I repainted my basement the lightest shade of pink I could find, and I ripped the wood panelling off the wall. I tore up the carpet and moved the couch from one side of the room to the other.
I needed to flip that place on its head, to turn it into something he wouldn’t recognize.
That I wouldn’t recognize.
I had my friends over more often to try and replace the energy that lingered in its darkest corners. I kept the lights on all the time, and put up cheap LED’s. My toy kitchen moved to the storage room with the door shut. I tried my hardest to convince myself that it happened in a different dimension.
The front door; haunted by the sound of his key turning in the lock. The silent kitchen; still echoing from arguments that happened nine years ago.
Empty Budweiser cans on the kitchen table told me that I wouldn’t see dad today, but the clone of him I had created in my head to protect the image of my loving father.
His illness engulfed my entire life.
It sticks to me. It sticks to our house. It rots the wooden back porch. It taints the door frame marked with dates and names, with my father’s sitting above them all.
I spent so many years blaming anything but addiction. I tried blaming the basement, the notches in the door frame, and the ingredients in the bottle. I tried to take the situation and cut him any slack from it that I could, making excuses like ‘it’s just a rough patch’ or that I forgot to pick up my toys, and he was mad.
I feared my 21st birthday and what it would do to me. I feared growing up and letting it get that bad, like he did; like I was sitting in the backseat of a doomed car.
If it was out of his control, if it was written in the stars for him to go down that path, I could find peace in knowing there was nothing more I could have done to help him.
But he isn’t in the backseat, and neither am I.
It doesn’t have to be an ultimatum. Drink and lose control, or stay sober and afraid of who I could’ve become. It doesn’t have to be a tattooed thought in my mind, a constant reminder, or my cautionary tale.
That illness that tore my family apart, that made playing board games impossible with two people, that made Christmas morning so heavy; that is the enemy.
I thought my future was out of my control, like I was genetically predisposed to living an addict’s life. I was scared of Christmas Eve parties, the good wine, and, when I was younger, Sunday mass. I hated when the people around me drank, and New Year’s Eve became a holiday I celebrated alone.
To save myself, I thought that avoiding alcohol might spare me from what I’ve been afraid of, but that just means I’m letting it hold power over me, over my future. That mindset, that the problem is out of my hands, is what will lead me to the life I fear the most; that is the enemy.
After a fresh coat of pink paint and five thrift store lamps, my basement isn’t some scary place that gave a home to my deepest fears, or somewhere I only go to do laundry.
It’s a fresh start.
