My name is Carmen. My, um, my brother is an addict. My brother was an addict.
And this morning, I, um, sorry. I forgot. Before I came to Al-Anon, I was a cook.
I mean, I'm still a cook. I'm just a different kind of cook, I guess. My brother and I, we would cook a lot together, especially when we were kids.
That's when we were closest. Food was always our common ground. We wanted to open a restaurant together.
We had a name. We had a vibe. All of it.
My brother could make you feel confident in yourself. You know, like when I was a kid, if I was nervous, I was scared, I wouldn't want to do something, he'd always tell me to just face it. Get it over with.
He would always say-- stupid. He would always say, um, let it rip. He was loud.
He was hilarious. And he had this amazing ability. He could just-- he could walk into a room, and he could take the temperature of it instantly.
You know, he could just-- he could dial it. And, um, I'm not built like that, man. I, um, I didn't have a lot of friends growing up.
I had a stutter when I was a kid. I was scared to speak half the time. And I got shitty grades because I couldn't pay attention in school.
I didn't get into college. I didn't have any girlfriends. I don't think I'm funny.
I always thought my brother was my best friend. Like-- like we just knew everything about each other. Except everybody thought he was their best friend, you know?
He was that-- he was that magnetic. And, um, I didn't know my brother was using drugs. What does that say?
As we got older, I realized I didn't know anything about him, really. He stopped letting me into the restaurant a couple of years ago. He just cut me off cold.
And that-- that hurt, you know? And I think that just-- that flipped the switch in me, where I was like, OK. Fuck you.
Watch this. And because we had this connection through food, and he had made me feel so rejected and lame and shitty and uncool, I made this plan where I was going to go work in all the best restaurants in the world. You know?
Like I'm going to go work in real kitchens. Like, fuck Mom and Dad's piece of shit, right? And it sounds ridiculous, you know, me saying that now.
But that's what I did. And I got the shit kicked out of me. And I separated herbs.
And I shucked oysters and clams and uni. And I cut myself. And I got garlic and onions and peppers in my fingernails and in my eyes.
And my skin was dry and oily at the same time. I had calluses on my fingers from the knives, and my stomach was fucked. And it was everything.
And a couple of years later, this funny thing happened, which is, like, for the first time in my life, I started to find this station for myself. And I was fast. I wasn't afraid.
And it was clear. And I felt-- I felt OK, you know? I knew which vegetables went together.
Proteins, temperature, sauces, all that shit. And when somebody new came into the restaurant to stage, I'd look at them like they were a competition. Like, I'm going to smoke this motherfucker.
I felt like I could speak through the food, like I could communicate through creativity. And that kind of confidence, you know, like I was finally-- I was good at something. That was so new, and that was so exciting.
And I just wanted him to know that. And fuck, I just wanted him to be like, good job. And the more he wouldn't respond, and the more our relationship kind of strained, the deeper into this I went, and the better I got.
And the more people I cut out, the quieter my life got. And the routine of the kitchen was so consistent and exacting and busy and hard and alive, and I lost track of time, and he died. And he left me his restaurant.
And over the last couple of months, I've been trying to fix it, because it was in rough shape. And I think it's very clear that me trying to fix the restaurant was me trying to fix whatever was happening with my brother. And I don't know, maybe fix the whole family, because that restaurant, it has and it does mean a lot to people.
It means a lot to me. I just don't know if it ever meant anything to him.
