Settling In

I rested my hands on the sink and allowed the coolness of the porcelain to twirl up my arms. I reared back and thrust my face within an inch of the toothpaste splattered mirror. I examined what I saw. I had been spared the teenage of curse of angry, pulsating acne. In fact, my skin was lovely. Pore free, smooth. Yet, it was not my reflection that I saw scowling back at me. It was my father’s mug. His mug shot. The one that had been plastered in the newspaper and the six o’clock news.

We look exactly alike.

Considering that I am rather vain and not a big fan of shearing pain I knew, even as an overly-dramatic teenager, that I would never actually smash my face into a mirror so that I would look less like my dad.

What I would do instead was a lot more painful.

At the ripe age of 15, I decided to bury anything about me that even flirted with an association to my parents. It served me well on several fronts. I became brutally driven. I hustled and scraped my way into college. I kept a strangle-hold on any part of me that could be seen as wild, passionate and wide-open.

I didn’t want to stand out in that way. Steve and Starr, my young, savagely beautifully, magnetically charismatic parents, stood out in that way. They were nothing if not wild, passionate and wide-open. They shot normalcy the finger any chance that they got and left a smashing wake of broken promises, arrests and embarrassments everywhere that they went.

I was going to be respectable, responsible, stable. I was going to tuck in my button downs, I was not going to say ain’t, I was going to have shades on all my lamps, an unchanging phone number, a car that always passed inspections. I would be successfully vanilla.  I feared that if I let go, if I slipped even a little, that I would tumble out of control into a life of drugs and hustles and beat-down trailers.

My past made me unworthy in my mind — of a good career, of loyal friends and of love. I skirted the truth. I whitewashed my past.

When I looked in my spotless, streak-free mirror I saw less and less of my parents. However, the dishonesty about who I was coupled with immersing my slightly wild, extremely passionate, enthusiastically creative true self deeper and deeper into a cookie-cutter lifestyle was catching up with me. I didn’t recognize the tired person staring back at me.

Lying is exhausting.

As I held my daughter during the first hours of her life I decided to quit: my job, the buttoned-down, aloof persona, and most importantly, I decided to quit the lies. I knew that the magical little creature in my arms loved me. She didn’t care about my past and it was in that hospital bed that the real me started to emerge.

Apparently, the real me likes beautiful, bold tattoos and platinum blonde hair. The real me still loves button downs but likes to pair them with a black leather motorcycle jacket. The real me can quote Toni Morrison and Missy Elliot in equal measure. The real me enjoys Silver Oak Cabernet and Coors Light tall boys.

I know that addiction is a disease, but there is still a little part of me that wonders why they couldn’t have chosen me. I am kind and loving and I can also be self-absorbed and vain. I love sad, quiet indie movies and outrageous blockbusters. I can sing along to George Jones and Wu-Tang. I once hung so much of who I was in the fact that I became an Assistant Vice President in two years, but I now know that I am so much happier walking dogs and sharing my story.

And, today, the first day of 2019, I looked in the mirror. I saw intersecting roadways under my eyes that reminded me of how far I’ve come. I saw deeping crevices formed from years of laughter. I saw my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile. I saw the love of my husband. I saw the joy of my daughter. I saw the grit of my gran. I saw the loyalty of my friends. I saw the freedom of settling into who I am.

I saw me.

Soshally Awkward

Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.