Part 1
I was awoken by a blazing 7:00am sun. The bottle of Jack Daniels and the small opened packet of white powder sitting on the nightstand were obvious signs that it had been one of those nights. I didn’t recognize the furniture nor the generic art hanging on the walls; clearly I was in a hotel room and not my home. Reluctantly, I dragged my heavy, groggy body out of bed. I was too hungover to figure out which way to turn the faucet to get lukewarm water out of the bathroom sink. At home it’s right to left, but this one had my already cloudy mind baffled. “Shit,” I murmured. After burning my hands, I realized I should have turned it left to right. I thought to myself, “You better wake up before you end up with third-degree burns on half of your body”. I glanced over to the nightstand where the open packet of cocaine was seemingly waiting for me. “That’s what you need,” I said to myself. I grabbed the packet and with a fair amount of skill, well perhaps more autopilot than skill given my present condition, I dumped some fine white powder on the bathroom countertop. I had no worries about the cleanliness of the surface; as long as the coke was mind-altering, it didn’t matter. I leaned over to grab my jeans I must have thrown on the bathroom floor just before the fondling and stroking began the night before. I checked the two back pockets, and to my delight, found a crisp hundred-dollar bill. Once the coke was in two perfectly horizontal lines, I rolled up the bill and put one end into my left nostril. I closed my eyes for a brief second to clear my mind, deeply anticipating the sharp head rush that would soon follow. Like a seasoned addict, I closed my right nostril and took two long inhales. Within seconds, the euphoria of the drug kicked in, and waves of dopamine flooded my brain. I was high and feeling the benefits of taking my ‘morning breakfast hit,’ as I used to call.
Through the mirror I could see this naked body sprawled out on the bed, causing the previous night’s escapades to flood back into focus. I couldn’t recall who the man was that I was dancing with at my cousin’s wedding, but there he was, his delicious tan and muscular body beckoning me near. I found my way to his side of the bed to admire him a bit closer. The next moment the room was spinning, and I was sweating from head to toe. I grabbed the arm of the chair in a desperate attempt to stabilize myself. For the next five minutes panic reigned as I realized my second blunder of the morning; I had consumed far too much cocaine, and my system was shutting down. There was an intense panging in my head, almost as if someone was taking a thousand little mallets and smashing them against my temples. My stomach began to turn, and I knew that I’d either pass out or projectile vomit all over the room. Semi-conscious, I frantically stumbled to the bathroom and bear-hugged the porcelain god, which would become quite an intimate acquaintance for the next hour. With my fingers fiercely gripping the edge of the toilet, I drifted in and out of every mental state imaginable. I felt as though Hades was looming over me and I only needed to say ‘abracadabra!’ to magically drift off into this space of eternal sleep. Somewhere between vomiting my last two days worth of food and my body convulsing uncontrollably, I blacked out. I’m not sure how much time passed before I slowly opened my eyes to the paramedics reviving the beautiful stranger in the bed. I was barely conscious, but at least I still had my clothes on and remembered my name. The fruits of a wild night and indulgent morning were still scattered about the room for all to see. I knew I would be investing time not only in the hospital, getting my stomach pumped but also in jail for possession of narcotics. The fucking concierge alerted the cops after seeing me and my ‘wedding favor’ stumble into the hotel in the middle of the night and spend fifteen minutes at the lobby elevator trying to figure out how to get to the second floor. I buried my face into the palms of my hand, took a deep breath, and slowly got myself together to face my fate.
The gavel pounded, and the judge decided to be lenient on me. Instead of sentencing me to time behind bars, he ordered drug treatment and that I spend the next two weeks doing community service at a local health & fitness club. My sigh of relief could be heard in the courtroom as I loudly exhaled a deep breath of gratitude; someone heard my prayer. While waiting in the emergency ward on the day of the incident I made a vow to myself that I was going to get control of the drugs and alcohol and prayed that I somehow found my way out of this. The doctors had to put my hotel guest into a medically induced coma; I had no desire to follow down that path.
Part 2
The couple of weeks I spent cleaning the floors of the yoga studio weren’t all that bad. It was a small price to pay for such a colossal fuck up; I was happy. At the end of my final week of community service, I went into the yoga studio before the morning classes began to wash the sweat-stained floors. I never realized how much people perspire doing something that seemed so passive. I entered the door as Gabrielle, one of the new yoga instructors, was leaving. We were quite close to bumping right into each other but luckily managed not to knock heads. In the midst of the awkward dance to avoid a head-on collision, we managed to apologize, quickly shake hands and introduce ourselves. I never was one to believe in love at first sight or even this concept of soul mates, but once I shook hands with Gabrielle, it was as if a switch in my heart turned on and a switch in my brain turned off. At that very moment, I knew that she would somehow be a part of my life, though I wasn’t sure when, why or how. I had a firm, heart-pounding feeling that this enchanting swan would play a pivotal role in my journey. Her delicate and soft hands intertwined with the familiar way our eyes intensely locked into themselves for those split seconds felt like we were eternally in this realm of unabashed love. It was as if we had both witnessed in that moment a lifetime of sharing and companionship. Her eyes were the richest shade of blue I had ever seen; it was like looking down into the ocean as the waves calmly rock back and forth and seeing for the very first time the depths and immense beauty of this gigantic body of water. The warmth of her presence could melt icebergs floating aimlessly across the northern seas. The sweetness of her voice rendered me helpless, like a temptress of the sea seduces a defenseless sailor. At some point we must all experienced this feeling of effortlessly falling in love. I learned that the trick is to get out of your own way and allow your heart to truly speak, trust and be heard. After meeting Gabrielle, I spent the next years of my life in a beautiful partnership with the woman I adored, raising a family, and giving back to our community through our yoga and wellness studio.
Part 3
As I lay here in this stale hospital room, my body dulled with pain and having to gasp for breath every few minutes, I allow my mind to drift to more pleasant times. I remember Gabrielle and I’s first date. We held hands as we walked around this beautiful lake in the Brussels region of Belgium. The sunset cascaded its beautiful shades of orange across the horizon. We talked enough for lifetimes to come, and with our heads tilted back, we roared with deep belly laughter. The stroll seemed to last for hours. Gabrielle was intoxicating, and she quickly became my muse. I found myself caught in a mesmerizing spell that I never wanted to be free from. Otis, a young and pleasant man, came in the room for his routine check of my vitals. His moving about the room interrupted my thoughts. I was one of about two hundred patients in the special wing of Brugmann University Hospital that housed the most vulnerable elderly patients. The threat of contracting the virus was so overwhelming that only hospital staff were allowed in. I and the other patients had to watch as the sting of death emptied the beds seemingly daily, with none of our families there to usher us to the other side.
It was only a year ago that I was in this same hospital sitting bedside as my Gabrielle battled breast cancer. I vividly remember when it was her time. I wanted so desperately to keep her here that I tried to give her the air from my lungs. If only I could breathe for the both of us. If only she could have more time. But her lifeless body just laid there. The beeps from the machines were like a resounding alarm announcing the beginning of a battle impossible to be won. The fiery tears slid uncontrollably down my cheeks. I had no choice but to surrender, my body buckling in the wake of death’s defeat. Words can’t express what it was like to see my once vibrant Gabrielle depart this realm, leaving only her cold body and a flood of memories too intangible to bear. The truth of the matter is, I am ready. I never managed to recover after Gabrielle’s death. It’s as if my heart stopped mid-beat and was suspended there for 500,000 minutes. She had this mantra she would often share with me: ‘be free, be happy.’ But I knew that my happiness was found in her, and that mourning her chiseled away at my freedom.
Otis was good to me. Despite the busyness of the ward, he always took the time to sit for a spell and keep me company. One day before the sickness took over my body, I told him how a handshake changed the course of my life. I told him how this fascinating woman with deep blue eyes saved me some years before when my life was going in a pitiful direction. I told him how although it was a challenging fifty-one years, it was the most spectacular voyage I could have ever imagined. I encouraged Otis to find himself a lover like Gabrielle to share his life with, and that the memories of waking up beside her vividly colored my daily thoughts and illuminated my nightly dreams.
…then I closed my eyes for the very last time and drifted into a perpetual sleep.
