Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be. -Clementine Paddleford
Dear Wishbone,
Dear Backbone,
Dear me,
Wishbone, you showed up first. You whispered in my five year old ear about fitting in and making friends and helped me put my sweet soul in the way back so I could do what I needed to do to make those little girl wishes a reality.
You didn’t have to convince me, I wanted to be loved in the way I saw other people being loved: effortlessly. I willingly pushed my self out of the way and learned how to twist and turn into the shapes that might be recognizable as valuable material. Together we imagined a world where I was welcome and wanted. Together we wished for people to make room for me when I walked up, for the empty seat in the lunchroom to be saved just for me, for my name to ring out first when it came time to pick teams for kickball. You stood behind me, at my left shoulder, whispering wishes, and I believed you could make them come true.
What else could I do but believe you? Why would I not? You told me what I wanted to hear. It felt like you knew me, really knew me. It felt like you were my friend, maybe even my best friend- because you knew what was down deep in my heart- I wanted it to be easy to love me. I trusted you. I trusted you so much that I let you move my own self out of the way and take my place. My voice replaced with your voice. I didn’t know that your whispers were talking over my words, I couldn’t hear me trying to tell me the story that was actually mine.
Wishbone, I have to hand it to you- you were persistent. You stuck to me like glue, telling me what you thought I wanted day after day after month after year after year after year. Our wishing finally wrapped my fourteen year old fingers around a two-liter of Sun Country wine cooler and after I drank it all down I couldn’t hear you anymore. I forgot to listen for your voice, forgot to recite my lines, I forgot I was even a person. I didn’t remember I existed. I became… effortless.
Suddenly it changed and I knew. I knew I didn’t need to make that fitting in love wish come true.
And so I wrapped my hands and my lips around more bottles, more bottles, more bottles- guzzling something new now. A different wish: to forget who I was. To drink enough to make your fitting in easy to love wishes talk stop. Your whispered wishes buzzing gnats, me swatting them away, I don’t need you anymore! Leave me alone. I am finished with you! I don’t want those kind of wishes.
My wish now is forget.
I banished you.
I can do it by myself.
I don’t need you.
I don’t have to wish for anything, anymore.
But you didn’t leave me. You knew to wait.
And I…I started wanting you wishing for me again. Every morning that I woke up hungover, unable to remember the night before, I started wishing I could stop drinking. I called for you, please come back to help me. I need you, Wishbone. I have this wish, I can’t do it alone.
You came back. Took up your post behind me, whispering in my left ear. The words I wish I could quit drinking became our fervent daily prayer. I graduated from high school, went to college. I turned twenty. Then twenty-one. Dropped out of college. Waited tables, made it my career. Turned thirty. I wished for more things: A way out of the life I’d made. Someone to save me.
I wish I could quit drinking
I wish I could quit drinking
I wish I could quit drinking
Then I got pregnant. Didn’t drink. Got married. Had a baby. Kept drinking. Got pregnant. Didn’t drink. Had a baby. Kept drinking.
I breast fed both of my babies when I was drunk.
I mothered my little ones hungover.
IwishIcouldquitdrinkingIwishIcouldquitdrinkingIwishIcouldquitdrinkingIwishIcouldquitdrinkingIwishIcouldquitdrinking
I turned forty. Turned forty one.
I wish I could quit
I wish I could
Quit.
Backbone, you appeared. You came and cut through all the wishing and all the whispering and spoke in a clear direct voice, out loud, right in front of my still fucked up in the morning face. You showed me my future, clear as day: Me at sixty years old, in a dingy, dirty apartment, alone. You showed me my grown up children and they were finished with me. December 7, 2012 was the day, when they were 8 and 4 years old, that they were going to change their minds about me if I didn’t do something to stop it.
Stop it.
I realize now, Backbone, you were my Wishbone and me, joined together by years of our wishing. Layered with years of longing, you took on the shape of one rather than two prongs that with a pull could go either way. You became one choice, one way. One answer. No more wishing. No more drinking.
Forever.
Backbone, you brought my self from the way back to the front. You reminded me I was worth saving, and you’ve supported me every single day. You have given me the freedom to find all of who is here, even when that veered hard away from who I think I am supposed to be- in good ways and and in bad. You stand by me while I welcome my shadow, you encourage me to be a whole person and not just shiny up the best parts.
Your strength, your courage, and your deep belief in me help me build a life I am proud of. Your love for me shows me that I am worth loving, that love is not a wish but a doing; and it is not only a doing but a giving and receiving. You helped me look myself in the eye day after day and say “I love you” to myself until I really meant it. You softened enough to be a Wishbone again sometimes. You reflected me back at me until I realized when I looked at you I was looking at me.
The deep work of sobriety and recovery made me, Wishbone, and Backbone one. We are a team. The wishes- to fit in, to forget, to quit drinking- those all are really one thing, too. It takes a lot of courage to be loved, to be seen, to heal. It is so hard to get the things you’ve wished for.
And it is so, so beautiful.
So thank you to Wishbone, and to Backbone, and to me. I have had something inside me as long as I can remember that has wanted me to live and to be alive and I think it’s made up of us three. Our determination has given me so much, the best of all my relationship with my children, now 20 and 16 years old. They’ve had a mom for the last twelve years because of that determination. They love me so deeply and dearly and pull me in close because they don’t want to do it without me.
And I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do it without you.
Love,
Amy
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