My River

The river quietly ran its course through the fields. I used to visit it, you know, my feet dangling in the cool water. I’d watch the sun set and rise there when I had a chance. I was in my element by the river. There was a connection between us.

I don’t know why I always went there alone. I wasn’t a talker at school that much, and I didn’t really care if I had any friends. The river was my friend. I could relate to the noise of gently rushing waters, as if I was the water itself. That water would always keep on moving, no matter if rocks, animals, or anything else got in its way.

I wanted to be like that river and keep on going, no matter what.

Sometimes I wouldn’t get a chance to cool down when some other family member would throw an empty bottle of alcohol at the wall, splinters of glass flying everywhere. That river was my only refuge from the nightmare at home.

My family loved to fight. I lived with my uncle, who frequently had scantily clad women over, complete strangers! Then there was my cousin, who was my uncle’s son. He was a lot like his father in that he liked to yell and be mean a lot over tiny things that didn’t really even matter.

My mom and my mom’s friend lived with us as well. My mom and I got on well enough, but I hated her friend, who always made it a point to criticize me, especially my weight. I’m not an unhealthy size, yet she made it sound like I weighed three times what was reality.

At night, especially on the weekends, everybody but my mother would drink. My cousin, who was twenty-five, was the worst person when he started to drink. At all other times he was at least tolerable. He’d sometimes scream insults at me for no reason, calling me the worst names he could pick out of his vocabulary.

Most nights I could go away to the river to escape all the family drama, but lately, my cousin has noticed how much calmer I am after I go outside for a time. My coping mechanism quickly became an obstacle to my cousin, who wanted to do nothing more than bully me, taking away anything and everything that could make me feel better. I felt like I was suffocating, trapped in a house from hell.

Once I didn’t go to the river for two weeks. I felt like I was sick, and only the river could heal me . . . If I wasn’t able to go to my sacred place physically, I’d go there in my mind, imagining as many details of the river as I could.

I remember my uncle yelling at my mom’s friend for drinking the last beer, which she vehemently denied doing. My uncle would slam his fist down on an end table in the living room, which is where they usually fought.

“The Battle of the Beers,” as I would come to call it, was a common problem here in the realm of psychotic, dysfunctional family drama. Their fights would stretch into hours, and all I had was a paltry view of my escape, through my second-story window, the river peacefully moving along its course down in the meadows.

What course was I on? Where was I going, and how would I get there?

I was only a fourteen-year-old girl, trying to stamp out any level of independence I had. For four more years, I’d have to put up with all the fighting, drinking, and verbal abuse. I didn’t know I could.

That’s when I started sneaking out of the house at night. I had a small flashlight to help guide me. One night though, as I waited to hear my uncle’s snoring, so I could sneak out undisturbed, I fell asleep.

In my dream, the river was actually talking to me, warning me not to come out that night. I tried to beg the river to let me come, but the water took on a life of its own, sloshing and heaving, as if possessed by some water demon.

I awoke with a start. I thought I heard a noise outside. The dream had scared me. I was going to stay right there where I was in bed, my fearful eyes wide awake, my heart rate elevated.

The next day, my uncle was ranting and raving about something stupid at his son, and my mom’s friend. I tuned them out, and when I did, I noticed a story on the news, where a kidnapper that’d happened to be seen near where I lived. Whoever was taken couldn’t have had a friend, like the river in my case, to warn them of such danger.

As more fights erupted all around me, my own sweet mother joining in as well, I realized that I had something very special with the river, and that was why nothing bad happened to me.

After the neighborhood kidnapper spotting, I never stopped thinking about how lucky I’d been. I valued my life more, becoming less prone to make foolish decisions, like going out wandering after nightfall.

Darkness is often a dark person’s ally, and something bad would’ve happened to me had I gone outside the previous night. Ever since that happened, I’ve started thinking more about my worth as a person.

My family may have subdued me with their senseless, alcohol-induced insults, but they had not conquered my spirit. No, I was like a river, except that I knew my course, but not the destination, leading me to wonder what was meant by my life if I wad worth being defended against such evil, and that marks the beginning of when I really started coming into mt own.

If you are going through a difficult time, seek out your river, your happy place, because if it won’t save you from anything else, at least have a start at knowing your true value as an important human being, whose thoughts and feelings matter