(no subject)
I’m a girl of many medicines.
The plethora of pills I am prescribed for various ailments is nothing new. I’ve popped anywhere from two to eight pills before bed each night since I came to college over three years ago.
As convenient as it would be, the supply is not infinite. It is, in fact, a mere 30 days before I’ve had to make the trek to our friendly Drake neighborhood Walgreens for my next round. And when I say “trek,” I mean it’s been at most a block a way and at the closest across the street and in view from my bedroom window.
I started seeing Scottie in January of my freshman year. We fell in love quickly but became even faster friends.
Even to this day, there are few things I can say to that man’s-and our relationship’s-discredit. He and his family adored me, my family and I adored him, we did fun things together. I explored so much with him, in so many ways. And for as much unknown territory as he led me into, I had never felt safer. I had never felt more in sync with another human being, more molded for another person’s body, more comfortable and at-ease.
But you know what? Comfort and ease turned into habit, and that habit turned into a crutch. We were always playing house. It was all so easy, and it was all so safe. It’s easy to need it once you have it. By the end of the relationship, I didn’t even want to go to Walgreens by myself to get my own prescriptions.
If he didn’t have time to go with me, if I had to wait another few (or 12) hours, I waited to have him drive me to the pick-up window or walk with me across the street. If he absolutely couldn’t, I whined like a child and made sure he knew how much it inconvenienced me.
That crutch crippled me. It crippled us.
Fast forward to now, when this girl of many medicines spent all day running around campus in the rain, finishing edits on stories for tomorrow’s issue and playing bingo with Alzheimer’s patients at a local retirement home. It was 8:30 by the time I could think about the fact that I ran out of nortiptyline last night.
It should probably be noted that our friendly Drake neighborhood Walgreens isn’t actually so friendly. I wrote a column about it after a string of sexual assaults rocked our campus last semester. Precariously situated between quaint Beaverdale and a less-charming, inner-city neighborhood, campus and its immediately surrounding area isn’t a place one should wander around at night.
But with no second thought about it, I grabbed my keys and walked by myself to the car. I drove the several blocks to Walgreens, clutched my wallet and got what I needed. As I left, I got one of those “hey baby” whistles from a parked car I passed. I shrugged it off, got in my car and went home. By myself.
I had a really lonely summer in Des Moines. It didn’t go according to plan, needless to say. I spent it debilitated by my sadness and frozen by the fact that I didn’t know how to be without Scottie.
I don’t have that anymore.
I’m a girl of many medicines. (Hey, I’m down to five daily pills now.) But I’m crutchless.
The plethora of pills I am prescribed for various ailments is nothing new. I’ve popped anywhere from two to eight pills before bed each night since I came to college over three years ago.
As convenient as it would be, the supply is not infinite. It is, in fact, a mere 30 days before I’ve had to make the trek to our friendly Drake neighborhood Walgreens for my next round. And when I say “trek,” I mean it’s been at most a block a way and at the closest across the street and in view from my bedroom window.
I started seeing Scottie in January of my freshman year. We fell in love quickly but became even faster friends.
Even to this day, there are few things I can say to that man’s-and our relationship’s-discredit. He and his family adored me, my family and I adored him, we did fun things together. I explored so much with him, in so many ways. And for as much unknown territory as he led me into, I had never felt safer. I had never felt more in sync with another human being, more molded for another person’s body, more comfortable and at-ease.
But you know what? Comfort and ease turned into habit, and that habit turned into a crutch. We were always playing house. It was all so easy, and it was all so safe. It’s easy to need it once you have it. By the end of the relationship, I didn’t even want to go to Walgreens by myself to get my own prescriptions.
If he didn’t have time to go with me, if I had to wait another few (or 12) hours, I waited to have him drive me to the pick-up window or walk with me across the street. If he absolutely couldn’t, I whined like a child and made sure he knew how much it inconvenienced me.
That crutch crippled me. It crippled us.
Fast forward to now, when this girl of many medicines spent all day running around campus in the rain, finishing edits on stories for tomorrow’s issue and playing bingo with Alzheimer’s patients at a local retirement home. It was 8:30 by the time I could think about the fact that I ran out of nortiptyline last night.
It should probably be noted that our friendly Drake neighborhood Walgreens isn’t actually so friendly. I wrote a column about it after a string of sexual assaults rocked our campus last semester. Precariously situated between quaint Beaverdale and a less-charming, inner-city neighborhood, campus and its immediately surrounding area isn’t a place one should wander around at night.
But with no second thought about it, I grabbed my keys and walked by myself to the car. I drove the several blocks to Walgreens, clutched my wallet and got what I needed. As I left, I got one of those “hey baby” whistles from a parked car I passed. I shrugged it off, got in my car and went home. By myself.
I had a really lonely summer in Des Moines. It didn’t go according to plan, needless to say. I spent it debilitated by my sadness and frozen by the fact that I didn’t know how to be without Scottie.
I don’t have that anymore.
I’m a girl of many medicines. (Hey, I’m down to five daily pills now.) But I’m crutchless.