back and forth

Sometimes I have these epiphany moments that aren't even really epiphanies but I don't know what to call them.

Then later, when I try to tell someone or think through my "aha moment" again, it just falls flat and I'm all, well that's really nothing new.

But sometimes the epiphanies that are set on repeat, the ones that come over and over again because I have to learn them over and over again? The ones that seem so simple and plain a little while later?
They're like an old hymn or a favorite movie I've seen a hundred times, the way that parts just grab a hold of me and feel new. Maybe because I forget so easily, but my heart remembers and so it sends a ping! to my head.

Yesterday I was thinking about how strange it is that I knew anything at all Before (Before motherhood or marriage or sobriety), but I suppose I did. I was learning and growing despite myself, my totally ridiculous choices, my immaturity... That's one of my favorite things about grace. The gift of growing in the middle of being stuck.

But then again, sometimes it feels like I knew absolutely nothing at all. The life I'm living now sometimes seems to have put the brakes on what I thought I knew and then it sent all my so-called wisdom flying backwards, reversing down the highway and back to the starting line. This adult life I'm trying to live now, it humbles me and seems to have started my wisdom from scratch.

Last Thursday, the day that marked one year since I've had a drink, I was crying. I wasn't even sure why I was crying and I said so, over and over, "I don't know why I'm crying..." and then Ryan stood next to me and he said so softly and with so much kindness, "Well, Sweetie. You've lived a thousand lives."

All those lives hold so much I don't remember but so much my heart does remember. I am 35 years old, I have two boys and another baby on the way. I'm married and I have a house and a dog and a minivan. I have lived many many movies and sung many hymns, but I don't live in them now. I just want my heart to remember the parts that redeem...and then I want to live right here.







{Please feel free to enter The Pleated Poppy giveaway here.}

one year

I'll feel a little bump or rumble or slipping and sliding, something low on my belly and then I'll reach there and wonder,

was that you? who are you? maybe it was the buffalo wings... but I think maybe it was you.

Before long you'll be unmistakable. You'll thud and thunder, roll and push. And I'll know it's you and I'll start to know some things about you, just by the ways that you move in me.

:::::

I can say that about me too, one year later.
I'll ask myself,

was that you?
who are you?

Because all these months I've only been just a start, just a small thud, slipping and sliding, finding my way to growing my heart and mind and discovering what they were made to know and be.
Not just being a bundle of a thousand mysterious things that are only there for the trying to be somebody else.

Before long (or maybe longer and that's okay), I'll be unmistakable, even to me. I will thud and thunder, roll and push, and I'll know it's me, and I'll start to know more things about me, just by the ways that You move in me.

{thank you, to Ellie and Maggie}

{and thank all of you, of course. For reading and encouraging, for praying and for understanding. If you lived here, on the other side of this screen, you'd see I have so far to go. But I'm grateful, for the gifts, the many gifts of this year...and you, my friends, are one of those gifts. Thank you.}

laps

I walk with my Dad, around the track, lap one, lap two, lap three...but we don't keep track. We get lapped by the runners and we lap the slow-walkers. One of the slow-walkers says, Good morning! like it's the first time we've passed him, every time. And then sometimes he breaks into a run, his bent back and knobby knees pushing forward in short bursts, like he just can't help himself. Like he's racing and trying to win in the last seconds.

I want to be like him. I want to be content going my own pace, surrendering to what passes me by and what I leave behind. I want to burst forth, breaking into a run every once and a while, when I have the energy, only when I can.

It has taken me until age 35 to even begin to understand when to walk--when to wait and see and feel, and when to run--to find the energy to fight my aching back and wobbly knees and try a little harder.

For most of my life I've been doing a lot of spinning-wheels kind of running, faster faster faster, to avoid the hurt from the past or to try to run quickly through whatever hurt may take over the next lap. Just push through, don't think, don't feel, just go.

Which has been pretty futile since I feel things so deeply no matter how hard I try not to feel things.

So lately I've been strolling, just being, just existing. Not pushing for things to go my way, not manipulating life, not trying to make it what I think it should be. I'm not very good at this, but I'm trying. I'm slowing down enough to watch and wait and see. I'm saying, Good morning!

Life since the day I quit drinking has spurred on and it's been good and fast and much. Things have come my way that I did not expect and I'm grateful for those things. But now, this slowing down feels good and right. These days of growing a baby and being still and sifting through my heart are good. Something is happening in me that means I have to strip away everything that feels like running. It's not time to run.

It's time for quiet and for surrender. It's time to watch and wait and see, to hope and know and believe.

Around the track where I walk with my Dad there are big inspirational signs hanging on the concrete walls. They say things about caring and responsibility and perseverance. My Dad and I go slow enough that I can read them, to think about them, to let them sink in. That's what this feels like...a season to allow the dreams of my heart to reveal themselves like signs on a wall, ones I can take in, around and around and over and over, taking my time. This is different from my past, the way I would rush clumsily around the track, throwing up my own signs and willing life to follow my design. This is different than wondering what my "purpose" is and why it hasn't shown up...this is realizing that I live my purpose even when I don't know that I am, and it's all good.

~~~~~

I have a vision for something. It's been waiting for me to slow down for years. I've spoken it many times and never truly believed in its possibility. But in this season of quiet, I'm starting to read the writing on the wall and the pieces are falling together and I'm starting to believe in what I see. I can't deny what I see. I can't say coincidence! or fluke! because this is all just too...weird. Like, look around for the hidden camera kind of weird. In the best possible way.

Slowing down to remember and hurt and learn and heal is not half as bad as I thought it would be.

I'm being lapped and I'm learning and I like it.

thank you

So there I was on the TV. That was surreal. It was all a blur and then it was done and I whispered, I hope it helps. I didn't know if it would...I'm just me, it's just a few moments in time, but I hoped.

Even if it was just one person, sitting on the other side of the screen, ready to see themselves in my story and feel less alone, I wanted something new for them. I wanted the mom or dad out there who feels stuck and alone to know that I was living it too and I didn't believe in living in any kind of new way and today, I'm okay. I mean, I'll always be a work in progress and this is in no way easy, but I'm okay, I'm better than okay. I am somehow living something new.

I wanted that person to know that they can do this, too. I just simply, as trite as it sounds, wanted people to see hope.

~~~~~

I saw the lovely Trish Van Pilsum (who had done the Tuesday night story with such beauty and grace) when I arrived for a quick interview the next day on Fox 9's morning show. She took a moment to tell me that after the story aired the night before, Hazelden was a bit inundated...

In Trish's words later on her blog:

"Immediately after the story aired last night we held a live chat for viewers with the clinical director of the women's residential program at the world famous Hazelden Treatment Center. We were swamped with people looking for help and more information."

When Trish was talking about this, I was in a I-was-just-lost-and-am-super-late haze, so I hardly comprehended what she was saying.

Until I got in the car after everything was done and I started the two hour drive home. I turned out of the parking lot and pulled up behind a string of cars waiting at a red light. I looked out my window and down at the ground beside my car and there lay an owl. A white owl with spots of gray, perfectly still and lifeless, unmarked with gross evidence of it's death, but very obviously gone. This beautiful and wise and powerful creature, caught by surprise in a suburb right outside the city.

I cried. I cried because I love owls and I cried because it made no sense for it to be right there at that moment, away from a forest, ending up in a place so far from home, so lovely and so gone. I cried because for a few moments I thought it was some crazy omen, one that was telling me that speaking publicly of my very personal story was wrong. (Yes, my mind is generally all over the place.)

But mostly, I think I cried because this scene spoke to me, the way that the addict's life speaks to me...my life and your life. It spoke of loss and beauty and fear and pain. It was a picture of how randomly unfair life can sometimes be and how it all means something, even if we don't always know what that something is. It's there, the meaning, underneath even the sad ending of the snowy owl in the city.

And then I cried harder because my life is so weird, you know. Never would I have thought that I would try to help someone else not drink. Never. I thought I would always drink, wanted to always drink. I wouldn't have been able to dream up this exchange I had with Trish, that I would be standing there hearing that my story helped someone make a phone call that could change their life. Never.

I am just as touchy-feely-cheesy as ever, so I am going to tell you again what an honor it is, how completely humbling it is, to walk this road. A whole lotta people called Hazelden not because of me, but because of a beautiful story that once made absolutely no sense, held very little hope, gripped me lifeless and felt very unfair.

People called that night because the thing is, there is always something underneath it all, and that is redemption.

~~~~~

In case you missed it and would like to see it, you can watch the morning show interview here:
(and yes, I LOVE that my face is frozen in this particular expression)



And lastly, to those of you who have written to me, telling me your truths, thank you. Thank you for letting me know my story made a difference in your life. I want to tell you about some places you might like to look around:

Crying Out Now
Don't Get Drunk Fridays
The Booze-Free Brigade
Hazelden
One Crafty Mother

I wish you peace and I believe you can find it.

seeing blue

Miles had a paintbrush but no paint, and he painted anyway. He moved that little hand back and forth and back and forth, imagining blue for his playhouse. He was the only one that knew exactly how it was turning out. He had the whole big picture up in his adorable noggin. He always does. He sees it all, that boy of mine.

He was working very hard.

I watched him while his brother watched him and it was such a perfect fall day and I can't believe they're mine.


There are things a mom just can't describe. These feelings we have for them, they are just too personally rich, too much at the center of us to be pulled out. Maybe that's good. We honor the intimacy of family that way, even while we touch on universal truths and nod our heads in recognition.



I hope one day my boys read my words and know me more. More of the things that I thought of them and was too busy to say. Or maybe the things a person just doesn't know how to say without the written word. I hope to get better and better at loving them with my life too, of course. I guess I'm just glad I have this space to elaborate on who my boys are, and on who I am, to reiterate to them that they will always belong. Always.


Right now, exactly today, I sit here holding eight months of sobriety in my heart alongside those indescribable feelings I have for my family. I can't describe this not drinking thing very well either, and I don't know that my two sons will ever understand what I mean when I say I promise you every night.

Maybe one day they will understand. Maybe they won't...



But even if they never fully know what this has been like, all this hard work, I will still hold sobriety as my own and so it will be ours.

I can see it like he sees blue...

the monster and the miracle

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself. - Montaigne


Her teenage son was trying to pour her booze down the kitchen sink's drain. She was drunk and desperate and she wrapped her arms around him to pull him away, to save herself from having none.

They both fell to the floor, wrestling and tugging and pushing and pulling.

He was stealing from her and she was stealing from him.

She had carried him and brought him to life and now she felt like she was killing him with herself. The arms that once held the soft weight of his infant body, the hands that gently ran over his newborn skin, had turned on her.

She was broken and he was breaking and then she got help. She is sober one and a half years and he is still angry. He sees the monster more than he sees the miracle.

Sometimes we try to make amends but our words cannot be heard and so all we can do is allow our continued sobriety to make the amends with time. It is what went down, falling through our arms with gravity that is remembered by those we love, sometimes. So we hope for healing while we keep our hands free of the monster's elixir, and we wait and try to believe that somehow, a miracle is what we are.

Later, she is talking to a man with the job to counsel, to instruct. She talks about her shame, the way the memories will not leave her and haunt her and she is so sorry. And he says well, how do you think he feels? In that moment she is only a monster, unforgiven and chastised. And even when people tell her that the monster is not all that she is and that she is more than her sickness and that perhaps this sickness is to blame, she cannot believe it. She can only hear the accusers and that makes her want to feed the monster because why not, she's so so so bad she may as well just be bad.

Don't tell me a mother who loves her children sets out to hurt them. This is not a choice. No one chooses this kind of pain. This monster has a way of defeating our good intentions, stealing them, cunning and baffling.

How does she think he feels? That, my friends, is all she thinks about. And yet, without the monster, she could not see the miracles. She could not wait for them, even the ones that are sure to reach the heart of her son, a boy who will come to know his mother in new ways that cover the monster and free her to live.

He will know a new freedom and his heart will lift with her eyes. He won't be able to fight loving her back because learning to trust will do that to a person. And maybe he'll fight it and anger will win most of the time for most of the time, but love is sneaky and I know he'll find his way to it by watching her.

That is how I think he feels.


Happy Birthday, my friend. You are a miracle.
--
I apologize if you want to comment and cannot. I'm working on fixing the issue with Intense Debate (a comment system thingy). Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I have no idea...

I hope your long weekend is good, friends.

knowing

I am pushing a cart, rushing from aisle to aisle getting milk and nutella and even juice boxes for a fun surprise when I get home. I see him rounding the corner in the frozen food section and my heart lifts.

I join him, pulling off to the side with a hearty, Hi you!

Hey stranger, how ya been?

I'm doing well, how are you?

Good. Good. I might get my license back this month.

Alright, that's great! It would be a long winter without one.

Well, I do make it to the casino sometimes because there's a bus. I figure it's the least I can do. I mean, we stole their land and their buffalo, so now I give them my money.

He smiles wider and his eyes do that bright and twinkly thing. A thing they didn't do when I first met him, the first night he joined my chemical dependency treatment group. When he sat down next to me looking so defeated and lost.

There's a moment's pause and then he softly asks, you still doin' okay?

Yes, I am. I'm doing fine. How about you?

He answers with a big yes and he adds that he hasn't had a drink and he looks really happy.

Good, friend. Good.

We finished our treatment program around the same time and even though we all said we'd keep in touch that's never easy. I'm sure most of us knew this would be the only way we'd meet again. Bumping into each other in our small town world, connecting and being brought back while we go forward. We know what we know about each other, the hard truths only said in circles with fellows. And so our souls bend near and touch and whisper while we stand and twinkle near the frozen foods. There is a knowing. One that brings a thirty-something wife and mom to hearty laughter with her friend, the man with the huge belt buckle and tight wranglers in his seventies, with cowboy boots and a cart full of meat.

A man I would have passed right by if this were eight months ago, not knowing or caring, while I rushed and fussed so I could just get home to wine.

It is not eight months ago and now I'm here with no wine and I call this fine sir my friend, while I hope that his eyes always hold that twinkle.

alone

I did some writing for a while in my favorite coffee shop today, but with my boys out of town for a couple of days, I felt the pull back to the quiet house.

I looked around and knew there was too much mess and dirty for a clear head, so I cleaned for a while and then I played Super Mario Bros and then cleaned some more.

My head is clear now. And so is the counter top and even the under of the couch.

My friend came over and we sat on the patio and talked about things that matter and when I look at her I see this beautiful person that reflects me and I feel better about who I am. We are both so broken and so fixed.

I made her late for dinner because of stories.

Then I got in the car and drove to the grocery store. The sun is out and it's not too hot and it's so good. I wandered into the movie section and to the 'must-see' wall. I browsed with no hurry and no chase and no scolding. I picked two movies just for me. Then I picked up lettuce and cashews and cranberries and when the nice young girl at the check-out asked how my day was going I asked her how hers was.

I got home and opened more windows because of the cooling air and I made my salad and my Maggie Drink. Cranberry juice, club soda, lime. On the rocks. I take my rocks crushed and then I chomp them.

Last year, when my boys took this same trip, I went to a matinee and then I drank. And then I drank some more and I don't remember much. I drank more and earlier, since there was no one around. And as much as I thought about that and part of me wished I could do it again, this day was much better than those days.

I will watch movies tonight and I will sleep in tomorrow, but not because I have a whoops I've over-done it again headache, but just because I love my pillow and the quiet. After that I'll wake up and sit on the patio with the crossword and coffee and the dog and I'll be able to think clearly.

And then I will write, for most of the day, with several breaks for Super Mario and key lime pie and to miss my boys like I do today.

~~~~~

So tell me. If given a few days off, a few days alone, what would you do with your free time?

bouncing

The red wine is for the skillet, for cooking, for mushrooms, for steak.
It is not for me.
It is not for me.

I am standing and pretending I'm uneffected, handing out bread next to the skillet and its chef, downwind of the smell of the wine.

To the people who curve in a line like ants, coming for food, I repeat, bread? bread? bread? would you like some bread? bread? bread?

And I'm thinking, wine wine wine, even while I try to focus on other things, like the serving gloves I'm wearing, my hands sticky and hot, and the faces smiling and thanking me. For the bread.

wine wine wine...

Of course there is irony here. The bread and the wine, this doesn't escape me. This thought reminds me to beg for serenity. This thought, of bread and wine together, not alone. So I say the prayer and kick at the dirt with my sandaled feet.

That bottle of red wine is sitting in arm's reach wrapped in a brown paper bag, and every time it's poured to the sautee skillet- glug glug glug, the smell, so strong, it fills the humid air and blows across my face. I hold my breath and turn my head but I can't get away from that smell. It is crawling up my chest and wrapping its way around my throat and then squeezing.

I love that smell while it begs to take the life out of me.

~~~~~

Suddenly, I walk away without a word, even though I'm a people-pleaser and I want to give the dinner guests the bread and I want to help. But I can't, because the tears are coming and I'm humiliated as if I'm standing there naked. I can't shake the feelings any more than I can shake my skin to the ground. I hate feeling out of control but this is what happens and I start to beat myself up...

I sit with my hands on my knees and my head bent, sobbing, staring at the plastic floor of a service truck, the one that became my shelter when I fled. And I wonder why we have to be so weak to be so strong. I want a break and a moment of freedom for free.

I tell my parents and my sister. I say, it's the wine...I just didn't know it would be that hard. I just can't stop crying and they show me love and hold me up with words. I hear my Dad say that there's no shame in this, that it happens to him, too. And then I finally feel the shift that comes with knowing that someone knows exactly exactly how you feel. I drive home with this, my dad's last words as I walked away, in my head and heart...It does get better, he said.

Sometimes I just can't wait.

~~~~~

The house is perfectly still and quiet, empty. I sit down and think and cry and then I hear a soft knock on the door, a tiny hand with knuckles to wood, and my boys come in. They smile and laugh and tell me about their trip to the store. I choke back tears at the love for them and in them, standing right there in front of me, bouncing. They hop from foot to foot and throw themselves at my lap. They don't know what this feels like, and their not-a-care-in-the-world energy fills the room.

~~~~~

The tornado sirens start to blast and wind like I've never seen starts to blow. We are rushing around suddenly, grabbing blankets and the radio and the phones and calling the dog to follow us to the basement. I'm thinking of safety for my bouncers, instead of the smell of wine.

The people are still out at the festival, where I was serving bread, with the hundreds of tents and three stages and the wind and rain and wine. I think of all the people there and I feel the panic rising in my chest again and find the strength to stay calm for my boys. I tell them quietly why we're in the basement and what the siren means. They wrap themselves in blankets on the floor and we listen to the words flowing from the speakers. We call my family to see if they're okay, still out there with hearts of service, taking care of people, running for cover. They're are in a camper in the wind, waiting and praying and hoping for all the people.

The storm strangely passes then, tornadoes touching down around us but not here, the wind falling away like a whisper.

There is a sudden stillness.

I carry my weak and weary body up the stairs and look out the windows. Light is breaking through the clouds and the grass and trees are acting like nothing has happened at all, dripping rain pitter-pat like applause.

My family starts to appear one by one up the stairs and back to normal. I ask Miles where his brother is and he says he came up, too. He sits down with me to watch the radar, and a few minutes later Ryan asks from the other room if Asher is with me. I shoot up from my chair and say that I thought he was with him. I slow-motion-realize that he's still downstairs. And then I hear it, the distant sound of crying.

I run downstairs to find him in the same place he was before, scared, prepared for a blowing wind that destroys. My heart breaks and I lift him up and ask him why he didn't come upstairs. He says he was too scared and I feel so out of control. I set him down after wiping his tears and telling him the storm has passed, over and over and over. I follow his little boy body up the stairs and I tell him I'm so sorry.

He says, "It's not your fault, Mommy...and it's not my fault, eider."

I look at the back of his head with its soft white hair as he says this, and there is a stillness in me. I know that he's right, about more than his young heart and mind can even begin to understand. It is not my fault. It is not my fault. It is not my fault.

The storm in me is like the storm in him while the storm moves over us.

Sometimes, all any of us can do is pull the strangling fear off our naked skin, to be a comfort to each other, clothing each other with words and bread-giving hands and arms for wrapping and laps for bouncing.

Until the storm passes, and the stillness comes.

here's the down low

I was thinking about how many things I bring up in this space, never to revisit them again (ahem, thoughts of homeschooling? Wanting another baby? Other stuff I can't think of right now?) And then I thought about how writing about recovery and sobriety and addiction has sort of taken over my blog. So that means that the tone is often...heavy, man.

Then I thought, I hardly ever update on Asher's health anymore and I rarely do "From the Mouth of Miles" posts these days.

The thing is, it all happened naturally. Asher is doing really well, and when Miles talks about things that I want to share with the world, I censor myself a bit more because I don't want him to look back on these pages and wonder why I made every stinking little thing public knowledge, you know?

There's a huge difference in life these days. When I compare last year to this one, I see that not only are we physically in a different place, we're just altogether in a different place, each of us. That's largely because of sobriety, it's what's going on with me and with us, so I write about it often. And I really don't even know why I'm explaining this. I guess I'm just giving you the down low.

I finished outpatient treatment last night. For five months I went to a building and worked hard on my plan for recovery, my honesty, my freedom. First for three nights a week and then one night a week. It's over. I did it. And when I got home, I pulled the blankets up under my chin and felt a shift. A gift shift. I could feel it, another new layer of peace in the following through. Like a button had been pushed, moving me closer to letting go of alcohol completely. I slept well.


What I love about this picture is that it's fuzzy right where I am, and then it becomes clear somewhere later, along the path. Ahead. We can always know that sooner or later, the fog will lift, the truth revealed and the destination clear. That's what I hold on to.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm doing well, really well, even when I'm not. And I feel another blog-shift coming on too. I'll probably always write about addiction, but probably not as often. I needed to focus on it, to be swallowed by recovery and think and write about it a lot, and now I need to bring other things to the surface again. Not to pretend that sobriety isn't important or a priority, but because I can. I can.

{This post is a part of You Capture at I Should Be Folding Laundry}

More

I read something last night. It was written by a woman who struggled with alcoholism like I do and it said that when she drank to enjoy it, she couldn't control her drinking, and when she tried to control her drinking, to drink less, she didn't enjoy it at all. Seems kind of obvious that this would be the case for an alcoholic, but it takes most of us a really long time to recognize this reality.

I thought about all the times in my life that I could, for one reason or another, only have a couple of drinks at a time. Maybe it was in the presence of non-drinking people, or we were about to go to a movie, or any number of things. And I realized how true it was, that I would get so uncomfortable with only a couple of drinks. I didn't see the point in that at all, ever. If I was going to drink, I was going to DRINK, you know?

And when I had the freedom to drink in a way that brought me what I thought was enjoyment, it meant that I could not, would not, be able to control the amount. If I tried, I was frustrated and miserable. My head would stay in only one place, thinking more more more I want more now I want more. I'd be so unaware of whatever experience I was having because my head would stay with alcohol.

After years of my brain taking this particular route of thinking, I'm realizing I have to be patient with myself...it's going to take a long time to re-train my brain. When I see a woman sitting on a porch, reading a book, what flashes through my head is that her experience would be better somehow with a glass of wine...or seven.

It's frustrating to have those thoughts, while never having even two drinks.

The pleasure center in my head still beckons to light up. It stomps its feet and fidgets. It just doesn't know what to do. It wants something to look forward to, something to consume with no control. It wants.

As I continued to read this alcoholic woman's story, I saw myself more and more, even though many times I wonder if I'm really even an alcoholic at all. (That's another thing the alcoholic mind does all on it's own, cunning and baffling.) When she said that she was always a caretaker, always striving to be perfect and even being seen as perfect by everyone around her, I understood. And it hit me in the gut when she said that the first time she got drunk with a group of other drinkers, she finally felt like she fit in, like no one expected her to be perfect anymore. She felt flawed and rebellious and totally accepted.

Me too.

And to be honest, the only time I've felt that way again is at a meeting with people just like me. There is no place like it on this planet. None. There is a circle of complete and total understanding, a passion for grace in the eyes around the room, and power in transparency. It is redemption and I am just me, flawed and rebellious and accepted. Like no where else. It is much better than the acceptance I found when drinking in bars and over bottles of wine with friends.

It is authentic and pure and good. My sick alcoholic thoughts make perfect sense to the people with nodding heads around the room. Grace takes on human form in those rooms, embodied in my fellows and leaping down my throat. It wraps itself around my insecurities and sets me free.

I think this is how it's supposed to be, and I wish it were this way everywhere. But then, I suppose the experience would become too common and lose its holiness.

As a believer in a God who supplies that grace in our struggle, I am starting to see that this is how heaven will be. We will not sit on clouds, bored, playing a harp for all of eternity. No, we will sit in circles and feel free, never pretending, already perfect with our pleasure centers always lighting up in a constant glow of true joy.

Too much? Lofty? Unbelievable? Idealistic? Insane?

I think not. Because I've tasted it here and I am made to want more because there is more.

Releasing

It's been nearly five months since we moved. Five months. This has been the very most surreal five months of my life, I'm pretty sure. I stopped drinking not long after we came here so everything was literally and figuratively new for me, for us.

Today, when Ryan finished building a fence for our backyard, I thought about it all, again. The fence means that our boys can run in and out without so much worry and checking. And it also meant so many other analogous things, and I really liked that it also means that our dog can finally be free of this...

In our previous fenced backyard, our Tia Maria dog had free reign within the parameters of the fence. She was just fine with that. It was as if she knew the fence was there to protect her, to keep her home. Every once and a while she would get out, one of us forgetting the gate, and within minutes of sniffing around the neighbor's yard, she would end up sitting right back in her usual spot on the back steps. The gate would stand open wide for the freeing right next to her and yet every time, she was content to stay in the place she knew best, as if she understood she'd get lost if she left.

And then we moved and we had no fence and so we used the chain and she hated it and we hated it. And so today with the new fence and freedom from chains, I thought about the night I quit drinking, how it had to do with that chain. I thought about how I was too drunk to get it off of her and it was so snowy and slippery and I was bent down trying to release the clasp to let her in and couldn't get up from my knees. It was different than it had been before, I had maintained without being unable to get up before and so I knew I had to quit. I knew I had hit the spiral that alcoholics hit, the one that takes us to insanity. I didn't want to be the stumbly lady in the dark, drinking alone. I quit with that picture of me from that night in my mind.

I hope I never forget it.

Because the night of the chain is the night I was loosed.


Today I thought, We still need a fence, boundaries for safety, but the chain is gone.

When Ryan finished the fence (and practically threw a party for himself, just so you know), he ran for his favorite dog in the whole wide world, the girl he's been so diligently taking for a run every night because she's been so cooped up. He unhooked her chain and he said, GO!

She just stood there. Confused.

You're free, Tia, RUN!

She'd been loosed.

She just didn't know what to do.

Of course, I understood.

She walked over to a place she's been able to reach for nearly five months, ignoring all the new places to adventure, and lay down, close to what she knew, what had become familiar.


And I got it, right then. It made perfect sense to me why new sobriety is so uncomfortable.
It's a releasing from the chain and a new fence in a new home. And so I wondered if Tia was staying still because she was scared or if she didn't quite trust herself yet.

Or maybe she was still because she was just fine, for a little while, not expecting too much, just taking it all in.

We prodded and whistled and said with our high-pitched doggy-talk voices,
C'mon Tia, let's GO!
And she continued to sit still.

Until an idea hit us
and so we went with her
and when she saw us go ahead of her
running with freedom
she hopped up
and she sniffed and she explored
trailing behind a little carefully


She went as far as she could go, safely,
and she finally looked glad to be home.

The chains are gone and this is slow and I am not alone.

The way home

I am on a flight where you choose your own seat and this is new to me. At the same time that this empowers me, it also makes me feel like the unpopular kid in the lunch room, searching frantically for one of the last spaces and a welcoming face. Much like the last four and a half months of sobriety, I think, because I always think in analogies. I can't help it.

I spot the middle seat in the exit row and ask the Aisle Man if it's taken. He kindly says it's yours and I slide in and stretch my legs and start to realize he's been drinking. He makes jokes that aren't funny, loudly, trying to entertain the whole plane. Some people chuckle softly, a courtesy laugh. Others shift uncomfortably in their seats, trying to ignore his volume and obvious drunkenness.

He orders a drink and then another on a flight that's not two hours. I read David Sedaris and somehow I feel at ease. I feel comfortable with him, a kindred spirit even though I'm on this side of our addiction. I understand him and I forgive his clumsy words and actions and talk with him about Minneapolis. I am on my way home and I'm sober and it's surreal and good and different. And I think, when we're together we are not okay while we're okay, we are on different pages in the same book. And then I pray there is speed-reading involved in his story, even though I'm not ahead of him while I'm on this different page.

~~~~~~~

I get off the plane and I walk with this man until we say goodbye. Then I wait to claim my overstuffed bag. We're early, maybe the wind hurried our flight. So I lug said bag over the edge of the carousel and I go and stand outside while it starts to drizzle and I wait. I'm feet away from a bench and so I hear her when she slurs. She's talking to me and to everyone and no one and I don't know what her words are, but I know she's drunk. She can't sit up straight, her body sways from her intoxication and she rolls her eyes and waves away a woman who approaches her. The woman is her sister and she's anxious and embarrassed. She gives me an apologetic shrug of the shoulders and I touch her arm and tell her I understand, that I'm recovering, slowly. Her eyes light up and she says me too and she grabs my hand and tells me it's always so comforting to meet a fellow friend of Bill W.

She needed that right then and I did too and it was no coincidence at all that we stood there together just two people making an army.

With her garbled words, my new bench friend tells me she will be taken to Hazelden. She flew here to go to treatment. She laughs, like it's the best joke of her life and then the corners of her mouth shiver in fear. She is doing an excellent job of having one last hurrah before treatment, and my heart hurts for her and with hers and next to her soldier sister. I want to tell her that things are about to get better. I want to tell her that she's on her way to something good. I want to fix it. But I know she won't remember and so I just stand close by and I wait and I silently pray that she makes it, that her sister makes it. I really want them to make it.

And I pray and want the same thing for me, because we who are not on the same page but living the same story, we are different while always the same.

Then my ride pulls up to the curb and I don't want to leave while I want to leave.

That's how it feels, in this book, my addiction story, their addiction story. We are always both saints and sinners while we get better or we don't.

Whatever the page, there is always growth in the pain, while we wait for our rides home.

Everywhere

I am currently eating a bagel just as fast as I can.

Dear Digestive System,
please don't be mad, I'm in a hurry.
Love,
Overwhelmed

I leave for Utah in just 2 days. There I will be attending the Casual Blogger Conference and also doing a little speaking. Today I am kidless and working hard at preparing for the speaking and whitening my teeth. Because, you know, people might think my teeth are yellow while I'm waxing philosophical about blogging in front of them. Or something.

I've printed out my itinerary and the conference agenda and tickets for this and tickets for that and apparently this is really happening.

I shall now sit back and tell myself (burp) that everything is going to be just fine.

Yesterday I went to get loads of groceries in an effort to continue my job as wife and mother while I'm away. I was starting to feel the stress of traveling and public speaking and all of that, and for a while I sat in the grocery store parking lot, staring at its liquor store. I wasn't going to go in. I've made promises to myself and to my family and friends that I want to keep. But boy oh boy did I ever want white wine. Which makes no sense because I hardly ever drank white wine in my past alcoholic life. But it was so hot out and my stress level was rising and I had that dream about drinking white wine and it was so real. The dewy glass and the cold flow of bitter-sweet rushing to my veins. So real. And I wanted that dream to be real. Even though I know that if that dream were real, it would make me (and many others) very sad.

So I got out of my car and got fruit and meat and cheese instead. And while I stood in the checkout, I watched the little screen beeping through my items, adding up my purchases, and I wondered why there needed to be advertisements on the other half of the screen. This wine is on sale and that wine is on sale, and I will never taste it again.

It's everywhere. In books I read, people meeting up for margaritas. On TV, the way the lies are told, that drinking this or that form of booze will make you happy and maybe even thin. We all know that isn't true. I mean, I lost ten freaking pounds in a matter of days when I quit consuming an ungodly amount of wine. And my teeth are whiter now, too. For the record. Perhaps I don't need to whiten them before the conference after all....

Anywho. Like I said, it's everywhere, and I am everywhere, so I'm thinking I should just get used to it. Or start picketing or something. But not now, I need to go to Utah. In 2 days.

(Now is probably a good time to get prepared for my "presentations.")

What I'll think about while I work hard today is not wine, I will think about the lovely people I'm going to get to see and hear and laugh with. And I will know that I'm going to remember it all and be present and aware for it all, my veins filled with nothing but the blood pumping through them...and possibly, a whole lot of sugar.

Wish me well, friends! Even if you don't, I have a feeling this is going to be good. Even if the haircut I got the other day makes my head look like a very large mushroom.

The girl who lived on the lake

The last time I drove by
it hurt
to think back on her,
on me
not so long ago
but so long ago

I came that way again
turning my eyes to the lake
to see the changes
the new houses
the remodels
the spaces where
cabins once stood

In came a hundred
memories
of a twenty-something
party girl
who lived on the great wide and
green lake

What would she ask me?
I thought
What would she want to know
about who she would become,
who she would be becoming?

You'll be okay
I'd tell her,
then. now.
but you are taking a terribly
long way
to okay.
It's starting now
and you know
but you don't know

You will have a new life
while you're still both you
and a wife and a mom
and you will feel like both
and carry too much
of the now with you
then

The pit of your stomach
may never forget this
version of yourself,
broken
by yourself,
and not yourself
by he and them
and her and him

But your heart
will start to heal
long from now,
the now
on the lake,
and you will see
somehow
in the blue eyes
of boys that came from you
and him
that you are okay

Even good.
And the pit of your stomach
will make its twinges
a little less
as you drive around the lake
as yourself now,
you
who would not be she
without the girl who lived on the lake.


{freely written as an experiment to see what I would write in five minutes or less after a drive around the lake I lived on for a year many moons ago, a drive filled with emotion. It's quite a rough draft, so thank you for taking the time to attempt making sense of it. Happy Friday.}

This post is a part of Five for Ten at Momalom.

My accent thanks you from Minnahsohtah

UPDATE: I fixed it-it's full length now!
Color me proud. Except now I'm not that proud because
WOW, wait until you get to the end and I do a random and disturbing impression.
Seriously. WHAT is wrong with me?

I really can't believe I did this. I'm so not a vlogger.
You can tell by the horrible lighting and all the fidgeting.
I must really love you.
Here goes...nothin'...

Thank you from Heather King on Vimeo.

I know. I know. That thing at the end. I don't know...
And what? You callin' me a sappy sapperton?
Well...yeah.
Word.


The Maggie I speak of is Maggie Dammit, of course. Just sayin'.

And the post I speak of is here, at Missy's place.


The End.

On motherhood and addiction: My whole story

A fellow Minnesota blogger, Missy the Marketing Mama, is doing a health and wellness series on her blog with all kinds of information on varying topics. Today's topic is motherhood and addiction, and when Missy asked me to share my story, I was happy to do it and I'll tell you why in a sec.

If you've wondered at all about what my drinking was like (as in, the details) and what happened to get me to stop, I'm over at Missy's place today sharing the specifics of my story.

Please know that I agreed to do this because I think Missy is doing an amazing thing with this educational series, not because I want you to sit riveted in front of my sad addiction story. Actually, I don't. I hesitated before saying yes for that very reason. I don't want this to be about me. I wanted to do this because it's my truth and the truth can help other women like me. Also, Missy has asked some professionals from the amazing Hazelden Treatment Center to answer any questions her readers might have about addiction, and I think that rocks the party.

See you there.

Oh and while I'm on the topic of addiction, I wanted to thank you for your comments on my post The T Word. Seriously, there aren't enough words to tell you how grateful I am for you. Thank you.

~COMMENTS ARE CLOSED ON THIS POST~

The T word

I had to take deep breaths and put my head down, waiting for it to pass. I could feel it coming, the panic. The need.

I thought about how I need to be stronger to handle this. I can't do this, I thought. Who am I doing this for? I think I'd be drinking if I wasn't worried about what people think. Ugh that's awful, I thought of me. You're so selfish, I said to me. You would drink even though you have these two boys who are being so good to you and this husband who patiently understands you. Really? Who are you doing this for if not for them and you and God? And you're not. You're doing this because you said you would and you don't even want this.

In that moment I hated me. And I put my head down and I was gasping for air and I just kept saying right out loud help me help me help me while pulling up to a liquor store kept popping into my head and so I would squeeze my eyes closed to try to make it go away.

Help me, please come help me, I said.

And then I thought about the rats. How someone told me about a study where the rats were given vodka in their water and they wouldn't touch it, they would rather die of thirst than drink it. And then how they were injected with this long 'T' word I can't remember, a thing that alcoholics have in their brains, and when that 'T' words was in their systems, they were given straight vodka in one bottle and plain water in another and then they drank the vodka until they died. Something outside of them made them alcoholics and then suddenly they wanted to drink and they could not stop.

Somehow this was a comfort to me. Not that the rats would drink themselves to death, that's sad, but the harsh reality of what I'm fighting hit me and I realized I'm not as weak as I feel. I'm doing the very best that I can. I'm a rat trying not to choose the wrong bottle even though everything in me is pulled to what I don't want to be.

This isn't a sob story, this is me telling you that there is no other explanation for my sobriety than a power greater than myself. And that's why today is a new and better day. I am here and I'm sober. I'm not drinking myself to death or to the loss of my loved ones and feelings. I'm sober today and I'm grateful. I really wish the 'T' word was not a part of my life. I would much rather be allergic to cheese than wine. But I'm not. This is my reality and somehow, some way, going through this and telling its story will help someone.

If you are that someone, I want you to know that you are worth every moment with my head down with deep breaths. You are.

Peace.

The whole

I finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller on Friday. Then on Saturday I went to pick up his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. As Anne Lamott says, "I love Donald Miller. He's a man after my own heart."

I'm going to have to paraphrase a line from Blue Like Jazz because I've already given my copy of the book to a friend.

There is no more powerful drug than the addiction to self. (Sorry, Don. I probably butchered that. That line I'm remembering was probably more poetic and profound and probably hilarious, because that's just you.)

Anyway. Of course I thought of this line on Saturday when there I was, with myself taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror for myself's profile pictures on the world wide web.

Ouch.

The thing is, I wasn't taking those pictures because I think I'm hot. Actually, it's more that I think I'm not. So if I can try for the right lighting and then delete all the photos that show the two furrowed brow creases and the bags under my eyes, I'll try. Because then maybe I'll somehow get just the right picture for my Twitter profile and for Facebook. But mostly I just end up thinking I don't measure up, and that's why I was taking so many pictures. And now I'm only sharing this handful of the eleventy-gillion I took because these particular ones don't make me look like I have 3 chins like the deleted ones. And still I was looking at the ones I kept and thinking ugh. And I was thinking that I look almost 35 because I'm almost 35 and also that I need a haircut. So then I edited the pictures a lot on Picnik. So this isn't even actually what I look like.

It's only fair that I admit that, right?





As my wise and lovely friend Maggie said more eloquently recently, trying to walk through recovery from addiction while blogging is tricky, and I've been struggling with that too. When I read that line in Blue Like Jazz I realized that we are all walking that fine line. Yes, it may be a little more clumsy for those of us recovering from an addiction to substances, but I think all of us are here trying not to appear narcissistic.

But one of the hardest things to admit and then change is the fact that we are.

If we're not grandiose, thinking we're smarter or better in some way than other people, then we're self-deprecating and insecure and trying to act like we're not. Either way, we're dealing with a twisted form of pride, a self-focus that leaves little room for truly caring about other people because it's so exhausting. I don't mean just bloggers and I don't exactly know how to fix it, but I really want to try.

I've come to learn that I'm powerless over alcohol and I have to think that or speak that every day as a reminder. But what really makes recovery hard is the very thing we're all dealing with. Learning to accept that we have to do the very same thing with our very selves. I'm slowly learning that this is what will get me through, this is what will help me recover: Admitting that I'm addicted to myself and then praying for that addiction to be lifted and replaced with humility that isn't defined by insecurity, because that's not true humility anyway.

These are things that I knew, but I really didn't. I don't know that any of us can truly grasp just how focused on ourselves and our lives we really are, soul deep. Mentally, physically, spiritually...all parts of us pointing toward ourselves and our lives. It causes us so much pain and gets us all tied up in messes of our own making. I think this is why I'm a Christian. I believe in this God-Man who sat with whores and cheaters and drunks and saw through, soul deep, and He just wanted to listen and love that person and tell them true things about that love. They could stop thinking so much of themselves or so little of themselves because they were seeing in His eyes that they were free because of Him, somehow. Being next to Him makes it hard to stay self-addicted because He wasn't and isn't and that is powerful and contagious.

I'm a Christian because I love being next to Him, to Grace, to Love. And so often I forget to sit down next to Him because I'm just so busy thinking about myself.

And now I feel insecure and funny about sharing these photos and more thoughts about my faith. Because I don't want to be seen as narcissistic or the stereotype of a Christian because I'm not. And then again I am, I guess. But only in parts. I'm glad that the whole of me is greater than the sum of its parts, and that the God-Man I believe in sees me as the whole and that He has no problem sharing His perfect humility. I need to go sit by Him and ask for it, because without doing that, I'm powerless over my self addiction.



COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. (I always love what you have to say, but today is just simply a 'closed comments' sort of day.)

P.S. I will be thinking about Blue Like Jazz for a very long time. I'm certain it will be added to my list of favorite books ever. So I want to say thank you to Donald Miller because his words hit my heart at just the right time. His "nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality" put words to so much of what's in my heart and I'm so grateful. And he made me laugh out loud a thousand times, and I love that.

(And no, I'm not being compensated in any way to say that.)

(I get nervous about writing about my faith here and this is why.)

(The End.)

A picture story: Of Miles and 90

The next morning I woke up to a small finger tap-tap-tapping my arm.


Mommy, he said,

Is it Mommy and Miles Day again?

No sweetie, it's our whole family's day today, but that sure was fun, wasn't it?

Puppy dog eyes.

And it was. It was so good. We boarded a bus in the morning and bounced our way to St. Paul for a day at the Children's Museum with other families from Miles' preschool. We even got to see Uncle K for a while. When Miles ran to hug him I thought, I haven't seen him that excited in a really long time. He misses living by Uncle K.

We explored inside the museum...always really quickly, from thing to thing to thing. I tried hard to fight the Mommy Fears, the ones that rear their ugly head and make me think of injuries and kidnapping. Seriously. Motherhood is hard on a girl's brain, isn't it?



And then we explored outside.

We found this way cool little building sandwiched in an alley and despite the orange cones in front of it, we explored that too.

I know, I'm teaching my child to ignore orange cones for photo opportunities. Don't judge.


I want another Mommy and Miles Day. He is one of my favorite people.

Also, today I am 90 days sober. I don't tell you that so you'll praise me. I've got a LONG way to go on this journey, but I tell you that because I realized on Mommy and Miles Day that I wasn't in a hurry. I wasn't wishing to get back on the bus so I could get home to what I'd become so dependent on needing. I was just there.

I was just there.

The End.

~This post is a part of Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky. Thank you Emily~