raging_fossil’s Reviews > Just Like Mother > Status Update

And all it had taken was opening my heart and
trusting the people around me, the simple acknowledgment
that I didn’t have to go it alone. What had I been trying all
those years to prove?

I wanted it all gone—not just the events of the past month but also the baggage I’d carried with me all my life. I wanted it burned off me until all that was left was a new, shiny layer of personhood. I no longer wanted to fight. I wanted a rebirth.

I gulped it down, realizing I’d only ever used that cup when swallowing pills. No more drugs, no more alcohol, no more numbing of emotions with hazy nights and underwater days.

“Maybe you’re looking for something that doesn’t exist."

In the night, nothing felt significant.

“A lot of days I’m fine. But then there’s the smallest reminder and … I don’t know how to explain this to someone who hasn’t been through it,” she said. “I’ll never be over it. Not really.”

I felt homesick every day for
a family that had never existed in the first place.

The irony was, I’d managed to convince everyone
except myself.