The Game

“If you could change one moment, would you?” A common question asked in various ways with millions of answers. There were many moments I wanted to change if I could. My childhood was the best it could be. Velvet Barbie boots with heels that clinked all around the house and the loop of Blue's Clues episodes on VHS. Eventually this was traded in for a pair of white roller skates and daily adventures with the neighborhood kids. Up to a certain point ignorance, or should I say innocence—was bliss. But then one day those black boots, those roller skates, those VHS tapes, weren’t enough; enough to tune out the screams. To tune out the back and forth of words filled with hatred and regret. The threats and the violence and the anger. The constant questioning of whether it was a choice I made that caused the horrid domino effect that just kept going and going and going.

Of course, it was not actually me that influenced any of it, for I was just a 7 year old riding a black daisy scooter, but I didn’t know. I could not use my innocence to tune out the constant picking and choosing of who I loved more. I loved both of them too much to pick and felt a seam come loose in the sewn together heart I felt I had. I could not ignore that when there wasn’t arguing and hatred, there was absence and the silence was lonely. Again, questioning if I was the reason that I felt so alone. What more could I do than to blame myself? I wouldn’t have dared to imagine a world in which the light of the both of them turned dark and cold.

Time passed and two of them turned to one. I was willing to accept that fate when I came to the realization that Crystal Meth was the reason for the anger, for the violence, for the hatred, not me. It liked to play games and it sure as hell was good at it. And some of the light did turn dark or was dark all along, but the game finally ended—until another began. It’s as if, like a virus, we had got rid of one and it created another. The hatred and violence lingered, but in another form—much worse. Now, there were black hands grasping at the bed, the flame of an immense fire, and fear. This time, it had created other players.

There was the five year old that always grew very scared; so scared, I had to comfort him. There was the angry monster; the one that sometimes kept me, crept by the locked door begging, “please don’t hurt anyone” as a weight was clung to my chest. And if I got lucky, which was rare, there was just a man; a man I had known my whole life. I would return home on an average day of school in the 7th grade to the bashing of a door; a piece of the door frame continuously glued back on, or the closet torn to shreds in search of the fire to fulfill the dragon. What was most difficult in these moments was that the monster, the dragon, the darkness; they all held them captive. They held a father. They held a brother. And not a cry or a plea or word of encouragement or a hand or a heart—could save them.

Even more time passed and the game once again ended in the same sense of tragedy and the same acceptance of fate—Crystal Meth had won. It had continued to play its game, but after years of being a pawn, after years of torment and hopelessness in doing everything possible to try and win the game, I then realized that I had not lost, I had won. Sure, I had lost names and faces and the innocence of my soul that I could never get back, but I had gained in replacement of the gaping hole inside my chest the willingness to never myself be taken hostage by the game or any of its players, the undying strength to stand tall even when the entire world continues to crumble beneath your feet and you feel all hope is lost, the drive to give myself and my future children the legacy of being number 7 of my Senior class and the first in my entire family to graduate high school in high Honors and attend college with many achievements behind me. I was given the opportunity to make a life out of the chances that those hostages never got. Finally, I would never again play Crystal Meth’s game. I would create my own game—where everyone wins.