Narrative

                                        Moving Adventures

             Beep, Beep, Beep. Alarm clock starts sounding, 5:30 am. Quickly, my hand reaches to smack the snooze button. Thoughts immediately begin racing through my brain. Is this really what I want to do? Have I completely lost my mind? Feelings of anxiety, fear, doubt, and excitement all race through my head at once. Nervous energy suddenly overtakes me, and it feels almost the same as an adrenaline rush, in a strange way. This is a decision that is about to completely change my life. Should I fall back asleep and pretend I never woke up, only in a cowardly attempt to punk out of the plan I arranged the previous night with Kass and Sid? Grabbing my yoga pants and t-shirt, I struggled to put my clothes on in the dark, without waking up my three roommates. I snatched my sneakers and headband to appear as if I were actually going for a jog, and met Kass and Sid at the front door. After the three of us managed to escape the house without waking anybody from the loud creaking of the front door, we began our walk. We all knew, at that point, we could turn back, go in the house and pretend like this adventure never happened, but we weren’t. We knew we were doing something, not only we couldn’t go back on, but something that was going to change everything. We were going home to face sobriety head on in the environment that caused us to leave in the first place.

The mile long walk to the grocery store pay phone felt more like 10 miles. The weather went through multiple emotions that morning, similar to ours. The clear blue sky, mixed with the warmth from the sun beating down on our faces, to the gloomy overcast quickly over taking. Finally, fading into a torrential down pour, only with the sun peeking through sections of the clouds. All within what couldn’t have been more than a thirty minute time span.

First phone call. “Hello.” After two months of not hearing from me, and the fact that it was only 4:45 am her time, I could hear the confusion in my mother’s voice as she was suddenly awoken from the phone ringing. She had that voice all moms have when they get that alarming phone call in the middle of the night that something is wrong with one of their children.

“Mom this place is a cult! I need you to come and get me, and call Kass and Sid’s moms too, they are leaving too.”

“Okay, when can I come and get you? Can I come today?”

“Yes,” I said with fear and relief in my voice.

“Don’t tell anybody I am coming. I will get up, take a shower, and come get you. I love you Krystal. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Now when I say cult I’m not talking about one of those crazy groups that ventures off and mass murders people or anything like that. Restorations Ministries had cultish behaviors such as cutting contact off with our families after being there several months. My lack of words with my mom were my way of telling her she was taking all three of us home that day, by beating around the bush. The irony of the situation was, she had helped all three of us get into Restoration Ministries throughout the past year, and now she was coming to bring all three of us home. After finishing what we thought was going to be the hard part, we started walking back to the house discussing how we were going to go about our day. We reached the conclusion to keep our mouths shut. Well, that would have all worked out if only Sid left the proper message on her mom’s voicemail.

Instead, “Mom, I am okay. This place is a cult, I am leaving, DON’T call Krystal’s mom.”  Naturally, panic set in when Kelly received this message. Immediately, she called the founder of the program wondering what was going on and why her daughter wants to leave rehab. So much for smooth sailing till my mom got there. Next, we found ourselves being separately interrogated by multiple authorities of the program. By far, this was the hardest part of the day. Imagine trying to explain to “authorities,” that you think you are being brainwashed by a cult in which they started, while remaining calm and respectful. To say the least, it didn’t go over so well. Of course they accused us of conspiring to leave and go get high. Surprisingly, those weren’t our intentions. Finally, after facing multiple disputes, explaining ourselves, and saying goodbyes to twelve roommates as they left for work, we began to pack. Now, you may think that being in rehab and living with several other people, there can’t be much to pack untrue. After living somewhere for a year one would be surprised at possessions that have been attained. Moving was pure chaos with only a nights notice. By the time my mom got there we had a 4’ by 15’ hallway lined up with bags and loose articles of clothing, piled knee high, to fit into her Lincoln MKZ. The MKZ is a spacious vehicle, considering it’s a car, but not big enough to move three girls from Chicago to Ohio. After detouring to UPS, we enjoyed our move home discussing all of our favorite memories about people we encountered, life experiences over the past year, and how we ended up leaving rehab.