To Mum
You taught me well
Dear Mum,
You taught me well.
Whenever I feel lonely, or bored, or frustrated at my job, or scared about money, or simply nothing at all, I drink.
It's what you did, ain't it? You drank. You'd always be making your fancy gin and tonics for every one of those aforementioned occasions.
When you got laid off, you drank. When you got into that big fight with your sister, you drank. When you got in a fight with T, you drank. When you got in fights with me, you'd drink. Except, it makes me mellow. Just made you angrier.
I learned off you, I guess. I remember the very first time I'd tried it. You left out a few of those horrible beers you enjoy, I was young and sad, and anybody else in the world would've ran straight to mum. I didn't. I struggled with the bottle opener and managed to pop the cap off, and I drank it.
It felt good. It felt new. It felt like it had lifted the worry and the sadness right off.
Turns out, I could recreate it anytime I wanted with only the smallest amount from your alcohol cupboard. You'd drank so much of the stuff so often, you never really figured out that I was skimming the bottles. I'm sorry for that, by the way.
The amount of times I was drunk and hobbling around the house, all stupid but giggling at nothing, whilst you slept soundly. Even when you found the first empties I'd hidden under my bed, you didn't really care. Just told me I needed to put them in the trash next time.
Jesus.
I was one walking red flag but I guess that's harder to see when you're flying red yourself.
Well, I'm writing this letter because I just want to let you know that I'm breaking free of that, now. You're drunk downstairs, I am not. I felt everything pulling me toward that off-license store, there was a crate of beers in there practically with my name on, and I went for a walk instead.
Whilst you keep medicating yourself the way you know how, I'm going to go down a different road. I'm going to understand that there is something wrong with me, by God why wouldn't there be after everything, and I'm going to do something about it. Go talk to a shrink, or go get medicated, or something opposed to whatever this is.
I want to break this cycle.
You taught me well.
Whenever I feel lonely, or bored, or frustrated at my job, or scared about money, or simply nothing at all, I drink.
It's what you did, ain't it? You drank. You'd always be making your fancy gin and tonics for every one of those aforementioned occasions.
When you got laid off, you drank. When you got into that big fight with your sister, you drank. When you got in a fight with T, you drank. When you got in fights with me, you'd drink. Except, it makes me mellow. Just made you angrier.
I learned off you, I guess. I remember the very first time I'd tried it. You left out a few of those horrible beers you enjoy, I was young and sad, and anybody else in the world would've ran straight to mum. I didn't. I struggled with the bottle opener and managed to pop the cap off, and I drank it.
It felt good. It felt new. It felt like it had lifted the worry and the sadness right off.
Turns out, I could recreate it anytime I wanted with only the smallest amount from your alcohol cupboard. You'd drank so much of the stuff so often, you never really figured out that I was skimming the bottles. I'm sorry for that, by the way.
The amount of times I was drunk and hobbling around the house, all stupid but giggling at nothing, whilst you slept soundly. Even when you found the first empties I'd hidden under my bed, you didn't really care. Just told me I needed to put them in the trash next time.
Jesus.
I was one walking red flag but I guess that's harder to see when you're flying red yourself.
Well, I'm writing this letter because I just want to let you know that I'm breaking free of that, now. You're drunk downstairs, I am not. I felt everything pulling me toward that off-license store, there was a crate of beers in there practically with my name on, and I went for a walk instead.
Whilst you keep medicating yourself the way you know how, I'm going to go down a different road. I'm going to understand that there is something wrong with me, by God why wouldn't there be after everything, and I'm going to do something about it. Go talk to a shrink, or go get medicated, or something opposed to whatever this is.
I want to break this cycle.
