Once in college, I threw up on myself in a dark parking lot filled with strangers. As the world spun with alcohol and vomit hit my new, black jeans, I remember thinking to myself that maybe rock bottom wasn't necessarily waking up to that guy from my German class and not remembering his name. It also maybe wasn't wandering through the hallway of my apartment building knocking on doors to find where I lived, and telling the apartment manager that she could (I believe my exact words were), "go ahead and call the police because they would just tell [her] to go to Hell." They didn't.
No, there were several times in college that I should have hit "rock bottom" but for some reason the fall wasn't hard enough to knock the stupid out of me. However, when I threw up on myself and a stranger said rather loudly to his friend, "Man, that girl is TRASHED!" something clicked. As I sat on the asphalt in a puddle of my regurgitated dinner (or was it lunch?) I thought to myself that it was finally time to get it together. Pulling myself out of the pit of alcohol and drugs wasn't easy, it wasn't instantaneous, and it certainly wasn't done on my own, but it began in that parking lot with the words from that frat boy.
So, today I'd like to say that I'm thankful for that stranger. I don't even know who he is, and I'm not sure it really matters, but if I could tell him that his words made such a huge impact on me and that at some point his path in life changed the course of mine, I would.
Thanks Frat Kid.
4 comments:
WOW. What a powerful story. Thanks for sharing.
It's amazing what strangers can do for us.
Thank you.
Your writing is so powerful and captivating, I really enjoyed reading this post. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, wow. It's really overwhelming to think about the ways we affect other people and never know it--people we know...and those who might be in a parking lot near us. This really is an intense story.
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