Wake-up call for those in pain

I am a oddity in my culture. Or am I? Exactly who is the oddity and who is the norm?

I do not drink and I do not do drugs. That's not to say that I haven't drank and I haven't done drugs. It just does not fit in with my world. And, in fact, it causes me pain and anger. Not the substances themselves, but the hold they have on my loved ones.

Pain because I see the harm it does to the bright, wonderful people I know and care for. Wonderful, funny, loving people turned into curled up husks filled with empty words and drops of self-loathing. Pain because they were wonderful once and choose to be other than wonderful for now. Maybe forever. Pain because I refuse to accept the state they are in as normal. Pain because I fight for them by rejecting the person they have become. Pain because they ask so much of me. More than flesh and blood. More than money and time, because they ask for bits of my soul. Every day. Pain because I cannot drown my hurt in the white man's substances like they do.

Anger is also part of my diet. Mostly anger because they do not see themselves as having any other life. They point at others like them and say to me, "Look, this is who we are. This is our culture." They ignore the others like me, we who don't exist. It makes me angry they have accepted this as their life. That they are afraid to know anything else but shame and self-hate. It makes me angry that I'm helpless for the most part. It makes me angry that I feel guilty for having a happy life, when others will never know what that is like, that they think because of their race they are barred from happiness forever from birth, or what it feels like to be happy for more than a few days. For a few months. For a year. For a lifetime.

Wake up.

We are not forever cursed because we have Nuna in our blood. We should be proud that we don't not mix well with the Western man's chemical burdens. We should accept we will never be the white men and women in the alcohol commercials, wearing black suits and shiny dresses, smiling on the sidewalks. If we try to be them, we will only end up hating ourselves even more, because we can never change our history and the dark hue of our hair.

Wake up.

Did you know that one of the characteristics of alcoholics is that they black out? That "normal" people never black out. And that when you black out it's because your brain is so flooded with poison that it shuts down. And all that is left alive is a tiny section the size of a walnut that only knows how to do a few things: fight, run, eat, have sex, sleep. You become a monkey, a monkey with no memory.

I know this being. I've seen it take my loved ones. This walnut-sized brain being. This being brings so much pain to the world. It takes away our people's ability to deal with normal stress, to deal with life's hardships. It trains our people to know nothing of coping, of dealing, of uniting with others in love and caring. It steals and robs them of happiness. It lies to them, telling them it's normal.

Wake up.

I wish I could wake up. To a world filled with my people, more of them happy than sad. With brown, beautiful people coping and loving each other. With less people causing hurt to themselves and to those they love. With fewer people making it OK for this pain to exist. With fewer people being so accepting that because of our skin we should hate ourselves for not being different. With fewer people accepting pain as "normal."

Wake up.

Wake up.

Rainey Nasugraq Higbee grew up in Point Hope and attended college in Northern California, where she earned a degree in studio art. She was a teacher in Barrow for a couple years after attending graduate school at UAF. She now lives in Anaktuvuk with her fiance, working as a artist mainly making jewelry and 2-D art. Visit her online store at salmonberrydreams.etsy.com and her blog at salmonberryblood.blogspot.com.