From The Pit...

The Party Shack....

In January of 1989, when the rest of my graduating class already made their decision as to which university they would continue their education, I no longer showed up for school. My twin sister would be approaching graduation with honors, and excellence in vocal performance and drama, while I vanished in the shadows.

Though "the Party Shack" I lived in provided a refuge for a time from the pain I carried along, many darker shadows began to take hold of my life. My father had come on a surprise visit from Georgia. He found out where I was living and knocked on the door one late morning. When I opened the door, a very puzzled and somewhat troubled look was on his face. He noticed I looked a little different since the last time he had seen me. Perhaps he remembered a shy kid still playing a little basketball, interested in music, who stuttered and struggled a little in life, but had "Brende" potential. Perhaps he had hoped to see a small resemblance to his own highly esteemed resume of accomplishments in medicine, writing, music, and psychiatry. Or perhaps at least some small glimmer of my older brother who had graduated summa cum lade at Yale and himself was an accomplished concert pianist and former chess champion of Kansas.

He was at a loss for words that morning. Though he did not know I was not only using marijuana and alcohol but now harder, more addictive and dominating substances, I felt like my eyes were confessing the story. Perhaps he was bothered by the coffee table covered with beer bottles and an empty 5th of Jack. Certainly there was the stench coming from the ash trays and garbage piled high for over 4 weeks, literally drawing hundreds of flies. It was an art form to open the garage door from the kitchen to throw out an empty beer can without letting in more than a dozen flies swarming over the "landfill" that never made it to the curb. There was the fact that I myself was dirty and carrying a kind of homeless smell in my clothes I no longer changed very often. For some reason we also had a dog and cat, but no litter box. This "pit" is where I would make a greatest descent.

When my father looked in my eyes that day, he knew death had taken hold somehow. He knew I was gone. I didn't have to tell him that I was beginning to use LSD that was causing me to forget vocabulary words and talk with a kind of slur. I didn't have to explain that I had been introduced to cocaine and crystal meth that I preferred to administer through a needle in my arm. He couldn't see the STD I was carrying. I'm not sure if he even knew that I had been arrested a few weeks prior for a DUI. Yet, there I was before him in some surreal way, alive, but dead.

I remember we left from the "Shack" and went to a bowling alley where he was attempting to find me. I can't remember making any coherent responses to his stumbling questions. I only remember feeling sure that my life was over, or soon would be. I had no questions for him and no thoughts to share. I only hoped the time would be short so I would not have to feel so awkward, squinting into the light of reality. He was gracious to me that day and I remembered hoping that he could see me again some day, some how, in true "Brende" form.

Not much later I was evicted, but not before I was required to clean the pit. I spent one whole weekend filling over 40 large hefty bags with goopy, smelly trash and fly larva after four successful bug bombs had cleared the way. This motley memory I believe was the foreshadowing of the spiritual work required to bring back my heart and soul from the dead.