Whiskey and Cigarettes

Tuesday, September 6, 2010

When I was younger, I never thought anything bad would happen while I was alive. There would be no wars, no one close to me would die, not even my pets would die. I think it stemmed from the fact that my mom tried extremely hard to shelter me as a kid.

I never knew my family was the laughing stock of the town because my father drank too much and was in jail all the time and in the papers for his indecencies every other day. I never knew my father ever went to jail period. I never knew my mother worked her ass off to support two kids on her own. I never knew there were selfish people who took advantage of others to get ahead. I never knew there were people who took advantage of others for pleasure. I never knew a person could be sick without having a runny nose or a tummy ache.

When I was ten, my mother divorced my father and explained to me the severity of my father's alcoholic addiction. I was probably still too young to understand, but it was the day I grew up. I had to be the rock for my mother while she was at work and take care of the home, to take care of my younger brother, Hayden.

I was his mother. Whenever he needed money, he came to me. Whenever he was in trouble, he came to me.

It was easier for him, because I was understanding, whereas our actual mother had her own illness she was dealing with that sometimes became out of control. She suffered from manic depression, and the medicines she took didn't always work. So Hayden came to me for everything, and if it was something that our mother had to be involved with, I would talk to her, because I wasn't scared of her like he was.

And that's why the day Hayden killed himself, he came to me. I knew he had been upset, and it was going on the third week. I had made him an appointment with a Therapist a few days prior to the incident for the next week, because I was starting to wonder if he had depression out of the fact that it ran in the family. I had even suffered from a mild case known as Situational Depression, that lasted six months the first time I had it.

When I looked at Hayden, I saw this happy boy who was making the right choices for his life. I watched him grow up, refusing to be pushed down from all the stresses of everyday life. But I did see in him the anger that also grew inside me, that controlled a lot of my actions and sometimes came out of nowhere.

I guess I just pretended it wasn't that bad. I thought he'd live out a happy life and never feel the way I did. I guess I just didn't understand the toll the events of our lives took on him.

Truth is, even though I was the one taking care of Hayden, he was the one who was protecting me. I only felt safe around him. He didn't know how much I leaned on him, though. I never told him.

"Okay, Bay," the doctor walked back into the room, taking a seat at her desk. She was a psychiatrist. I had made an appointment with her shortly telling everyone about Hayden. I ran my fingers over the tattoo under the crease of my elbow as I waited for her to continue. It was a bird that I had gotten with Hayden when he turned eighteen. He had a matching one on the back of his left shoulder. "I just got off the phone with your old psychiatrist, and we've decided we're going to put you on Prozac. She said that when you were seeing her before that you were also seeing a therapist, and it worked out really well for you. So I strongly suggest that you see one here, too."

I nodded, taking the prescription out of her hand. "I will as soon as I find one."

"Good. I'll see you in two weeks to check up on you."

I nodded and walked out of her office. I made an appointment with her secretary before I left the building. I made my way to a tattoo shop that I heard Ben and James talking about once. I waited an hour for an artist to be available to get "Rip Hayden 1992-2010" around my bird before going home.