We're all radioactive

Somone is basking in you right now.

I was already tooth-brushed and pyjama-bottomed when my mom hollered from the bottom of the stairs.

“Guess what!” she called, in the kind of tizzy that meant she had devised a hysterical new joke. “I’m starting a blog.”

“That’s great, mom.”

“Do you know what I’m going to call it?”

“No, mom.”

“The 76-year-old legs of a crack smoker’s mother.”

Cue her hysterical cackling.

“Go to bed, mom.”

But I knew she wouldn’t go to bed right away. She’d almost certainly spend a few minutes, admiring her legs in the mirror. It’s okay, mom. We all do that when we start to improve our bodies.

And mom was seeing dramatic results from the 30 minutes or so she exercised every morning. After that, she blitzed through the rest of the day, getting all sorts of things done in the house, running errands and, Jesus, mom, are we fixing the eavestrough today too?

This isn’t quite the woman I remember from just a year ago. Then again, that old version had a drug addict for a son. I don’t know if she fully understood the extent of my habit at the time, but what little she could gather weighed her down. Everything about her seemed a little sunken. I remember her couch-bound, watching British dramas on her ancient laptop. And seeming so — sorry, mom — old.

Did I do that? I must have been like a walking bomb, emitting dead energy all around me. Well, it didn’t seem to slow me down — maybe, instead, I just upped my medication. More pain. More Crackynol 1000.

My roommate loved plants. She didn’t think she knew — at least, consciously — about my habit. But one day, I remember walking into the bedroom to find her beloved wall of plants in the window had all withered, and mostly died.

I felt like that was me too, somehow, subconsciously radiating rot.

It’s okay. There’s crack for that too.

When I stopped doing drugs, I began to see my recovery reflected in those around me.

After all, if I couldn’t be the judge of my own addiction — convincing myself that I wasn’t so bad — how could I be the judge of my own recovery? The truth is I still can’t be trusted as the final word on me. Instead, I pay attention to how I affect those around me.

They’re my oversight committee. As I recover, so does my mom.

She’s even starting her own blog. Yeah, yeah, mom. I get it. The 76-year-old legs of a crack smoker’s mother.

Hilarious.