11:00 am
Wow. Who would have thunk it?
Sorry for the silence lately. I’ve just been doing other things, i.e., life, instead of thinkin’ about drinkin’ (and everything that entails). This life and work and self-employment thing is alternately getting easier and kicking my ass!
Stay tuned, however, for regularly scheduled programming!
Day 200 + 2 weeks today! 🙂
8:39 pm
These days, I’ve become so used to such a parade of thoughts and feelings cycling in and out of my head (and heart) that I typically don’t know where to begin on these posts.
Write about what you know, someone smart once said.
I know about money. Well, I know about looking for it…maybe a little bit TOO MUCH. All my life, I’ve been avoiding my creativity with the excuse, But I need to make money. And well, I actually did, and I still do (need to make money). Lately, earning money–looking for work, to be exact–has become my number one stressor! I don’t have enough of it, money. I won’t have enough of it, literally. Yes, that would be me, staring back at you with my “Wachu talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” expression frozen onto my face whenever I hear about someone ELSE starting their own business, writing or otherwise. REALLY? WHY? What I wouldn’t fucking GIVE for a 9-to-5 job these days, somewhere to go where ya tell me what to do, and I do what ya tell me, and then ya pay me. Every two weeks.
Earning money has become my single biggest focus, and stressor. These days, it’s hard for me to even stay motivated for what seems like a neverending job search let alone remain jazzed enough about all the subject matter to ingest and write about it! Not only do I need money, but I need structure. I mean, how do others do it? I wake up anxious, frustrated, and sort of pissed off every morning; I’m so tired of looking for projects, fretting about finding them, pitching stories into black hole-email accounts! Others do it, and do it happily. Or, is that AFTER all the initial startup angst? To wit: it is October 3 and I have approximately 30 days to not only find, but EARN (that means, checks in the mail and/or deposited) $2800. While that doesn’t seem like much, it is. The publication cycle can take months, sometimes YEARS. I know I might be fooling myself and should have found a full-time job a long time ago, but it’s like, if others can do it, why shouldn’t I be able to?
There are so many things going through my head that wouldn’t otherwise be doing so if I wasn’t living here, too. It’s eye-opening to see just how many people are unemployed, or underemployed (ahem). It’s also disheartening to realize that NO ONE gives fuck about us! I mean, it’s easy to ignore the unemployment problem (nationwide, it’s still at about 7.5%) when YOU’RE EMPLOYED. This gets at the heart of a much larger problem which is that people aren’t raised to cooperate, they’re raised to compete. Even on this island–I should say, especially–there are so few jobs relative the the number of people who need and want jobs. I’m not local, and I’m white, so…yeah, it’s more difficult for me for various historical (lingering socioeconomic effects of the slave trade and colonization, to be blunt), social (my qualifications and work ethic might intimidate current employees), and cultural (I don’t have family here, so I don’t have an inside hookup) reasons.
All this should make me want to drink, and it did. It does. Today, it did a little bit.
However, here’s where physical activity comes in! Instead of thinking about drinking, I said, I’m out of here, and went to the beach. I hiked, and swam, and floated, and almost fell asleep in my beach chair. And by the end of it all, four hours later, I felt changed. Cleansed. A shift had occurred and a lot of the negativity had been washed away.
I also met a gold digger on the beach. Kind of literally. A guy who works in gold mining (I’m sure he’s got beaucoup bucks, but he didn’t want to talk much about his “work”). We chatted for a while and after, I realized I was glad. Glad for the connection. Glad for the human contact. Glad he reached out (of course, he did; my bad, but I still shy away from making “the first move” in initiating conversation these days). He’s not “from here,” and he’s new, so he’s able to see all the bad stuff and remind me that no, I’m not imagining things.
And then, I got to come home to an island house, walk two happy dogs, and make my go-to comfort foods du jour: mac and cheese and chana masala (still getting it right, but I figured out that food processing the tomatoes instead of dicing them makes for a much richer sauce).
And then, I wrote this. I feel like I can exhale now. Continue on. If I keep working, everything will turn out OK, worry or not. At least I’m sober, right? YES. All of this would be so much more dramatic and difficult if I was drinking. Do I want to drink? A part of my mind says yes, and that part is irrational and not worth acknowledging, at least tonight.
Happy almost-Friday!
11:55 pm
So, I realize I haven’t written for a while, and mainly it’s because I’ve been progressing through that “confusion”, aka, Life, I was talking about in my last post. I guess, looking back on the week, there’ve been ups, and downs, but overall, I’ve realized that it’s truly all small stuff, you know? Maybe if I had a full-time job in a big city, I’d see everything that creates stress or concern as “important?” Nah, I don’t think so. Nothing seems that important anymore! Maybe I’m just getting old, approaching that “don’t give a shit” age? No, I don’t think that’s it.
I think it’s getting sober that’s changing me. I’m beginning to see that I can work through things, even if they’re hard. And, I’m beginning to understand that I create the reality I live in. I can make it good, or I can make it bad. I can let it go, or I can hold onto it. Right now, I’m losing the desire to hold on because I see that it’s not a choice I have to make. I can make the other one, and it’s better for me. It’s one thing, for us “users of alcohol as a means to escape,” to understand this concept intellectually; it’s another to practice it and witness how hard it is, to go against our grain and do things differently than we’re used to (like, not arguing pointlessly with someone when we want to, or not getting nervous/anxious when we did before).
I’ve also come to see just how–and I don’t want to sound ungrateful, or like I’m thinking of drinking again–“over-concerned/uber-focused” I’ve been with and about my sobriety. I think it’s time to stop dwelling, to put on my big-girl pants and get on with things. Time to let go of the reins, to redirect my focus to like, anything BUT not drinking.
What are some of the small stuff that happened this week? I had a little “sober tantrum” last night, which is one of those seemingly instantaneous woe-is-me shifts-in-focus that just comes out of nowhere. Like, you’re riding along, you got this sober thing so handled, and then, BAM! EVERYTHING SUCKS IN THIS WORLD AND I WANT TO DRINK. Like, at 11:55 pm on your way home after a great day of cleaning, of not working, of seeing a cool play–BAM! It’s all collapsing in on me, I might as well suffocate myself with my own big frontal cortex, everything is bad and it’s because I can’t drink, I can’t drink, I can’t drink. Waaaaaaaah!
I got a bug in my eye on Thursday night, during the two hours of 96 percent humidity between the sheets of rain that fell for three days straight (hello, tropical storm). Like, a literal bug from a swarm that I must’ve run through while jogging. My left eye swelled up, got bloodshot, and teared with actual pus for about 72 hours. I cried a little, and then was like, OMG, you’re so ridiculous, Drunky Drunk Girl, retied my laces, and ran a mile until I had to pack it up because a park ranger yelled at me (Do you see what that sign says? Actually, I couldn’t, because my eye was swelling shut. Anyway, it was 6:30 and the sign said “Park closes at 5.” Um, yes, but why are you closing the gate at 6:30 when the sign says it closes at 5? I think he was too distracted by my grotesque left orb to notice the irony.).
And, yeah, my sciatica has been flaring incessantly, and this time, it’s on the right side. While it’s reduced me to long sessions of floor exercises and utterly bizarre self-massage techniques–I know it’ll eventually subside. It always does.
We cleaned the house and realized that the War Against Fur cannot be won; my tomato plants are towering over five feet; we’re set to take off on Wednesday for a five-day trip to the States.
I don’t know, I just lived, and did, and sometimes I felt like I was just doing it out of “I have to” and other times I realized just how much I have and that I get to choose how I perceive my world, as either a challenge or a chore. I’ve think I’m embracing more that I have to move on with life, and the ups and downs are always going to be a part of it.
Anyway, one more week until I hit 180 days! And, you know what? I’ve already started making a list of reasons NOT to drink. I mean, why fix what’s not broken? Drinking wouldn’t add much, except Bad Things. A part of me wants to drink again, but it’s a small part. The bigger part says, get your story done, and pitch another one, *before* you drink and mess something up. It says, obviously, if you start drinking, you’re not going to be able to write that book (in your mind, that is), or make some other professional choices–it’s either drink or have some sort of modicum of professional success, and I’m not being overly dramatic. I can’t imagine going to work anymore hung over. Why don’t you wait it out, get it all set *before* you drink and mess something up?
The thing is, I’m not sure I won’t “mess shit up” if I drink again–whether that’s one glass or ten, one time or 20. It just seems to be a whole lot easier to keep doing what I’ve been doing, to not throw the possibility of drinking into the mix; to put off making that HUGE choice as to whether or when or why I want to start treating myself like a bag of shit again, you know? 😉
11:42 am
…sans The Grape. Without wine. Who would have thought it possible?
Lately, I’ve been feeling confused, torn, drawn in multiple directions, with too many and then, too few options. I want to do everything at once, and then, a few minutes later, nothing at all. I have mood swings, but they usually surface after a day sitting on my ass (which is starting to really hurt due to a stubborn sciatica flare–time to hit the gym), in front of my monitor, realizing that I spend 90 percent of my freelancing time LOOKING for work and only 10 percent actually DOING anything. So it goes. I’ve acquired enough assignments (two) and have enough money owed me, plus my savings, to get me through the next few months without too much financial stress. BUT, it’s only possible because my cost of living is so cheap–I moved from a big city to a small island, which, as you all know, adds even more new (confusing) possibilities to the mix.
Like, I might consider working the season down here as a server at one of the restaurants; maybe I could earn some extra money to pay down my graduate student loans while also–and this is funny–confront my HUGE FEAR of dealing with people on that level again? I KNOW, it’s not like I’d be flying an airplane, or reporting a story from Syria, but yet…it scares me to work as a server. I’m also sending out unsolicited letters to law firms, web design firms, and other “offshore”-type companies to see if someone, at some point, might need my services. I’m also, of course, sending out applications to science reporting jobs here and there in the States, mainly because why the hell not? It’s a familiar puzzle piece, and I am sort of having a seizure feeling like there is nothing familiar about my life anymore.
Like I mentioned in a comment to someone the other day, I just feel like nothing is familiar. NOTHING. Like, maybe I changed too much while getting sober! Duh. Of course, I did. But, I needed the changes. I needed to move, I needed to give my current relationship a chance, I needed to stop working full-time, I needed to focus on freelancing, I needed to apply for and then reject a graduate school program/move back to the Big Apple. I just needed to do all of these things, and now, well, after having been in a rut the past 4-6 weeks, overthinking everything–I feel confused.
I’m beginning to think this is life, this confusion. This confrontation of hard choices, all the time. It’s not that I want to drink to avoid the panic and/or confusion-induced lethargia–the opposite. I want to stay on point and keep moving forward, making choices with the best of my knowledge. So, in that regard, I do not want to drink. What makes me want to drink these days, mainly, is a desire for familiarity. I KNOW drinking, and I KNOW how it works (doesn’t) for me. I know where it fits in my life, and I know who I am (a crazy bitch) as a drinker. I don’t know how better to explain it, but sometimes I just blame sobriety, as if it were a shitty friend, having taking me away from my life, from me. Sobriety stole me from myself, and I don’t know who I am anymore. Correction: I know more who I am, but I don’t know how to work with that as easily as I know how to be Drunk Me. I know what Drunk Me would do, and how Drunk Me would react, and prioritize goals and activities. I’m not so sure how Sober Me does things, and I feel like I’m sort of flailing to organize my life, and my feelings, and my reactions.
All that being said, I know the best course of action is to simply keep doing what feels like plodding forward: make that to-do list, do what needs to be done, get as much done as possible (which always seems to be 2/10 things on the stupid list), and keep feeling my way forward. It brings to mind how I used to find my car, back in the day when I was just getting started being a blackout drunk, was living in a foggy (ahem) West Coast city, and had to street park my car every night, usually no less than a 15-minute walk from my apartment. Some mornings after a night of drinking (of course, I drove to and from the bar), I had a vague recollection of where I parked, and sometimes, I could conjure a flashback or two to give me enough of a trail to follow. But some days, I had NO conscious ability to remember–no flashes, no imprints whatsoever on my brain of where or how or when or with whom I had parked my car. So, I would relax my body, my mind, and just…walk. It was like I was willing my subconscious to remember by moving my legs, hoping that my motor memory would somehow guide me to my car. It usually worked; I always found my green Honda Civic.
That’s what I’m doing here, albeit with a little less guesswork. And, I’m going to give myself credit for a LOT more self-love in the process. Tick tock, tick tock, nine days on the clock (until my 180-day mark)!
5:25 pm
Lack of motivation. Bored to tears is not just an expression. Maybe some days you’re simply not meant to get much done? Except, ahem, eating and drinking everything in the house. (Why is it that after quitting drinking, we turn to food and substitute drink? Is there something so hardwired about equating “food substance” or “something that is going into my alimentary canal” with “reward” that we can’t shake it no matter how long and hard we try?)
Today is OK–meh, actually–and I can deal with that. However, I’m having the usual brain fart: I find it difficult to hold my thoughts in form; like food that wants to be vomited up, my thoughts want to come out in fragments that don’t resemble much of anything that makes sense.
Is this writer’s block, or simply something I have to contend with from now on? PAWS gone wild? I’m hoping the latter, but most of the time, my patience wears thin. I don’t have time for this shit.
Once every few days, I take note of my motivation level, which seems to me to be pretty damn low. And, I think I’ve figured it out: maybe for so long I associated EVERYTHING–work and play, life in general–with drinking, now my dopamine circuits can’t (won’t?) fire for anything without the attached reward (wine). It goes almost without saying that that sort of freaks me out, considering that I need to like, eat and work and laugh, whether or not (not) there is wine involved.
I’ve come to the conclusion that “normal” people–and even a lot of drinkers who did not fall as far as I must have–simply cannot understand this. Their dopamine circuits still allow them to desire to do many things, whether or not booze is in the picture. Like, eating, or going to the gym, or working. I was actually vaguely aware of how much I relied on the “reward” of wine in order to motivate myself to do any of these things toward the last few years of my drinking. And then it got worse: I skipped eating altogether; I only worked out in order to both be able to drink more and maintain a modicum of health such that my body could continue to drink more; in the end, the only thing that got me through my often painfully intellectual day was the reward of wine after having gotten through it and, later–it got even worse–the reward of wine DURING said day.
It was a neverending cycle, and I’m not sure how I ended up in its claws OR how I managed to extricate myself. Maybe throwing up a bottle of red wine at 3:30 am and then drinking an entire OTHER bottle before getting up, showering, and getting on the commuter rail by 7:20 am became one of those few-and-far-between memories that could override the need for wine? Uh, maybe.
Dopamine is involved not only in giving you pleasure, but in making you want to seek out pleasure. Motivation to do, or in science speak, to perform behaviors that are associated with pleasure. Now, if EVERYTHING you do–for me it ranged from running to writing to travel to talking on the phone with friends and family–you associate with the reward of drinking, and you place a high level of importance on this reward, eventually your dopamine circuit is only going to fire to motivate you toward these associated things as long as there is the reward of wine. If there is no reward of wine, there is no dopamine, and therefore, no motivation. (I’d like to do some interviews on this, but I think this is the gist of it.)
When the associated behavior/triggers are going out to bars, or hanging out with friends, ditching the wine isn’t the end of the world. But I associated everything with drinking.
Now, I feel no strong urge to do anything. I work because I NEED to, and I run and eat and read and hang out and go swimming and take care of the dogs and plant shit because…I know it’ll make me feel better, eventually. I do love certain things, of course, and living sober is amazing, don’t get me wrong. I just have to think my way into wanting it all, more often than not. Some days, though, all that future focus cannot cover up the present lack of reward. And, what’s worse, I’m afraid (worried) that this new normal might not right itself anytime soon.
With all that in mind, I continue to do and strive, and get about 25 percent of what I want to get done actually done every day. And I’m learning to accept this, and not judge myself. This is the only way, I somewhat resignedly tell myself. You got yourself into this, now you have to (and can) get yourself out. Is there another way, though? Does it have to be this hard? I honestly don’t know…
Anyway, I don’t mind waiting, and right here and now is a pretty good place to take a seat. Happy Week 22 plus 1 day to me! By Saturday, I will have passed my longest record of 158 (almost) days sans booze. Wowie. Thanks to ALL OF YOU, for listening and cheering and empathizing.
3:54 pm
But, I’m still sober. I may have burst a few blood vessels trying, but…whatever it takes, right? Right now, not drinking is the BEST thing you can do for yourself, I keep whispering in my own ear.
It’s been almost a week since I decided to alter my course of action in terms of, like, everything in my most current (and admittedly, somewhat precarious, off-base, and random) life plan. It threw me. Add to that mood swings (major!) and a general self-pitying sense of “but no one appreciates what I’m actually doing here!” and, well, you know how it goes… MAJOR CRAVINGS. Major case of the “fuck it’s,” which, I am very proud to say, I have not given into.
I wonder if it’s just “that time” again; I made it to Week 20 this past Monday, so I’m rounding up on 21 weeks soon. Around 20 weeks last time, I was SO jones’ing for a glass of wine, and I caved shortly after 22 weeks. This time, I WILL NOT let myself give in. I’ve worked WAY too hard to get here. And truth be told, it’s not wine that I want; I surely don’t want the hangover. Yet, sometimes I feel like this has become much more of a mind-fuck than it was intended to be, this not drinking thing. Maybe, I’ve been wondering, I CAN drink responsibly now? Maybe I can stop thinking about drinking (or, not drinking)?
Wolfie-boy thoughts aside, I’ve been seriously thinking about re-evaluating being sober once I get to my 180-day mark, which will be on September 14th. I think the main reason is, I need to know that this is MY choice, otherwise I start to resent the conviction (fact?) that I am living someone else’s life.
I am not sure I ever experienced a pink cloud. Yes, it’s fucking fantastic to never be hung over (I’m not sure I could deal with another hangover, which is one thing that keeps me on the wagon), but, frankly, I did everything I’m doing now. Professionally, I feel like getting sober has set me back in that I don’t seem to have the passion, the burning desire, the fuel I used to have. There sure are upsides to being sober, but I feel flat a lot of the time, and it’s been a whole year-plus since I took my last-ish drink (I’ve only had ONE slip since last October)! Most of the time, though, it’s just the same, except I’m not drinking, not being hungover, and not doing stupid shit when I get drunk (and black out).
I think I just miss “me,” and my “life,” and my friends, the city, what constituted basically everything I knew. Going out to wine bars and knowing that I worked hard to be able to afford those drinks, the apartment that I would be coming (stumbling) home to afterward, the entire setup–it was mine. I created it. I made it happen. And, I hate to say it, but I DID feel more alive when I was drinking–it wasn’t always falling down, and it wasn’t always feeling like shit.
I’m sure it’s wolfie, but, well, being sober isn’t that great sometimes. It’s not the drinking I miss that much, it’s the reward. I still feel like I’m sort of just making it through the days–when do I start to really, actually live? I see quite a few soberites doing cartwheels, and I’m starting to feel like there is something seriously wrong with me. Was I just simply that much more tethered to the bottle? Could be. It was a long 10 years, and at least five before that ramping up. I also never seemed to hit bottom, or, at least when I did (breaking an arm, spending time in jail, getting fired, being (technically) evicted, crashing a car, etc. etc. etc.), I was so impervious to pain that I chose not to feel it? Maybe I need one of those mega-support groups because I AM one of the worst alcoholics? Maybe I was so “high-functioning”–in an extremely dysfunctional reality where it’s OK to drink the way I did–that a lot of what happened to me simply came with the territory?
All these things combined make for a confused Drunky Drunk Girl, I guess is what I’m saying. And, well, a rough few days.
On that note, I have to get to work. At least I’m making SLOW progress on that front. And, inching my way back into some sort of professional reality. I’m on Day 2 of “no sugar,” which means no sweets, no Diet Coke (trying), and minimal items with added sugar. I want to see how it affects my digestion, my running, my weight, and my “satiety meter,” so I’m going to go for, oh, a while doing this. I already feel better, and surprisingly, not ambivalent: I know I can’t have sweets–it’s just like wine, I CANNOT have it–so, why bother allowing my mind to want it? Push on through, I say. There is light, there WILL be light.
143 days!
11:19 am
Whew. That wasn’t fun. Talk about FOG-BRAIN. And, if I’m honest, a “perfect storm,” a “conflagration” of things that simply coalesced into one big ball of Meh.
Yesterday, after looking at the numbers in my bank accounts, I made the hard choice to “put off my dream(s)” of going back to school/going back to The City–in an effort to keep this blog anonymous, I am not mentioning which cold, big East Coast city that would be… It was a really hard choice. To sum it up, I accepted that I can’t have everything all at once, I might not want or need that “everything,” going back to school is never and should never be thought of as a magic bullet, and, perhaps then was then and now is now and re-living a situation in which I dump every penny of disposable income into simply making it work–well, been there done that and, the tradeoffs are clearer now. Plus, like my mom always says, The City will always be there.
I guess having to finally make the call induced the fog-brain. It typically doesn’t last for long, but it hurts the very same as it did when I was drinking. Absolutely nothing has changed except that I don’t get outside of it anymore, and I hate having to deal with it stone-cold sober. It scares me, and I really want to drink in the face of it. I hate waiting it out, and I hate not having any choice about that. Which, as you can imagine, is why I was telling myself that this sucks, fuck sobriety, and I should really just give up and drink.
Maybe I should check out antidepressants? Does everyone get “fog-brain?” I mean, I felt dizzy for most of the day, to the point where I could barely operate my car. I did manage, but… It’s like, all I can do is sit and stare, alternately let a few tears drop out of sadness, frustration, and meh-ness, and feel literally foggy-brained.
I have never wanted to drink SO badly in the past year, needless to say. But you know what? I sat with that shit until it passed. I counted the days left until 180 and made my plan to guzzle gallons of wine THEN. I seriously contemplated stopping off and getting a bottle or four of red, but, well, I didn’t. I can drink in six fucking short weeks, I kept telling myself. It was interesting to see my desire for wine, specifically, ramp up; I know it was irrational, as, surely wine isn’t the best or only thing that could fix this situation, right? I had this thought, but the “I want wine, wine will make it better” one was a LOT louder.
And then, something miraculous happened. I realized just how UNemotional I am, and how much I can just Get ‘Er Done in times of need. See, all this time, wine made me highly reactive and emotional–up and down, overly teary, easy to anger, and feeling all sorts of extreme emotions. Sure, I was at the point yesterday where I felt like if I went over to see my friend’s new baby, I might actually burst into tears–I’m not envious of her, I’m sad for me, and frustrated that everyone else gets their “shiny new thing,” and when is it going to be my turn? Fucked up, I know. However, beyond that, I was relatively calm.
When my boyfriend left for work, I basically sat down in a chair outside, let the tears fall for oh, about 12 minutes; wiped my eyes, sat down at my computer, and made the call. I dropped my classes, I told someone I wouldn’t be checking out an apartment, and I emailed my advisors and was like, ‘Hey, y’all, I’m not coming this year, but maybe next!’. Then, I made a list of alternate things I would do this year, including write, volunteer, and such.
Yes, I felt foggy-brained, deflated, let down, and sad for the rest of the afternoon, but two things happened that made me see just how miraculous *I* am, and how awesome the act of bouncing back can be–even and especially in the face of cravings. First, I realized how unemotional I actually am–which totally surprised me. Those tears were authentic, but they only lasted for 12 minutes. That was all I needed. I forced myself to eat a sandwich, and then I moved on with my day.
Second, later that night, when the sun finally set and I could see the literal light at the end of the tunnel, I perked up. I showered, grabbed my keys, and drove over to the bar/restaurant where my boyfriend works. He poured me a glass of cranberry juice, and voi-fucking-la, I was smiling again, laughing, chatting it up with basically everyone who stopped by the counter! I felt fine, great, like myself. It brought back memories of me, getting my drink on in days past, but…better. MUCH BETTER. I even got a whiff of someone’s shot of tequila and was like, Oof. No, thanks.
I realized that we drink, for the most part, to fix, to run, to not feel. The only reasons TO drink are illusory, and, well, excuses. For WHAT, well, that is the question we all have to ask ourselves, and which is an individual answer. I also realized that I need to learn to operate in the world, sober people or drunk people aside; and, that’s not easy, so give myself a little credit. There IS drama all around, and I DO have this sort of indignant response to it, like, Man, if you can’t fucking deal with your shit, don’t be around me. What I need is a little more perspective, a little more “live and let live” offered to others. That doesn’t however, mean I have to put up with someone who is clearly drinking alcoholically, right? Right.
Brain, time to turn you off and…go for a run/trot/walk (it is hot as blazes here, and I feel a bit ill after having consumed so much sugar yesterday in an attempt to feel better–back on the Salt Train today). Have a great day, all! And, woot woot, still sober, and approaching 20 weeks tomorrow!
4:52 pm
I came across a story today that about Kris Carr, and it totally inspired me. Here’s her final quote of the piece:
I think that life is just too sweet to be bitter. Once I was able to change my focus, desperation led to inspiration. I made so many changes, and I thought: This is an awesome life. I mean, honestly, I don’t think anyone has a better life than me. How can you live with the knowledge of cancer? I might not ever be able to get rid of it, but I can’t let that ruin my life. . . . I think: Just go for it. Life is a terminal condition. We’re all going to die. Cancer patients just have more information, but we all, in some ways, wait for permission to live.
For many reasons, this struck me as relevant to sobriety. It strikes at the core of what we avoid as drinkers: we wait for permission to live, we live in fear, we don’t just Go For It. Once we change our focus, we can go from desperate to not drink to inspired to live life.
Today, I’m reconfirming my commitment to running more, embracing the challenge of developing balance in my life, and giving up (trying to) the Diet Coke. If there are small things I can do (juicing might come soon, why not?), then let’s DO THIS.
11:34 am
(I wrote this last night, and I’m posting it for illustrative purpose: I’ve discovered that as the day goes on, I just get depressed. Not to say that this piece isn’t accurate in representing how I feel right now, but I’m just saying that maybe it’s darker than it “should” be because I was feeling low. When I was drinking, I used to force myself to stay up, of course, and live through it. 2 and 3 am were my usual bedtimes (with the alarm still set for 7 or 8 am). I almost always also drank wine. Could it be the two were connected? Cue the “not exactly rocket science” horns.)
I went to the beach this morning, and it was glorious: crisp white sun, shockingly blue sky, clear water reflecting both. These days, I’m pretty damn grateful all the time. Content. Maybe even happy?
Yet… I’m 39, and some days all I can think about is, why did it take so fucking long? I mean, Jesus. Just NOW I’m starting to feel OK about being a human? What the fuck?
And then, because I’m 39 and I think about having a baby constantly (whether I want one, whether I should want one), how on EARTH could I willingly bring another human being into this world knowing what I know about how difficult this life thing is? I mean, from about 14 until present, life’s been pretty difficult. Exhaustingly so, I might add. I mean, are we really supposed to spend the first 40 years learning how to live, and the next 40 learning how to die? Is that it?
I’ve been reading blogs and watching a lot of “addiction TV” lately, and man, no fucking wonder we all drank. Trauma, lots of it. Big, small, sideways, and in between. Some of it unearthed, a lot of it still buried in unconscious thoughts, unexplained feelings, and reactive behavior. And, imagine how it’s going for the rest of the world, who haven’t gotten sober and started looking at things with a magnifying glass? No wonder there are mass shootings.
I know this is heavy for a blog post, but admit it: we feel LUCKY to be alive. Can we really expect things to go opposite for our kids? Life is hard, and confusing, to say the least. Surreal might be a better word. Finding a sense of purpose, a creative outlet, a way to identify and manage your feelings? Hard as shit. Why do we view procreation through rose-colored glasses? It was hard as shit for you; it’s probably going to be hard as shit for your kids.
I, for one, already feel bad for my unborn child entering her teenage years, feeling as dark, depressed, and overwhelmed as I did. I folded in on myself, spending hours–years–writing in my room, dancing alone, binge eating, and having fits of anger in which I’d alternately weep and slap myself. This was just the beginning. I wish I had had the courage to seek help, as it were, but I didn’t. And I blame myself–as a human, of course, I do!–for all of it. Sigh. How could I do this to little Susie, knowingly?
It’s been a huge part of my recovery process, coming to terms with these convictions–I’ve had to think back on my own tumultuous journey and realize that actually, if I’m dead-fucking honest with myself, the joy might not outweigh the pain. I mean, we live and we love and we appreciate both, but, dude, it was a long-ass haul from 16 to 39 years old. Can I truly expect that my child, who has my genes, won’t experience the same difficulties?
At this point in my thought process, if I was still drinking, I’d probably crack open a bottle of red wine. I’m starting to sense that wind tunnel feeling in my belly, like I’m being sucked into a black hole. THERE ARE NO ANSWERS. THERE ARE NO SALVES. These are truths, no matter how difficult to ponder.
I am grateful, and bemused, and astounded by life. I am also selfish, and I admit to not wanting to pass my youth over to a newborn. Evolution and industrialization have allowed this, for our generations; we don’t have to have kids, and we get to ponder the reality of doing so well into our waning years of fertility! Sometimes I think, being sober now and knowing how exhausted I am of always having been the overachiever, the do-gooder, the people-pleaser–I’d rather let “them” have the kids, let “them” raise the children. I’d rather sit this one out, let others take on that work. Is this bad? Am I a bad person? I don’t know, but it’s the truth (right now, anyway), and it keeps coming up A LOT these days. It seems directly tied to my getting sober, this attitude.
I think for people who have bad kidhoods–like, with serious physical or emotional trauma–they either grow up into people who want to have kids so that they can improve upon their own childhoods, or, like me, don’t ever want to have to relive it! Kids remind me of being a kid, and I didn’t like being a kid! I had a lot of trauma being a kid. I had a lot of joy, sure, but all in all, more pain than joy. I just don’t want a re-do, no matter in what form.
Then, of course, there are days when I DO want kids, and, realizing that that ship has probably already sailed? That’s an even harder truth to face.
Maybe I need to “let go and let God” in the sense that, I don’t know everything and maybe this entire rant was simply my ego talking, my personality, my fear–underneath it all, I value life, I want children, and I do believe that the joy and wonder definitely outweighs the pain and hardship?
Hmm…
Where’s my Broadway musical? Hello?
10:55 am
Drip, drop. Drip, Drop.
It’s the sound of the change going on in my life. At least the way I hear it. Drops. Falling. Out. Of. The. Sky. One by one.
Wait: I think I saw one go back UP. Oh, me.
I’m trying to be patient, and I don’t want to drink, but I feel like I need to do more, work more, pitch more, blah blah blah. The thing about getting sober is, you embrace a much bigger picture of who you can be, what you could do. Your to-do list gets really big, your bucket list, humongous. Which is amazing, right? To be able to dream like that is probably a distant memory for a lot of us, isn’t it?
Yet, you’re still you and things still happen and you still have to work and go running and make dinner, walk the dogs, visit family, and do all these things that you used to do and that are mundane and that seem to have nothing to do with that Big, Sparkly Unicorn Sober Life that “everyone” keeps saying they’ve been leading and you will be, too, once you…? I’m not sure what, but my sobriety has been pretty much drip, drop, drip, drop.
Another thing about being sober–and this has been my experience only–is that just because you’re not drinking doesn’t mean that your life is going to resemble a Broadway musical. (I have a twin brother who’s actually written a musical, so there ARE some people who literally strive for this, but they, too, have day jobs.) No, no musical going up in this house. There are no built gay men breaking out in song and dance here. No lights, no orchestra, no costumes. Just me. Just life. Just not drinking. Thank God(dess) the pangs have subsided–it only took a year–but beyond that, life is still just life.
Drip drop, drip drop. I want to see more and bigger and way different, but I just see…me, now. I see what I WANT to do more clearly, and that makes the stretch look even longer: How am I going to get THERE? All the way over there? Dude, I’m tired. I want a glass of wine, shit maybe I’ll drink at Day 180 (nah, yeah, maybe, nah, yeah, maybe)… Oh, wait, what? Right. Weren’t we talking about big changes and Broadway costumes? Sorry, got distracted there–AGAIN.
For now, until the show ends up at my doorstep, I’m going to keep getting up before 9 (yes, I’ve still got time to lounge, but will be applying for full-time jobs today, actually), processing my graduate school application/decision, banging my head against what fees like a brick wall to get some freelance science writing gigs, continue to blog and explore some of my personal writing projects (ugh!). Running, losing weight then gaining it back when I make a LOT of pudding and cake and cookies. Walking the dogs, petting the dogs, getting bit by one of the dogs. Maybe planning a trip home to see my mom before her hip replacement surgery in the fall.
Nope, no mid-air splits here. Just life, and dripping and dropping. Progress comes in tiny increments, which is probably for the best–I, for one, am not ready to belt out a Patti LuPone-style solo just yet.
Here's To Express.. :)
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