Horses 

“But Liz, they have horses at this one!” my mom excitedly announced to me, with my two older siblings on each shoulder as if angels sent from God. She was pitching fancy pants Californian rehabs to moi. You know, the ones celebrity kids go to when the paparazzi catches them with a one hitter. My mom, who has known me for 22 god damn years, has never heard me utter the desire, nor the fucking word, horse. Or cowboy. And I’m pretty certain I was the only one in the family to not gush over Clint Eastwood in Outlaws (has anyone canceled him yet?). What was more concerning over her wish to send me away for 90 days, was the fact that she didn’t know me well enough to know I wouldn’t give one single fuck, one single shit, about this facility having horses. What in the Lady Gaga creatively producing Polaroid is this place? All coming from a girl who thought eating meat was kin. I went outside for a breath of fresh air, and looked up at the airplanes, most likely departing from Newark, and told myself they were stars. Lying to oneself. I felt no one got hurt by me pretending those luminous spheroids held by gravity, could maybe once in a while, get confused with a commercial plane- and vice versa. And no one seemed to be getting hurt by me stealing my moms stockpile of trazzys, and zonking out at bars with friends. Some might even say that is harmless behavior. I mean, think about it. Our air is smog at this point. We are living at the end of the world. A man on a date teared up to me over Dragon Ball Z. I considered nothing serious anymore. But I get it. You have a baby. The baby is cute. The baby toddles up store aisles, and you think the baby is worth something great-no-worth something better than great. My mom didn’t have the word, but she felt that unbeknownst word deeply, and attributed some resort cosplaying as a rehab would dust that word off, maybe even tweak it up a bit. I wonder what she would think if I revealed the (assuming?) truth that, most likely, all the people there were fucking each other? Or when I joked about finding my husband in group, because that’s always a success story. I said anything to put the conversation to rest, until she threw my sock at me and defeatingly muttered, “fine kill yourself. But when you do, know that I will stop taking my medication, and you’ll not only be depriving your siblings of a sister, but of their mother as well”. Dammit. Let me look at the pamphlet. Dammit. The weather’s quite lovely there. Dammit. I suddenly saw myself surrender to the idea. Seeing yourself die, despite the gummy vitamins, almost seemed more effort than it was worth. It was time I tried harder to be an alive daughter slash sister slash person.

“Ok, what's the deal with the horses anyway? Oh, they are pretty cute. How many are there? Do I get to keep one when this is all over?”