The Kettle

I have sat on sharing this story with you now for weeks. There is nothing pretty behind the truth that these birds so beautifully cover. And I myself have never enjoyed the feelings I conjur up inside just from saying the truth out loud. But here goes.

This kettle of swallows cover up an arrangement of self inflicted scars I put there myself back on December 8th, 2012.

Hi. My name is Charity, and I am a recovering addict. On the days that led up to the cutting, I was always drinking. I was always looking for my next drink. I was homeless, and bouncing around toxic people’s homes, and couches and beds. I don’t even think I had a working cell phone at the time. I was unemployed, obviously. No drivers license, not even a state ID. No identification at all. I was running. I was always running from something.

I was a prisoner in my own head. I hated myself for losing my children. I hated myself for ever allowing my situation to get as bad as it had, and I had no idea how to help, me. I had given up on the possibility of ever having a normal life. I wanted to die. I wanted to pass out and never wake up again. And every single time I felt a moment of awareness, my skin crawled. Being alive, without living, was truly, unbelievably painful.

I could write for hours and tell you horror stories about that time that would cause bile to rise up in the back of your throat. But I’m going to focus on the birds. I’m going to tell you why this tattoo means so much to me, and why those two simple words “Be Free” are beginning to speak to me for the very first time in almost 7 years.

That night, December 8th, I was with a man, we’ll call him J. He and I were drinking, and I’m not sure how long we had been awake. Probably days. Cocaine and alcohol will do that to a person. His home wasn’t a homey kind of place. It was more like a dungeon. A place of dark solitude. A place to hide. At some point in the night we began to fight. What started as words, turned into a physical altercation. Pushing, and slapping. J pushed me so hard I fell, head and shoulder first, straight through a glass window. I will never forget seeing the glass lying at my feet, and reaching down to pick up a sharp piece. I began slicing my arm. I wanted to feel something. I wanted to see blood - I just remembered, J and I had watched a movie, at some point during this madness, called “There Will Be Blood”, how ironic - There was a lot of blood.

Within the next 24 hours, my mother was notified by J’s mother, who I’m sure was probably more concerned for her sons well being than my own. She was what you would call an enabler. Her son could do no wrong and she would bail him out of any and everything she could. He took care of her financially. There are a lot of lumpy rugs in that family.

I had a warrant out for my arrest, for not showing up to court for an OVI I had caught earlier that year. And when the police arrived, I sat on a couch, staring at my bleeding arm. Looking at the blood. Not knowing anything about anything anymore. Instead of taking me to jail, I was taken to a mental institution where I detoxed for 7 days, and then I was transported to county jail. I spent 39 days in that 12 person cell. One day I heard my name called, and those 2 wonderful words followed, “PACK UP!” I was leaving jail. I was transported to a women’s treatment facility, in other words I was on my way to a real life rehab.

I spent the next 90 days in that treatment center. That place saved my life. After I graduated, I moved across the street into their transitional housing program, where I stayed for the remainder of that year.

For whatever reason I started drawing birds while I was in treatment and the hobby continued long after I left. I think I saw a picture of a barn swallows in a book somewhere, and the image just stuck in my head. I was captivated by the elegance and sort of slender shape they have, especially their wing tips. When I was able to, I looked up what species this bird was, and I found a story about them. The story had sketches of these birds nesting in a barn, in the middle of winter. I compared the significance to my own life sketch. There was snow on the ground the night I took that piece of glass to my arm, so these birds instantly became something significant for me.

After I celebrated my first year clean and sober, I was ready to cover up the scars. I knew exactly what I wanted my tattoo to represent; freedom. Freedom from alcohol. Freedom from drugs. Freedom from self harm, and freedom from the darkness.

I have never written this story down until now. I haven’t even talked about this story in years. I’m glad that I chose to share it, to share my truth. This is how we heal.

As I sit here and look at my forearm, at the few places where you can still see the white flesh of where the skin healed back together, I feel emotional, but also very, very grateful.

No matter how hard this journey in recovery has been for me, no matter the times I have fallen and got back up again, no matter how dark it would get, God has always protected me from the darkness that came before the birds.