Happy birthday to me

By the hair of mom's chinny chin chin.

It’s my birthday.

I was born on December 5, 2024. That’s the day I reached the shores of recovery — the proverbial baby in a handbasket.

Now, before you start getting biblical vibes regarding my arrival in this world, know that I was not a pretty baby. I had oozing sores on my body. Every day, my mother and sister took turns washing and bandaging them. And boy, was I ever ungrateful. Something was wrong with my jaw too. It clicked, and brought on dreadful earaches that kept me up most of the night. I was also — how do I say it? — unhinged.

I saw and felt bugs all over my body.

“It’s nothing,” my mom would say. “Just a piece of lint.”

“Well, what’s this?” I’d jabber in wide-eyed terror, pointing between my toes.

“That’s lint too.”

There were also a few other things going on deep in my body that we won’t linger on. In short, I was an unattractive, sickly and possibly insane newborn. Beastly, if we’re being honest.

Still, my family was downright elated to welcome me into the world. A world where I could heal. A world without crack.

This is where I digress, just for a moment, to tell you about my favorite literary character: a monster named Grendel.

He was a dark, cynical creature and the chief antagonist of the hero, Beowulf. It’s no spoiler to tell you that Grendel eventually met his end at the hands of the titular hero. Obviously. Or else the poem would be called Grendel.

Anyway, once upon a time, Grendel terrorized the swamps and marshlands of — can I just say Ancient Denmark, or do I have to look it up? Okay, okay, it was a place called Heorot, which, apparently, was on the Danish island of Zealand.

Sorry, it’s been a long time since I read this epic in English class.

Anyway, after killing and devouring livestock and the occasional human who strayed too far from the longhouse (the Viking version of a crack den), Grendel would retreat to his lair, which was basically a dark pit. The next day, he’d get back to murder and mayhem.

Sound familiar?

In early recovery, I became my favorite monster. Like Grendel, I ravaged the refrigerator, and made people’s lives miserable before retreating to my lair, where I binged Baywatch and Judge Judy until my next outing.

But the thing about Grendel that always stood out to me was his relationship with his mother. She was a monster too — a towering creature of teeth and tentacles. But when Grendel came to visit — particularly when he had a rough day at the slaughter — she held him in her treacly embrace and promised him everything would be just peachy.

They had a truly special bond.

Now, to be clear, my mom is immaculate. Regulation-length teeth. No known tentacles. She just has one notable hair sprouting from her chin, but otherwise, she’s considered a great beauty.

Grendel’s mother — fuck, do I have to look her name up too? Okay, it turns out it’s just Grendel’s mother. The point is, no matter how abominable her boy behaved, she was always there for him. And for his part, he aspired to make her proud. Unfortunately, Grendel also hated himself and thought he was doomed anyway. Too far gone, he figured, fuck it. I’ll be the beast I was born to be.

“You can’t handle him on your own,” friends and family told my mom over and over again. “He needs professional help.”

Ship him off to a detox center! Save yourself!

Even my former partner, who had lived with me for a decade, was worried for my mother.

“She knew what it was like to live with you,” my mom would later confess. “She knew what a monster you could be. She thought, how was that going to be any different?”

Well, for Grendel, it ended the way you might expect. The long-suffering locals of Heorot couldn’t deal with his shit on their own. They called in a professional. A renowned douchebag named Beowulf.

Our ‘hero’ promptly confronted Grendel and ripped him limb from limb. RIP, Grendel. Literally. Understandably, his mother was devastated. But she didn’t have long to grieve. Beowulf, being the kind of psycho-hero you only find in Old English epic poetry, tore her to pieces too.

My mom, thank the stars, didn’t seek professional assistance. She weathered the storm that raged in my head. Even the bugs. (Grendel had fleas too.)

I don’t know how she did it, exactly. But there was love. And not the tough variety. Just the old-fashioned, unconditional, I-am-always-here-for-you kind of love. It must have rubbed off on me. Because I began to imagine that maybe I wasn’t doomed. Maybe I could begin to love myself.

Lots of addicts, if they’re lucky enough, find professional help that works for them. But it could have just as well ended up with me getting Beowulf’ed.

As a result, I’m here today, celebrating my first year, not as the beast I was expected to be — but as a human being. Thanks to the hero who had always been there.

I still curl up in her branches sometimes — and I don’t even complain too much about the chin hair that’s often scratching me.