RECOVERY
Never Mind the Laundry, I’ll do that too.
From some more ashes — First Draft: Ch#?
2019
Another week and Sarah is comfortable walking the side streets and back alleys in her area. Car in view of sight and things in car to sell, just to get through the day. It’s expensive being poor.
It began on a Sunday. Second hand stores closed and no coffee, nicotine and, more importantly, toasted cheese sandwiches and doughnut Sunday for her child. Bread and cheese to feed a child and goddamned coffee for an adult as bare minimum at least. As if it’s not hard enough to face another day of this seemingly endless struggle. Some depression has set in. It’s been rough. Sarah is worn down and every day feels like survival for just the basics now.
It’s tough. But no coffee? Okay. It’s not coffee anyway anymore. It’s something blended with Chicory — but fuck! It’s something. Milk has been abandoned completely. Honey exchanged for white sugar. Sarah is descending from easy middle class into poverty and nicotine-addicted desperation. It’s an experience for a gal who was raised with privilege and material comfort, I tell ya. Yes. This is what it’s been like for Sarah for the last few weeks now. Beginning with that Sunday.
She threw the iPad into the car and began to drive. She’d been wanting to smash it since forever, some weeks and even more days. It’d been her son’s primary caregiver, while she’d worked insane hours to survive. His early years. And there were consequences. The guilt over the years had eaten away at her and made her easy to control. She hated the thing. Planned a YouTube video with an online smashing, to make a public statement about how far off course we have strayed. Good thing she’d never gotten around to it, because today she will find two cool guys down the road who’ll take it for a hundred bucks and feed them for a day. Not so entertaining. Not so fun.
But also really funny at times when she can step back and watch her daily meanderings, and flat out full tilt runs, with some objectivity. She needs that now more than ever. Her offbeat sense of humour is keeping her alive. The fact things are this bad, and this “crazy.” But the fact that it’s not her craziness, after all, is moving her forward. Mostly shock and disbelief on the faces of those hearing the unfolding story first hand. After a few more weeks of heading down to the guys who bought the iPad, to give them first dibs on what’s being sold next, they can see she’s not even remotely kidding when she fills them in on the latest news.
Today one of them loans her ten bucks for photocopies for court. She’s in the army now. This is a battle long overdue and far too important to surrender. Some real life experience. The front line. And she does kinda like the front line. It makes her feel alive again, even though she’s scared that she may be dying some days, and won’t get things right in time to stop it.
The offer of a good crystal from a dealer in exchange for a gas canister. He looks confused and disappointed when she tells him she’s a sober person and to give her the cash. She adds, “please.” Sarah’s like that. To be fair, she looks confused when he says “crystal”. Sarah never did the hard stuff. “Tik.” he explains curtly, when she frowns slightly with her head quizzically to one side. “Meth.” That’s when the conversation on recovery begins. Sarah begins an honest 12th step, but he isn’t much interested and gives her less than fifty bucks for the canister. As she walks away shoving the bill into her pocket, Sarah thinks she’s been ripped off.
She’s firmer with the cell phone. Stands haggling with the big, good looking but uber surly guy. He blows her off, but her years of trading markets has kicked in by the time the next guy approaches, and Sarah is on her game. They throw around numbers. Life stories. Reasoning for different prices. He laughs at her. She laughs at him. She refuses to negotiate. Perhaps she’s still pissy about the gas canister, but a part of her thinks she may need the phone if she ever does get to start her new life. She leaves with the phone in her backpack and both of them smiling.
It took less than two days for Sarah to become comfortable selling no longer needed items to dealers down back alleys. The things that can’t be sold online and the ones you don’t find in the second-hand store. I guess it’s because she’s lived an adventurous life, sincerely trying not to judge people, and it takes a fuck ton to shock her after what she’s seen. She’s laughing, at herself, as she walks back towards the courts. This is why she is so messed up financially.
It’s not because she hasn’t been working. She’s working all out, when she can. In between being a parent and this “case”. Still at her desk. Running between the insanity that has been her life for the last six months now, and the things that actually matter most. And yes. She had meant to step away from the business she had built over the last ten years. Long, desk-bound days and nights. Too many of them away from her children. The latter, especially, made her loathe it now. This, the most. High doses of coffee and cigarettes went with the territory. She wanted to move into recovery and people. To a life that was healthier, with more time for the things that mattered.
She’d been close. A coaching course booked and paid for. Some solid connections already made. But then crazy fucking exes, fantastically sterlingly shit life choices, and top of the class co-dependence. And the resultant rock bottom. Yet again. So here she is now. In the side streets. Sober, but alone this time. Fighting crippling depression in between short burst of fury, that at least give her the energy to do the next right thing to move this all forward to some kind of conclusion.
She’s been fighting in the so-called social and justice system on her own while her opponent uses lawyers to do his admin and dirty work. The money wins. Most would give up. Sarah would not. She returned. Day after day. Taking more evidence for them to file. Writing more emails to ask relevant questions — usually unanswered. Adding more affidavits to case files to make sure that things didn’t get swept under the rug. That went unread. Day after day. To talk to more people. To tell them the truth. It took so much time to do this. So many people trying to get help. Days lost in the public system. Days. Billable days. She’d already been working overtime before this situation to survive. Now this. It was inevitable. Financial ruin. She had expected it and here it was.
The process was frustrating. Tiring. Interminably long. The depression had begun to set in a while ago. The ongoing stress. The physical exhaustion. The not being heard or believed. The isolation. The injustice. Her lover and best friend now smoothly eradicated from her life. Little support from those she had mistakenly thought of as her people. The people she’d grown up with. A smear campaign begun to discredit her. Believed without thought. Again. But there was no way but forward now.
Backward had been tempting, at times. To go back and just have some semblance of “peace”. But it never was peace. It was ongoing struggle and anxiety. Ignored depression and daily hurt. The gradual wearing down of happiness and joy — and the murder of hope and dreams.
Sarah could not go back to that. So she continued to fight. But there were half days of just lying still and resting now, until another bout of rage got her up and going for the next bit. She’d pulled this off for weeks without her son noticing much. That’s ten year’s experience for you. But her son had begun to notice the financial situation. He couldn’t miss it. While he had all his fruit and vegetables and the lion’s share of the food, she could no longer afford the treats in between, or the outings and ice-creams, that he had come to think of as a normal part of his days. This was probably good for him in some way too, she thought. Lessons in consumerism, what is most important and how little a person needs to still have fun and be happy.
Sarah had been told she was resourceful, but now she believed it. Because free donuts if you get petrol at a station near you. Free playgrounds at parks for play dates, so things aren’t inevitably awkward. Finding cafes with one Rand packs of biscuits for school lunch treats. Homemade popcorn that goes on forever. Yes. It’s like this right now. But it won’t be like this forever. So she can do this. For now.
It’s still fucking scary at times. Sarah is afraid. A lot. Running out of electricity without being able to top up just before cooking dinner on a school night is stressful. But by now people are beginning to see the situation more clearly and there is some help, here and there. Food and finance. Some moments she feels like such a fucking failure. To be in this position at her ripe old age. Handouts. She would never have considered asking before. Not for money.
But that kind of foolish pride is beginning to fade. She’d never believed money was the shit. Nor that it should buy people the unearned respect it does. Now she has to walk the walk. It’s still hard, even though she’s never had much respect for the stuff. It is hard. But she’s gotten to the point where she can walk with empty pockets and shoulders upright. And she’s gotten to the point where she doesn’t even feel anxious or stressed out, much, when a situation arises that requires the stuff. She just stays calm as fuck, looks for a solution and keeps on going. And that is a pretty cool place to be.
Fury and action, depression and exhaustion.
Up and down. Up and down. A roller coaster ride that doesn’t look like it’s going to stop for the next bit. Some days never. Sad — angry. Scared — exhilarated. It’s real life experience, I tell you. But — she is becoming. Experiential learning. The real kind learning.
She’s learning. She’s learning a lot. I mean a fucking lot! Like there’s massive growth happening here for me stuff. She can feel it happening. Every time she takes another step forward to fight the good fight. Every time she faces a fear head-on, stands her ground and walks out of it the other side. It’s the first time she’s done this for herself. Always for someone else. Never for herself. Now she is beginning to take care of herself, for the first time ever.
She’s having to learn how to do this for real, the hard way. This is so fucking past due. For the first time she’s beginning to move towards what she wants. Who she is. She’s spent so long taking care of other people, so long fitting in for other people, that she doesn’t even know for sure who or what that is yet. But it sure as hell feels like, every day she gets through another day on her own, she’s moving forward somehow. She is healing in some bizarre way, simply by saying, “No.”
So yes — she’s still working when she can. But hours lost to this shit. Each one billable. Emails and affidavits, meetings, official stamps and queues each time there are more lies and misdirection. Which is a lot. Three cases now, because the law keeps being broken in plain sight of the law, and now she won’t fucking let it happen anymore. Her records of this go back four years, now. The behaviour of an outlaw. But not the cool, Tom Robbins kind.
She had never “had the time” to try and stop it. She was always in crisis. No time for self-care. Survival mode. Struggling. Kept on the back foot admin. Drama. Sabotage. Self-doubt. Isolation. Chaos. Confusion. Exhaustion. And — ultimately — weakness because of it all. And shame. Shame and guilt that there was something wrong with her and that this was, somehow, her own fault and she deserved it.
Sarah is determined. She’s been sick and unable to afford medical care. And by unable to afford it, I mean not even the hundred odd bucks for a government hospital. God knows she’s used to the queues. But work. And kids. And selling shit for food. That takes time. She still would have gone though. Ten days. Something bacterial. Gut. But not even a government hospital fuck broke. That was fucking depressing. So many patients, so little time. She got thin though. Fast. Baggy thin. Not so sexy.
Yes, you can get too thin. A contradiction to the stupid quote that had rung through the privileged gong circles she had run in for so many wasted years. But still, she refused to give up this fight. She chooses peace now and this fight is the path that leads to peace. And freedom. And health. And her real people. And a life worth sticking around for.
Six months in. A court case date delayed. An investigation dropped. An investigation reinstated after threats of media. A fight. A fight. A fight. She’s a lover. Not a fighter. As all good co-dependents are. Bent on keeping the peace and not rocking the boat. In a system that doesn’t have the time or resources to do much collateral investigation. To read emails. Or to even remember a conversation from a couple of weeks before. Six months of this now. And Sarah is really tired. Yet her “anxiety” is all but gone and her fear of financial insecurity has disppeared along with it.
But let me tell you this…
If you’re an uneducated person, with few resources, and are still stuck in an environment where you are getting the psychological, emotional or physical shit kicked out of you daily … there is no fucking way you’re going to get out as things stand in this government system. No way. Not without outside intervention from a private and very generous person. A good lawyer costs a lot. Without a good lawyer? Well. You’re pretty much fucked. Sarah is pretty much fucked. She just hasn’t accepted it yet.
Sarah finds Chris one day as she tries to sell stuff to pay for photocopies for court. She stops for a chat and a share, laughing at the fact that she’s as broke as he is now. Chris is an addict, on the street, Sarah’s been trying to help for some months. Today Sarah bums a cigarette off him. He’s thrilled to be able to be of some assistance. He gives her some tips on prices, what she can sell and what is useless, as he roots through the stuff in her car. She leaves him, shooting up in the car park, as she heads home to get some work hours in before she has to fetch her son from school. Yes. Today Chris helps Sarah. As it goes. Humility. Probably the greatest gift of all.
Sarah meets Monica at a local garage, when her credit card bounces, one morning. She knows it will but she’s not even embarrassed when it does anymore, so she gives it a go. She explains why it’s probably not going to work, as Monica runs the card through the machine. The guy behind her comments that at least she can still laugh about it. Monica, working the cash register at the local garage, pulls a 20 Rand note out of her own jacket pocket and puts it into the till on Sarah’s behalf without a word. Sarah is blown away at the casual, unasked for help.
“Wait,” she tells Monica. She runs to the car, digs the economy heater out of the boot and gifts it to Monica. Monica comes around the counter and hugs Sarah, sharing that she’s in a similar situation. She tells Sarah to be strong and keep fighting to get out. Sarah tells Monica that she needs to do the same. Moments. Truth. Honesty. Connection. Priceless.
Sarah goes back to repay Monica when she sells something later that day, but Monica tells her to keep it until things get better. We need more humans like Monica. When things get better, Sarah plans to pay her back a hundred. Things didn’t get better fast enough to pay back a hundred, and the weight of worry for someone who was also struggling was too heavy for Sarah to bear. Sarah goes back, a third time, and insists Monica take back the twenty a few weeks later.
Sarah also returns to the fruit guy who has loaned her ten bucks for photocopies. He is surprised and delighted. She buys some fruit from him in exchange. Is this not how we are supposed to be? Why has the world become so afraid? Judgment. To our own detriment.
Sarah’s been viciously judged. She’s reached the point of no longer giving two fucks about what people think of her. This is something a person works towards, in recovery, for a years and probably never really gets right. Most of us are people-pleasers. Co-dependents. Empaths. Givers. In this, so-called modern society where ego and selfishness are considered success, people like Sarah get eaten alive. She gets this learning by getting fucking honest for real, and (inevitably) being judged harshly. The learning is cemented by having to walk through the fire of disapproval and rejection that follows. And to stand in her truth despite it. You won’t get that in a support group.
She could ask for more help financially. But she also can not. No more material cushion for the consequences of her personal choices. Being fearful of financial ruin, and covering financial responsibilities that weren’t even hers, has kept her trapped for years. She could bail and go back to work full time. She could step back from this fight and focus on “success.” But there’s a sense that this is something she needs to face full on. To stop. And let go of. A glimmer of understanding that this particular fear is part of what’s prevented her taking a leap into the unknown… and possible freedom… for a lifetime. And everything attached to it.
The values. The beliefs. The expectations. The unearned respect. Money. Society’s drug of choice. She’s learning to do without it. To be okay without it. She’s sobering the fuck up. She’s busy coming back to what she may have been before she got hooked. Who she may have been without it. Who she really is without it.
This is her learning. Her growing. The brutality of it only makes the truth easier to see. The stark reality of her situation is clear as fucking day now. And she is okay with that too. She knows now. It isn’t her fault. She’s remembering who she was before this. She is coming back to herself. And towards herself.
She’s having to walk her own values, ethics and principles. Testing them in rough seas, instead of just talking the talk. Choosing and letting go of what is hers and what isn’t hers to keep. What she wants and what she will no longer tolerate. She’s getting better because of this. The struggle and personal responsibility she’s taking for her messed up situation, and her refusal to agree with the judgement that follows as she fucks out, is ultimately healing her. It’s showing her what is, who is and who she is in real time, as hard as it is to see the truth.
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