Waiting Room

I loll about in bed for ten minutes or so before I get up. Thinking about things, feeling what it feels like to wake up sober and stretchy and safe. There's usually an idea that pushes it's way to the front of the line and that's what I write about in the morning. This morning I started thinking about time, and patience, and waiting.

I have waited my entire over eighteen years old life to get sober.

That just blew me away a little.

All those times I felt ashamed, and angry. Impatient with my scared sweet self because I just didn't "get it" yet. Where the fuck is my light bulb moment? Furious at me, embarrassed by the person that I was. So disappointed that I couldn't care about myself enough to take care of her, to show her how I really felt. Anxious and always giving up, sick of waiting.

It's like being at the doctor's office. The nurse had called my name, I was in an examining room. But no one was showing up. No one was coming in to take a look at me and tell me how to fix what was wrong. I kept a hopeful eye on the door. 1989, 1997, 2002...jeez, what was taking so long? 2006, 2010... Finally! THERE YOU ARE.

I am so proud of these thirty days that I waited and waited to get to, year after year, hangover after hangover, one day after another. I cradle and clutch them close. I honor them by adding to them and protecting them every day. I burst out in sudden brief sobs when I'm running or alone humbled and grateful that I waited all this time and someone finally showed up: ME. I take the time to think about what being sober means to me, to my husband, to my children.  How it took forever to get here. How we all waited without even knowing what we were waiting for and when it would come.

How suddenly, but with lots of warning (lots of warning, years of warning) I finally arrived. HERE I AM. AND I AM FINISHED WAITING.

Now I wait for other stuff. I roll thoughts around in my head, marbles and morsels and bits of what makes me me. I'm figuring out what I like, what I'll stand for. How to stand up for myself. (since I'm starting to know what the hell I'm talking about) I wait for ideas to finish. I'm not ten steps ahead of myself all the time unable to concentrate on the task at hand. I take a breath. I "be in the moment". Patient. Waiting. Taking MY time.