if none of it happened
1581 Words
Sometimes late at night, when the world is quiet and Elijah is asleep and the only sound in the room is the hum of a fan or the rain against the window, I think about it.
What if none of it happened?
What if I never touched a cigarette at ten years old?
What if I never followed the wrong people trying to feel accepted?
What if cocaine never entered my life?
What if meth never found me?
What if needles never touched my skin?
What if I never met the people who dragged me deeper into darkness while pretending they cared about me?
What if there were no overdoses?
No abusive relationships.
No c***k smoke clouding my lungs.
No alcohol poisoning my body years later.
No screaming matches.
No hospital beds.
No wheelchairs.
No scars.
No trauma.
No regret.
Who would I be?
I think about that girl sometimes.
The girl I could’ve become.
Maybe she would’ve gone to college right after high school.
Maybe she would’ve had a normal first apartment with cheap furniture and ramen noodles in the cupboards while trying to figure adulthood out slowly like everyone else.
Maybe she would’ve worked a stable job.
Maybe she would’ve traveled.
Maybe she would’ve had healthy relationships instead of toxic ones.
Maybe she would’ve made her parents proud earlier in life instead of making them worry if their daughter would survive another night.
Maybe she would’ve learned lessons the easy way instead of the painful way.
I imagine her sometimes.
Healthy.
Happy.
Whole.
Untouched by addiction.
Untouched by trauma.
Untouched by death.
And honestly?
Sometimes I envy her.
Because there are nights where the regret still hurts so deeply that I can physically feel it in my chest.
There are memories I wish I could rip out of my mind forever.
Things I’ve seen.
Things I’ve done.
Things I survived.
People I became.
Some nights I replay it all like a movie I can’t turn off.
I think about my parents.
How many nights they probably stayed awake wondering where I was.
Whether I was alive.
Whether the phone would ring with horrible news.
I think about all the lies I told.
The money wasted.
The trust broken.
The years lost.
And guilt is a strange thing.
Because even after you change… even after you grow… even after you become a better person…
The guilt still visits sometimes.
Especially at night.
Especially when life slows down enough for memories to get loud.
There are moments I wish I could go back in time and grab younger me by the shoulders.
I’d shake her.
I’d tell her:
“You don’t have to destroy yourself to survive.”
I’d tell her she doesn’t need substances to feel accepted.
I’d tell her she’s worth more than abusive love.
I’d tell her to stop running from herself.
I’d tell her to go hug her parents tighter.
I’d tell her to put the bottle down before it ruins everything.
I’d tell her life gets unimaginably hard later on, and she’s going to need her body healthy.
But life doesn’t work like that.
There’s no undo button.
No restarting.
No deleting entire chapters of your life because they hurt too much to read.
And for a long time, that reality destroyed me.
Because I truly believed I ruined my life beyond repair.
Especially after the accident.
That accident became the dividing line of my life.
Before it.
After it.
Before, I could run.
After, I couldn’t.
Before, I thought I had time.
After, I realized how quickly life can disappear.
There are still moments where I grieve the old me so hard it almost feels unbearable.
I miss stunt riding.
I miss freedom.
I miss standing on my own legs.
I miss feeling physically capable.
I miss the confidence I used to carry.
I miss not needing help.
I miss who I was before everything shattered.
And if none of it happened…
Maybe I’d still have all of that.
Maybe I’d still be racing quads through summer nights.
Maybe I’d still be fearless in all the wrong ways.
Maybe I’d still have my old body.
Maybe life would’ve been easier.
But then my thoughts always stop at the same place.
Elijah.
Because if none of it happened…
Would he even exist?
And that thought breaks me every single time.
Because suddenly the fantasy of a “perfect life” doesn’t feel perfect anymore.
Maybe if I stayed clean young, I would’ve gone down a completely different path.
Maybe I never would’ve met the people that eventually led to him.
Maybe I never would’ve gotten pregnant at sixteen.
Maybe October 17th, 2016 would’ve just been another ordinary day instead of the day that saved my life.
Maybe there would’ve been no two pink lines.
No tiny heartbeat.
No little boy calling me “Mom.”
No Elijah Brown.
And that thought feels unbearable.
Because I can survive losing my old life.
But I cannot imagine a life without my son in it.
I can’t.
He is too woven into my soul now.
His laugh.
His voice.
His personality.
The way he looks at me.
The way he hugs me.
The way he unknowingly gave me purpose when I had absolutely none left.
People think mothers save children.
But sometimes children save mothers first.
Elijah saved me before he was even born.
That tiny little life inside me forced me to stop destroying myself.
Forced me to fight.
Forced me to finally choose life.
If none of it happened…
Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten clean.
That’s the terrifying truth nobody sees.
People assume everyone eventually escapes addiction.
That isn’t reality.
A lot of people don’t make it out alive.
A lot of people overdose one final time.
A lot of people become stories people whisper about after funerals.
And knowing myself back then?
Knowing how deep I was?
Knowing how reckless I had become?
I honestly think I would’ve died eventually.
Maybe not that year.
Maybe not the next.
But eventually.
Because I wasn’t slowing down.
I was spiraling harder.
Every overdose should’ve been enough to stop me.
But addiction doesn’t work like logic.
You don’t think clearly anymore.
You survive something horrible, swear you’ll stop, then somehow end up right back where you started.
Over and over.
I was killing myself slowly without even realizing how badly I wanted help.
So maybe if none of it happened…
Maybe I’d actually be dead now.
That’s the part that chills me.
Because I used to romanticize the idea of a different life.
Now I realize I may never have survived long enough to reach it.
The pregnancy saved me.
The accident humbled me.
The wheelchair slowed me down long enough to truly see life.
Pain changed me.
Not instantly.
Not magically.
But deeply.
I became softer.
More grateful.
More aware.
More human.
I learned empathy through suffering.
I learned patience through loss.
I learned strength through surviving things that should’ve broken me completely.
Would I ever choose this life willingly?
No.
I’d never choose addiction.
I’d never choose trauma.
I’d never choose abuse.
I’d never choose paralysis.
I’d never choose the suffering my parents endured watching me self-destruct.
But life isn’t a menu.
You don’t get to select only the beautiful parts.
Sometimes the ugliest chapters shape you the most.
And that’s the complicated truth I’ve had to accept.
I regret my past deeply.
But I don’t regret who I became because of surviving it.
There’s a difference.
The younger version of me was reckless, angry, lost, and constantly running from herself.
The woman writing this now?
She fights for life.
She values mornings.
She values peace.
She values family.
She values sobriety.
She understands how fragile existence really is.
And most importantly…
She understands love now.
Real love.
Not toxic love.
Not manipulative love.
Not substance-fueled fake love.
Real love.
The kind that keeps you alive.
The kind that sits beside your hospital bed.
The kind that answers phone calls at three in the morning.
The kind that never fully gives up on you even when you give up on yourself.
My parents gave me that kind of love.
Elijah gives me that kind of love.
And maybe that’s why I can finally forgive myself a little more these days.
Not completely.
I still struggle.
I still have nights where regret tears through me.
I still cry over old memories.
I still mourn the person I could’ve been.
But I also honor the person I became.
Because she survived.
Against all odds, she survived.
And if none of it happened…
Maybe this story never would’ve existed at all.
Maybe there would be no lessons.
No growth.
No redemption.
No second chance.
Just another ordinary life untouched by darkness.
And maybe that sounds peaceful.
But it also means I’d never truly understand how precious life actually is.
The girl I used to be thought she was invincible.
The woman I am now knows life is fragile.
And fragile things deserve care.
So no…
I wouldn’t relive my past.
I wouldn’t choose it again.
But I also can’t completely wish it away anymore.
Because hidden inside all that pain…
Was Elijah.
Was survival.
Was growth.
Was a version of me that finally woke up.
And maybe that’s the hardest truth of all:
Sometimes the worst things that ever happened to us are also the things that kept us alive long enough to become who we were meant to be.
- Writer
