Rock bottom. Rock bottom is a place or event in a person's life that is inevitable. At some point it will come about and like getting the chicken pox, once it happens, you're in the clear for the rest of your life experience. Rock. Fucking. Bottom. Been there, done that, got the t shirt. Right?
My face was numb, and I was glad the repetitive cheese-grater effect the asphalt had on my cheek was no longer painful. I stared past the assorted tires lined up in the parking lot of shadows and streetlights fighting for dominance. Wishing my entire body would quickly follow suit and perhaps even somehow find a way to stop my involuntary breath or heartbeat, I continued to feel the burning and ripping sensations of being forcibly entered over and over. Hands were everywhere all at once. They pressed into my shoulders and back, crushing me under the weight of their owners, they pulled at my hair, gripped my ankles, and clawed at my skin.
Every once in a while, I could see a pair of shoes headed in the direction of a vehicle several rows away and I somehow had the mind space to wonder about who owned them. Making up a story in my head about the passing shoes helped. A beat-up and scribbled on set of red Chucks shuffled along and I imagined they belonged to a recent high school graduate, back at his old stomping grounds to relive the feeling of Friday Night Lights. Flirty sandals traipsed behind the Chucks and I settled on the scenario that the girl wearing them had a crush on the Red Chucks boy and she had been following him around all night, trying to get his attention. Going the opposite way, tan men's dress shoes trudged heavily and I decided they were worn by a tired middle aged algebra teacher who had stayed at the high school late grading tests and wasn't even there to watch the game. I prayed for more shoes to pass by so as to keep my mind busy.
As the sounds coming from the bleachers around the football field began to shift in energy and volume, I checked back in with myself. The five men who's hands had been on me while they took turns tearing into me were scuffling around, jeering and grabbing at articles of clothing on the pavement and odds and ends that had tumbled to the ground in the commotion of pants being pulled down drunken and haphazardly. A matchbook. A pager. A lighter and pack of cigs. $1.92 total in change (yes, I counted it). All was picked up off the chip-seal and hurriedly shoved back into the pockets that were once again straight and aligned as they should be. One stumbled over my legs and I wondered why I had not run away or even moved yet.
My face was numb, and I was glad the repetitive cheese-grater effect the asphalt had on my cheek was no longer painful. I stared past the assorted tires lined up in the parking lot of shadows and streetlights fighting for dominance. Wishing my entire body would quickly follow suit and perhaps even somehow find a way to stop my involuntary breath or heartbeat, I continued to feel the burning and ripping sensations of being forcibly entered over and over. Hands were everywhere all at once. They pressed into my shoulders and back, crushing me under the weight of their owners, they pulled at my hair, gripped my ankles, and clawed at my skin.
Every once in a while, I could see a pair of shoes headed in the direction of a vehicle several rows away and I somehow had the mind space to wonder about who owned them. Making up a story in my head about the passing shoes helped. A beat-up and scribbled on set of red Chucks shuffled along and I imagined they belonged to a recent high school graduate, back at his old stomping grounds to relive the feeling of Friday Night Lights. Flirty sandals traipsed behind the Chucks and I settled on the scenario that the girl wearing them had a crush on the Red Chucks boy and she had been following him around all night, trying to get his attention. Going the opposite way, tan men's dress shoes trudged heavily and I decided they were worn by a tired middle aged algebra teacher who had stayed at the high school late grading tests and wasn't even there to watch the game. I prayed for more shoes to pass by so as to keep my mind busy.
As the sounds coming from the bleachers around the football field began to shift in energy and volume, I checked back in with myself. The five men who's hands had been on me while they took turns tearing into me were scuffling around, jeering and grabbing at articles of clothing on the pavement and odds and ends that had tumbled to the ground in the commotion of pants being pulled down drunken and haphazardly. A matchbook. A pager. A lighter and pack of cigs. $1.92 total in change (yes, I counted it). All was picked up off the chip-seal and hurriedly shoved back into the pockets that were once again straight and aligned as they should be. One stumbled over my legs and I wondered why I had not run away or even moved yet.
This was Rock Bottom. What I didn't know was that Rock Bottom would happen again and again throughout my life. Each time I made it out of the depths of Rock Bottom, I leveled up and would eventually find myself evaluating my situation and realizing that I had once again hit Rock Bottom. It looked different, it felt different, but I got through it somehow over and over. There was common thread of that NOW, THIS TIME was TRULY Rock Fucking Bottom. The thread being the moment of decision between clawing my way up from where I was and fighting to grow and live or giving in to the narration in my head and heavy feeling in my heart to just end it all and never try again. The decision made to take the next breath or not. The voice and feeling telling me that the easier, more sensible, less uncomfortable, and better-for-everyone solution was to just slink off into the darkness and let it envelope me so I was never seen again. Face down bleeding in the parking lot, asphalt rock imbedded in my face and palms and my legs in certain areas, shallow breathing, with eyes too exhausted to stay open fully, and so alone that the emptiness was ringing in my ears, I registered my first encounter with Rock Bottom.
I thought carefully and logistically of my options at that moment. Could I lay there, unnoticed, my breathing slower and more shallow, my body becoming more and more still, until eventually my subconscious pattern of inhalations and exhalations gave up and my body quieted to a complete halt? What might I miss out on if that was the case? I was supposed to clean my room the next morning, early, before volleyball practice. What would happen to my room, if Rock Bottom took me for good? Would my teammate find another carpool ride to practice? Who would take my place on the team as an outside hitter? My parents would be sad, but would they really? More likely, a social token gesture and after a little while they would talk of me admiringly and fondly but not that I had rocked the course of their lives? My other option, to peel my unwilling and heavy body off the asphalt and find my way to my friends or even better yet- home-- was daunting, difficult, and daring. What a lonely, scary, hollow place to be, where being alive hurts too much, and you are stranded at your lowest moment, digging for any reason or scrap of strength to pull yourself up. Rock. Fucking. Bottom.
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