Renaissance

They watched me blossom.

I’d come in a scared, shy little thing with more whiskey in my system than I knew how to deal with. I was frail and emaciated, only 110 pounds, and my skin was sallow. My hair was limp and my eyes were haunted.

They put me in the detox room. I sweat bullets every night and would wander into the cafeteria for a ginger ale. The techs would page me when I needed to get my medications, sometimes waking me up from my stupor.

I felt terrified. I felt like a newborn, and I felt my mother’s death more acutely than I had when I had tried to drink it away.

Slowly, I began to re-emerge. When my detox period ended, I’d sit under the sun in my black and white bathing suit and stare up at the Florida sky. I’d let its rays work on me, softening the effects of the harsh winter that had tried to eviscerate me.

I began to talk again. I made new friends. Eventually, I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

I ate. I slept. I walked the grounds. I met the spiritual guru and he took me under his wing. Laughter found me. I would laugh, truly laugh, until my stomach hurt.

D would invite me to sing with her at karaoke. Friends I’d made would invite me to go swimming with them in the saltwater pool. I moved down from In-Patient to PHP. I moved from the detox room to the little house and had my own room and bathroom.

I went on field trips, and when I came back on Saturday evenings, I sang in front of an audience for the first time since I’d been raped.

I sang Patsy Cline for my Grammy, her favorite singer next to Nat King Cole. And to my great surprise, my voice was adulated and well-loved. The nurses noted how I had the voice of a woman for such a tiny thing. The color bloomed in my cheeks again. Men did double-takes and women noted how beautiful I looked. Techs kept asking me what I was doing that made my hair look so gorgeous.

We would do daily check-ins. “Today I’m feeling…” Insert a word or an emotion. “Physically I am…”

One of my last days there, I wore a red silk dress with polka dots and spaghetti straps P had gotten for me. I wore it with some lipstick a housemate had given me.

It got time for my check-in, emotionally, I said, I felt pretty content, physically, I said…

And then one of my friends chimed in, “physically,” she said, “you are beautiful.”