Old habits die hard.

Okay, so you all know I have a job, right? It’s a decent job. With decent pay. I was happy because I was going to be able to pay bills and everything was gonna be all right. Right? But yesterday night, I found out that it wasn’t as simple as that. There were a lot of dark secrets. A lot. Some that I wish I could have stayed blissfully unaware of.

Well you see, I had planned to pay our electric bill. My mother said it was $322. I could hardly believe how our electric bill could shoot up a couple hundred dollars for no reason. But she showed me, and I saw it.

My mother had begun drinking and we had gotten into a heated argument to the point where she put her hands on me. The whole thing was stupid. I just called her nosy and she totally flipped her shit. But anyway…
After she falls asleep, my brother comes into my room and sits down and says he needs to talk to me. It was during that talk that I realized everything. Everything became clear. Why my mom was such a bitch. Why she spoiled him as a child. And why they would have arguments all the time in silence. My dad also came in, also aware of something I wasn’t aware of. My father looks at me and shakes his head, his old weary eyes looking down. My brother tells me that the reason why the electric bill was so high was because my mother had not payed the bills, assuming that I would take care of them. The late fees continued to pile up and that’s why it was so expensive. But why? Where was all the money that we gave to pay bills? The money that we worked so hard and honestly for. Where was it all going? My brother solemnly tells me that he may have discovered something that is the answer to everything.

At that moment, my brother pulls out a neatly folded 5 dollar bill. He holds it up to me. I could see in his eyes how ashamed and disgusted he was with whatever it was he carried.

“This,” he explains, “This is where all of our money was going. ALL that money we gave from our pockets to take care of this family. This is where it was all going to.”

He tosses the 5 dollar bill onto my bed and tells me to open it. I took it, gingerly in my hand and began unfolding it. With each second that passed, my heart beat faster. What would it be? What’s going on? I was so afraid, yet so determined to find the source. Little by little, I opened it and by the time it had fully been open, I was shocked beyond belief. I had found something that I despised so much with every ounce of my being. I could hardly believe that I was looking at it. There, inside of that neatly folded was something horrifying. What I found was a white powder-like substance. From all the detective and police shows that I watched, I instantly knew what it was.
It was cocaine.
My mother is addicted to cocaine.
Again.

“I don’t believe this!” My brother whaled. “I thought she stopped! She made me believe she got clean, and then I find this shit? Un-fucking-believable.”

I looked at him, still reeling from the shock. “You..knew about all this?”

My father looked away and nodded.

My brother quickly scooped up the drug and refolded the 5 dollar bill and put it in his pocket so that I wouldn’t have to see it. “All these years,” he began, “I thought she was done with this. All those times I mistreated her. All those times I was so angry at her that I couldn’t look at her. All those years that I never gave her not even a cent of my money. Why? Because it was all going to drugs. Our bills stay unpaid because she buys this stuff. We are always on the constant brink because she uses our money to support her habit. When I was a kid, I used to find this crap everywhere. You wondered why I always punched the wall when we had arguments? Because I didn’t want her spending my money on this. She always tried to buy me off with things to keep helping her support her habit. That’s why she paid no attention to you. You didn’t know, and you didn’t have the money to give her her fix. That’s why I left. To the marines. I just couldn’t take her shit anymore.”

I had no idea of all this. All this time I thought my brother was a heartless bastard but now I know the truth. He expressed how dissappointed he was with her and how he tried telling me but I was too young to understand. How he really believed she got better and how he never thought he had to tell me all this.

That night, my brother didn’t sleep at all. He was so bothered that he just couldn’t. I really wanted to hug him, but I had to pick up my things and leave for work. There, I would have to pretend like nothing happened. No I just didn’t have a fight with my boyfriend who said he didn’t want to be near me. No, I just didn’t have a super heated argument with my drunken mother. No, I didn’t just find out that my mother is back to her old habits of drug usage again. No, I don’t believe that I’m completely and utterly overwhelmed and that I feel so lonely because I have no one now.

Sorry, Dusty. I know you want me to stop being sad and stop posting blogs about how miserable I am. But I need to do this. Or else I’ll fucking kill myself because there’s only so much I can hold in and keep to myself before I fucking implode.

‘Till next time.

~ Jaz