and the oven was rarely off. Every time she showed up at an event with a tray full of goodies, people would tell her that she should just quit her job and open a bakery.