The light at the back of the fridge

Memory can be hell on a brain.

Some nights, I’m dragged down memory lane.

Half-asleep, I find myself somewhere else.

I’m in the big rotten chair. Because I've got the most dope to share.

There's a bang at the door. Someone’s raging, demanding money. Then a thunderous slap. A woman holds her face and runs to the bathroom, shrieking. But it’s occupied — a naked old man is drowning mice in the toilet. You can hear them squealing.

A woman sprawled on the floor peers up at me, her face covered in sores. “Do mice eat cockroaches?”

If you had told me when I was a kid that this was hell, I’d be an extra good boy forever-and-ever-amen.

In early recovery, I figured all I had to do was get off the drugs, and the memories would eventually starve to death. Just give it time. Watch Breaking Bad.

But back then, I didn’t have much else besides bitter memory. And so there was a flashback for every occasion. When I opened my mom’s fridge, for instance, I’d see coconut milk, maple syrup, hummus and — are those hemp hearts?

Then I’d see another fridge, this time at the trap house, bearing a note: ‘DO NOT OPEN.’

And I’d open it anyway because I was hungry. I forgot the apartment hadn’t had electricity in weeks. The rot that escaped that day felt like the end of the world.

Go away, memory!

Then I began to make a few worth keeping — the ones from school and the swimming pool and even yesterday, when I made someone laugh.

The new ones are infused with awe and wonder. Gratitude, too. Especially when I slip under fresh blankets. And when I hug someone who cares not for my dope, but for all the other bits of me — on a molecular level.

Of course, old memories still darken my dreams. Just not as often. They’re crowded out by new adventures.

I don’t think those moldy visions will ever completely disappear. Heartache and trauma and all the things you experience as an addict — there’s no eternal sunshine for a crater that deep. But sometimes, it’s an important reminder of how far you’ve had to climb.

Besides, if you plant a lot of seeds around the crater, and squint your eyes just so, you can pretend it’s a garden. Believe me, if you don’t, it will be just you and the crater. And people who stare too long into craters tend to fall into them.