We choose our own path

“Tell me why you’re here.” The woman in front of me looked like Mrs. Claus, minus the cheer.

“Because I have to be,” I said shortly. She knows exactly why I’m here.

“You know that’s not what I mean, Sam. What events lead you to my office today, take as long as you need to collect your thoughts, then proceed.” She eyed me over her spectacles, chained around her neck to keep them from getting lost. Do old people lose everything that’s on their head, or is it just grandmas?

I took the opportunity to look around the small room, filled with inspirational posters with kittens saying things like; ‘Hang in there,’ and ‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ Clever, I thought, sarcastically. To the left there was a big window facing the back of a skyscraper, to the right, there was a large mirror.

I stared at my reflection, it’s funny how your reflection changes in every mirror. Some are warped and make you believe your forehead is the biggest on the planet, others show you every single pore and how blotchy your skin is, actually flattering mirrors are rare, but this one was different. The eyes staring back at me weren’t mine, they were the same shape and color as in my bedroom mirror, but here my eyes looked dead.

The shrink coughed politely, as if sensing that I got off topic. Why must she be so intrusive? I didn’t want to come here; I was told I had to.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she reminded me, patiently.

I took a deep breath and began my tale.

Junior year of high school, I started dating one of my best guy friends, Craig. I’d had a crush on him since the sixth grade, though he ignored that fact in favor of Carrie, who ignored him just as he did me.

At the end of our senior year, I finally realized how toxic he was. He made me feel small, unimportant, inferior, stupid, lazy, and worst of all, made me think I needed him. After years of him refusing to make us ‘official’ preferring to keep things to ourselves, getting wasted at parties, taking drugs I’d never even heard of, and choosing everyone and everyone else over spending time with me, the person he claimed to love, it finally came out in the open that he was a cheater. That was the last straw. I’d spent too much time trying to save him from himself, and in the process lost myself.

I ended it. I told him to never speak to me again and refused to speak his name. Preferring a certain He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named mentality. I packed up everything he left at my house into a trash bag, dumped his shampoo in it and then it’s bottle, gave it a good toss down the stairs, then left it on the doorstep of a friend of his.

He decided that with his new freedom, he was going to party even more.

One March evening, he was coming home from a party, and went off the road. He was flung from the car, and was life flighted to the nearest hospital with the tools to handle massive brain bleeding. He was hanging on by a thread, he couldn’t speak or move, he just looked around, observing.

When I went to visit him, he looked at me with love and guilt, as if he were begging me to forgive him.

I told him I forgave him, and he looked relieved.

He passed away the next night.

My broken heart lead to his death, indirectly.

I was the mother, protector, saver, and designated driver of our friend group. I made sure everyone got home safely, every time. I was always sober and would bring anyone who asked home. In my heartbreak, I stopped going to parties, I stopped protecting, saving, and mothering.

Without my voice of caution, he was left to his own devices. I feel partially responsible for not being there, but at the same time. He did this. He took the drugs, he drank the alcohol, he put the key in the ignition, and he drove.

I’ve gone back and forth, forgiving and hating him for what he did to me.

We choose our own paths. No one can decide for us. He made his choice to cheat, lie, drink, use, and drive. I made the choice to put myself first.

The eyes in the mirror looked like my own as I finished my tale.

“That is why I’m here, to put myself first.”