Junkie

She'd been clean for three years now. At so many different times she didn't think it was possible. Now after all had changed, she was ready to make peace with her past mistakes. Though, she did have one more person she wanted to see. One more place she needed to let go.

The cab ride there seemed to take forever but she didn't mind. She closed her eyes and thought about all the things she had done. All the regrets she had accumulated. She stubbornly and responsibly refused to shy away from thinking about it. She wanted to remember it all. This was something she had to do.

So she purposely recalled every needle, every drug, and every hurt friend. She paid attention to the pain in her arm, the pain in her feelings, and the pain on each face of a loved one. This gave her the energy she needed to resist all future attempts at falling back into addiction. The vehicle came to a halt and the cabbie said, "We're here." He held out his hand for his money.

Her eyes were still closed when she paid him. Then she opened the door and still did not open her eyes as she stepped out onto the sidewalk with her face pointed down. After a few more gritty moments, she heard the cabbie pull away. There was nothing but silence and a light breeze. Eventually that stopped.

She slowly opened her eyes still looking at the sidewalk. Immediately she noticed that it was cleaner than she remembered. She looked left then right. It was also clean. A charming colonial iron fence had been put up under the street level windows. It all took her by surprise. The doorway to her old drug house had been bricked over, blending the building into the surrounding beauty. It was gone.

An older lady was sitting on the stairs nearby. She asked her when did the amazing reformation happen? The old woman said it was over a year ago. The man who owned the building sold it when his son overdosed. She guessed that he was overcome with guilt at not stopping his son's drug abuse when he could have. As a result he sold the house of ill repute that helped end his son's life or so the old woman mused.

She couldn't help but see the resemblance in her own life. Now that she had cleaned up, she looked better and she had more control. Inside a piece of her was upset that she didn't get to tell off the young man. Although that feeling walked in mirror imitation with another. That of pity that he never regained control as she had learned. She accepted a long time ago though, that bittersweet connections between friends and enemies was a recovering drug addict's norm. Then a different thought took over very quickly. That she was thankful that she got out when she did. A smile began to form on her lips. The smile then gave away to teeth. After that all she could feel was the happiness within herself. She started laughing from a place deep inside that she could not hold back any longer. Why try? Against such things there is no law. She wasn't laughing at her poor choices in life, or the pain. Nor was she laughing at the boy who died. She was laughing because she now knew that it was all behind her now. She laughed because she knew she had fully recovered from her weakness. She laughed because she now had the strength to stop crying.

The old woman watched on furrowing her judgmental brow. From the stairs she was sitting on she said under her breath, "Junkie."