I threw up a few times this morning. I stared blankly at the chunks of my peanut butter toast that floated in the blue bucket I was given by my mum, alongside the palpable disappointment.
Briefly I remembered the events from the night before: the sound of laughter, a full glass, an empty glass, dry heaving, my friend’s dinner in a black bucket next to his bed. After we put him to bed, I was walked to the station by two people I barely knew a few hours before, but after bonding over buckets it felt as natural as toast.
These sort of nights are not what I imagined when I was younger, and thought about how it would be to be all ‘grown up.’ I wanted to be a firefighter – but not just any firefighter, I wanted to be a firefighter with a hat.
Now, however, it seems as if the only thing I am capable of effectively extinguishing are my hopes and dreams. Every glass of that tempting, pain-killing poison, every night awake till 3am to escape responsibility, or to feel like I am for a brief moment in control of my life and I can do what I want. It all adds to the increasingly extinguished dream life I once wished for.
All this may sound rather bleak, but it is in those worst moments that there is usually a sliver of motivation again. Motivation that is resuscitated by feeling so close to death. Gone are the days of firefighter dreams, but at least there is hope.
Though I must say, the hope comes at the strangest moments. In this case, I was staring at my measly breakfast floating in my bile, in a blue bucket. I took a deep breath, and stood up. It was a bit too much to ask, but after one more heave I was ready to not just let my life be buckets and toast.