Evelyn Kane

I remember a time when I felt unrecognizable to myself.

They say you get wiser with age. What they don’t say is that wisdom is often purchased through trauma — and trauma doesn’t leave when the event ends. It lingers. It reshapes you. It settles into quiet corners of your mind long after the moment has passed.

Why is that?

You remember the faces. The words. The way your chest tightened. But the memory itself feels distorted, like it happened underwater. The reality blurs. How could something so tragic have unfolded the way it did?

My answer was alcohol.

I numbed it. All of it.

If the bottle was near, the ache softened. The edges dulled. For a while, that was enough.

But slowly, the focus shifted. I stopped thinking about the trauma and started thinking about the drink. About when I could have it. How much I needed it. Whether I could get through the day without it.

In trying to quiet the pain, I created a new one.

So which was worse — the trauma itself, or the thing I used to survive it?