ADDERALL DIDN’T PAINT MY TOENAILS

I tossed my mom-bag in the corner and sank into the worn hand-me-down chair, wishing it were sitting in my new apartment. That’s when Charlie, my second-oldest daughter in the all-girl 4-pack biological sister squad, started the night off. The night I drove 2 hours at night to obtain leftover stimulants prescribed to my daughter because I’d run out that week. When I’d called her earlier, it was no big deal. She’d told me to drop by and she’d give me her leftovers to get me through the rest of the week until mine could get refilled. She didn’t like taking it, so it seemed like a win for me.

She sank into the couch next to me as her younger sister Daisy popped into the kitchen. “Shall we rip the band-aid off?” Charlie inquired towards her little sister, Daisy 19 at the time. It was her way, at the age of 23, to address the drug issue I’d been high functioning in for way too long. 15 years to be exact. It wasn’t like I’d never tried to get help. I’d told doctors and therapists I had a problem, but when you are high-functioning, you don’t readily receive help. Instead, you end up receiving judgment and becoming hopeless. Hopeless enough, you simply no longer care. You shoulder all the blame and the guilt and eventually the clutter overtakes your life. No outlet. So, you simply turn on the automate button and just begin to exist.

It was her way to host a last-minute intervention for me. The Corgi zoomed between the two middle sisters before settling next to my feet. Hammer toes. Toes that looked like tiny little hammers with the ends like little marbles curling like a hammer. Sexy feet were not in the cards for me. Toenails resembling a prostitute who ran out of nail polish. Chipped, ragged. Unkept. Uncared for. Neglected. Hopeless. They didn’t promote self-care, or resemble any evidence that my lack of a polished pedicure etiquette was the product of being a single mom who successfully raised 4 daughters to seek out degrees, and life goals rather than settle for a guy and a baby in their early 20’s like several of their former classmates. My toenail polish did not represent a woman who was successful nor proud of what role she’d played in shaping these 4 daughters

And me … my toenails definitely didn’t fit the narrative of a professional with a Bachelor’s degree and a spicy resume reflecting my ability to sell my skill set across multiple industries. A current adult high school English teacher with 17 years of education total under my belt, a recent former process engineer, and a brief success in the manufacturing world.

Not someone with cruddy toenails. Embarrassed, yet unbothered – I stared at them. The cruddy toenails. We all did. Except for the other 2 daughters, Marie, and Gretchen, who were clearly not invited to my self-inflicted intervention -it was just the three of us and the dog. The intervention I had set up earlier that day by asking Jordyn if I could have the rest of her Adderall because mine didn’t get filled at the pharmacy for a few more days. What was unsaid was that I left out that it was because I gobbled up the entire batch in a single week, and now I was out.

Again.

She ripped off the band-aid. “Mom, you’re not getting the Adderall. You’re an addict. You have a problem. I didn’t know how bad it was until Daisy fucking told me.”

Charlie stood in the apartment’s kitchen. Their 2-bedroom kitchen and living room are bigger than my entire apartment, just 2 hours away in Kansas City. I continued to stare at my ugly toes, made uglier by my ownership of my lack of self-care. Story of my life. Me avoiding shame.

I sighed. What she said was true. The fat loaf beside me inched closer, perhaps understanding how worthless I felt. Or he was also embarrassed by my worse than hooker toenail job and chipped and faded toenail polish. At least it was a tasteful shade of green, matching the fall vibe and not hooker red. At least I had that going for me.

“Ok.”

The girls wanted their mom back.

I wanted my life back.

“How did it start?” Charlie asked? 22 now. Daisy still in the kitchen but now slouching over the bar, just turned 21.

“The Pyschiatrist. Back in Iowa.” I said. “I started with highest dose and at the time all 4 of you were in elementary and I simply wasn’t enough. I was in grad school too. So that didn’t help. She prescribed me two doses a day. That’s when I realized I couldn’t be enough unless I had medication to get everything done. The next I knew, it took over. I began to think that everything good I did was because of the medication. Teaching, writing, mommin, all of it.”

The girls sat there. Their mom is an addict.

I got up and grabbed a bottle of nail polish, and came back to the living room. I began to paint my toenails. The same green. It’s trending.

Sometimes, a girl just has to get up and do something about a thing. Afterall, I had 4 daughters in 5 years and completed a bachelor’s degree without ADHD medication. I did that. All me.

“That’s a good color, Mom.” Charlie said. The daughter currently enrolled in beauty school. “You got this, Mom.”

I scooted the wide-bodied loaf you could call a dog over as a single corgi hair imprinted on my big toe. I plucked it from the polish, noticing it left an imprint.

“Yup. I do.”

There are many things that drift into our life to imprint us. To leave their mark. As I sat there wondering if to cover up the strand now embodied into my fresh coat of paint, I decided to leave it. The truth was that this relationship with stimulants to help my executive function wake up allowing me to experience life like normal processing individuals didn’t have to be so shameful and so bad. I simply had to allow the imprints of its impact have a voice and embrace the help into my daily. I decided at that moment – it was no longer worth the fight, the desperation, the shame, the deceit, and the lies surrounding its usage.

No more hooker toenails for this girl. Not anymore. No more trying to cover up the imprint left on my life from decisions. It was time to step into my life and use the imprints to level up and become the woman I’ve always been.