Santa Claus- EE
(This is the first entry to my collection of writings called “Edmonds Entries” where I post the journal entries I wrote while in treatment in Washington)
They met us in the lobby of the Best Western and swept me away in the backseat of a white SUV. It felt like a scene from a movie, and I was the criminal they had been looking to catch. We arrived around back just as the moon ducked under. She covered the keypad with her left hand while punching in numbers with her right. Just as quickly as they beeped, she pulled it open and pushed us in. I wondered why no one else was crying. I was sobbing behind my eyelids. We were stuck against the wall by the light shoved in our face. The quick click of the camera capture let us know their work was finished. Just around the corner lived our room for orientation. Twelve or so drawn out desks with four chairs at each and paperwork placed at every-other seat. “Cayla R.” read my station. Still, I found it strange no one was crying, or wiping eyes inconspicuously no less. I, meanwhile, was swallowing the lakes I brought from Michigan. Behind me sat a man, well into his 70’s, dressed by the dark cargo pants of a working chap, a Seahawks three-quarter zip, lovely worn wire glasses, and a dark grey golf hat to top his head. I found it comforting to have him helping, watching the room for us newcomers. Our Santa, in the criminal’s corner. But when we broke for medcheck, he gathered his papers too, and headed to the lobby. And just like that, the magic of Christmas was gone.
I suppose there’d been a voice in me, with a distorted dingy desperation, that told me disorders get tired. That somehow they will not follow you your whole life through. That you will wake at middle age, or a day soon after and realize life is worth living; realize what living is at all.
But there he was, that distorted dingy voice, sat just before me. So I looked him in the eye and shook his hand. “I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Cayla, and I adore your hat.” And back my hand was shook as I felt myself grow old with him. So I wrote inside my mouth to know it to be true: “If I do not catch the voice, it will surely catch me first.”
