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The sun is coming through the blinds and she can tell it’s morning. Her head hurts. She lays there trying to open her eyes until eventually she is staring at the ceiling of this room that has become her solace. It is a wreck with stored boxes of an old life scattered everywhere and a bed tucked in the corner. She blends in with the chaos which feels safe in some way. Now, her only struggle is to remember what happened last night. She looks to the night table and there sits her favorite wine glass, empty, the remnants of red in the bottom. It starts to come back to her as she turns away from the table and sees the two empty bottles beside her, the sun reflecting off the deep color of the glass. It’s as if the bottles she just bought yesterday hold her story inside. Or maybe they did; this morning, they are empty, exactly the way she feels.

These mornings are becoming all too familiar. Routine almost. The only difference in now and weeks ago is that the wine doesn’t bring tears anymore. Instead, it brings nothing but an emptiness that the wine can’t fill. As she finally sits on the side of the bed, she almost welcomes the headache that is there. In some ways it feels deserving and it keeps her mind off the deafening silence that surrounds her as much as the walls suffocating the life out of her. She thinks about her day and how she can’t wait to get back here tonight, the only place she knows to escape. More bottles, more stories, more sleep. All she needs is sleep.

She opens the door and enters the hallway, the start of a new morning. One day she hopes to love opening that door.

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I started to share this as just a very short story. And it is except it’s part of a much longer story I hope to share as I continue to unravel how I got there and how I got here. #beforeduringhappilyeverafter