“There is something about a closet that makes a skeleton terribly restless.” ~ Wilson Mizner
My early memories of skeletons involved people in my family — the ones we DIDN’T talk about.
- Grandpa Jack
- Great Uncle Mike
- Aunt Peggy
The one characteristic they shared was their alcoholism.
I learned from a very young age: We didn’t talk about alcoholism. Ever.
So from the age of 13, after I took my very first drink and experienced my very first drunk, I knew someday I too would take my place among those whose names were not mentioned.
Yup. Alcohol had me at an early age. All I could hope was its power over me would one day magically disappear.
That never happened, but something else DID.
I hit a frightening and humiliating bottom and was forced to accept the truth expressed by the adage:
– YOU’RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS –
The time came to open up my closet and let my skeletons out — to dance.
It happened one night after I got called out by my AA sponsor.
I told him I was having trouble writing my fourth step, my moral inventory. He said he wasn’t surprised since I never seemed willing to share the hard stuff in meetings.
OUCH!
He was right. I kept my closet closed and my skeletons locked away.
There were things I just would not share.
Humiliation for me was a fate worse than death.
Until it wasn’t.
It happened at a meeting where I was asked to share something I’d never shared before.
That proved to be a pivotal moment. Would I, or wouldn’t I, share?
I said to myself, “What the hell? Now is as good a time as any.”
I flung open the doors to my closet and out jumped this skeleton.
It was the story of the time I was in O’Hare Airport…
I’d been waiting to board a flight that got delayed due to weather. I was in the bar drinking with other passengers waiting for their flights. But where most were just nursing their drinks, I was power drinking.
Then — the next thing I remember:
- I woke up
- in an unfamiliar bed
- in an unfamiliar city
with absolutely no idea where I was or how I got there.
I thought I had fallen into a black hole.
I was so scared I jumped out of bed, bolted out the door in my underwear, and ran to the nearest newspaper stand — to find out where I was.
Trouble was, the door had shut behind me and I didn’t bring a key. All I could do was, humiliatingly, slink back to the front office of my motel — in my underwear — and penitently request a new key.
Apparently, I had flown to Philadelphia, rented a car, and then driven to Doylestown, Pennsylvania for some unknown reason.
Well, after I let that particular skeleton out, the meeting was set on fire.
Everyone had a skeleton story to tell.
Obviously, permission had been given to for all sorts of skeletons to dance.
A well-dressed woman sitting next to me told her story of a time at Kennedy Airport where she had lingered a little too long at the bar.
She, too, had woken up in a confused state at a hotel in Miami wondering how she got there.
Then, after rustling through her purse, she discovered her passport had been stamped in Rome the week before.
Apparently, she spent a week in a blackout in Italy before arriving back in Miami.
Another guy shared how he was drinking in his backyard in Stockton, California when he got the idea of gambling in Reno.
So off he went.
He remembers nothing of his time there, only waking up three days later back in Stockton — not alone, but with a woman he had married the night before while in Reno — a woman with whom he spent the next eight years.
💐
We all laughed uproariously as our skeletons danced around the room.
The laugh was on us as we ALL shared our “Emperor With No Clothes” stories.
As I tell this story I remember how cathartic it was to laugh at myself, to let others see me as I knew myself to be.
The sheer joy of that evening is indescribable.
We each acknowledged we were born broken and we will die broken. So why not celebrate our brokenness together!
Find a partner and have a good dance.
Just a thought…
Pat