A Million Years with You by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Author:Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I left Beech Hill on New Year’s Eve after a stay of two weeks. Because Beech Hill was in sight of our house, I told my fellow addicts that when I got home I would signal to them with a flashlight to show I was thinking of them. But when I got home I found our house full of guests who were waiting to have New Year’s Eve dinner, which I then began to prepare, and I forgot to signal with the flashlight. My friends at Beech Hill waited in the Lung for hours, but I failed them. Although years have gone by, some of them still remind me of this. It’s one of my deep regrets.

Why did my friends want to see the flashlight? Because of the fellowship. We had achieved a closeness unparalleled in any other setting. When I see one of those people on the street I get a little squirt of joy. We stop and chat. We hug each other. I think the reason I forgot to signal was that I felt out of place in my own kitchen. I was there with my family and our closest friends, but although they knew I’d been in Beech Hill, they had no idea what had happened to me there, or how much the experience had changed me.

Of course I stopped drinking, but that seemed like a relatively minor change, because the real one was greater. All of us there had known important darkness. I’d thought the darkness was my own, but I learned that others also knew it. They said things I’d never heard before. I said things I’d never said before. Many of us, perhaps all of us, emerged as different people. My friends and family in the kitchen were not those people. I don’t remember ever feeling so alone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.