I tug at the sleeves of my sweater as I rock back and forth on the hospital floor. A girl around my age tucks a strand of her turquoise hair behind her ear and sits in the chair beside me, her knees up under her chin.

In the pre-dawn silence, before the sun wrests the veils of frost from our windows, I hear someone running down the hall—small, naked feet sprinting toward my bed. I’m only half awake, half expectant, but when I feel the mattress dip under the pressure of new weight and a warm body pressed against my back, I know it’s my son and I know he’s had another bad dream. Maybe it’s Captain Hook again or Shredder, the knife-toting villain from the Ninja Turtles.

From October 2020 until February 2022, every Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. until 11:15 a.m., I dedicated my time to taking a shower. My weekly Wednesday ritual also included my virtual therapy session at 1:00 p.m., so I began my day changing out the week-old unwashed pajamas to shampoo and deep condition my hair, shaving my legs, and exfoliating my body. As I undress, starting with my crew socks, I focus on my parent’s medicine cabinet. Although not my bathroom, this is my childhood bathroom, as there is one shared shower. Next, my black sweatpants and long sleeve-stained John Mayer tour shirt from 2017 hit the blue tile.

The despair is back. It’s so familiar that its return is almost comforting like seeing an old friend until you remember that friend is misery. I am miserable.

It is mid-February. I have made it through the big three without incident: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. My sober family had a party on January 2 to celebrate getting through the holidays without a drink and hopefully a minimal amount of amends. I proudly celebrated one year of sobriety on January 8.

I spent the morning weed whacking the pathways between my farm vegetable rows. Even in the slightly cooler morning hours, the heat was stifling, so I opted for shorts. Weed whacking done, I looked at myself, covered in dirt and grass clippings, dripping in sweat. I could hardly see my legs. Best not to head back to the house until lunchtime when I could hop in the shower. The tomatoes needed weeding, so I set to work pulling the lamb’s quarters and nutsedge from around the growing tomato vines.

Months into the pandemic, confined to our house by COVID-19 restrictions and the unrelenting Texas summer, I followed my restless eight-year-old into the pantry where the bulk of our interaction took place. We argued over what qualified as a healthy snack.

Brrring! The bell screeches, telling us that lunch is here.

A herd of tiny, boisterous bodies rushes into the open courtyard, waiting to eat, play, laugh, and talk together. Amongst them, a large group of girls congregate, buzzing with renewed excitement, eager to witness the daily ritual. I follow my friend, Githushka, out the door, rushing to get a prime spot.

Shapeshifting has been a facet of nearly every human culture, explored in art and literature through the ages. These human-animal entities can be glorious and divine, or sinister and grotesque. Typically, they exist symbolically—either the transformation or the resulting state is significant in some way. My own experience with shapeshifting was more clinically than artistically rendered, and I am still hazy on the message my experience was meant to convey.

You haven’t been home in a while. How long, I can’t quite say, but long enough for the stillness to solidify. Dust amasses discretely, until one day it forms a visible shell. I hear you brushing it off surfaces, coughing, groaning in disgust. There are many surfaces. But you’re determined.

It all comes down to an email.
You're not welcome back without a letter,
explaining your illness.

It was a Sunday in September and I was nursing one of the worst hangovers I’d had since college. Hours of restless sleep, lying completely still on my back in the dark, choking down stale crackers only to lose them again a few moments later; this became the day’s very unwelcome routine.

It all started last March. I was looking out the window while driving to a regular doctor appointment. It was a gloomy morning. I looked at the road and saw all the cows and farms on the country road that led me to the doctor’s office.

Leaving cardiac rehab, I don’t know yet that I will binge today. It’s after the binge that I realize it was a shadow clinging to my heel since I opened my eyes and stumbled to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth.

I remember the day I started taking antidepressants. I waited a couple days after picking up the prescription, partially in denial and partially terrified. I was a teacher at the time and had arrived at school early, scrambling to get some-sort-of-ready for the day.