Settling

Our house is settling. We watched a show about sinkholes and then days later up the street appeared a spray painted note on the road: sinkhole. My youngest sons' door jamb is separating at what to me seems like an alarming rate, or maybe it's just more than any other door jamb separation I've ever witnessed, which to date is only this one. I still am not 100% convinced that we aren't going to wake up in the middle of the night suffocating under the collapsing floorboards even though no one else seems as worried as me.

My life is settling too. I was thinking about the house and it sort of mooshing itself down in the dry earth just by the pressure of its' own weight. Getting steady. Me too, I thought. This is me too. I spent a long time resisting pushing myself into the ground not quite sure of where to stand. It's one of those things like every damn sober thing: you just know when you're there. I picture a bird on a wire- flying in, feet out, catching on, and then shaking out its' wings. Then settled. Settling.

Then I thought of all the settling I did with my life before I got sober. How I settled for being a shadow of the woman I am. How I settled for being a drunk. How I settled for next day hangovers, one night stands, blackouts, forgotten fights. This is my life, I thought. I can't undo it all. I settled for it. Finished, I thought. Done deal.

This picture was taken at the start of my very worst year (2008-2009). I know now that I had a whopping case of post partum depression and being an alcoholic made it so much worse. I was trying so hard to settle in to being the woman it looks like I am in the picture, but in reality I was flailing all over the place. No safe place to land- wings and feet everywhere. Staying out all night. Dabbling in a little cocaine. Training for a marathon and picking up smoking again. Digging into the quicksand of my life over and over and over and over again. Somehow I found my feet around the end of the year and stopped behaving like a maniac. Still drinking, but no more all nighters, no more drugs. I settled for the shame of it and hid from the repercussions by acting like it never really happened. Even now thinking of that time gives me a vacant pit in my middle.

Recovering from that one year took a lot of forgiveness. If you want to know how magic your husband is, be a drunken fucked up asshole for a whole year with a new baby and a four year old and he forgives and loves you anyway.

Going back there is hard. It helps to remind myself how far I've come from that woman to this one: two and a half years sober. It helps to feel that hurt because I am made up of all the good and bad that's been done. It helps because I know that bad won't be done again: I don't drink anymore so I don't forget who I am anymore.

There is a fierce comfort in the settling my life is doing. A rightness. I am establishing myself as this woman I am today, and leaving behind the shaky ground I inhabited for so many years. Resolving the argument between who I was then and who I am now. I am settling down, settling in. Settled.