Freeing the Birds

Once again my job has me thinking. My job is not fancy, or very important. It supplies good health insurance, and until now has allowed me the schedule I need to take care of my kiddos without having to pay for any child care. (I work 7-2, husband works 4-11ish)

Look at me, putting the cart before the horse. I don't know that my schedule will change. I just have that sinking feeling. You know the one where you've got a good new routine going and then for some reason wha-powie! the universe needs you to move. You aren't in the right place.

Oh. Maybe I'm not in the right place. Maybe I need to be really willing to move. To change jobs. To give up health insurance as some sort of justification for staying in a low paying job that I'm not really happy in. Maybe if I think about it objectively instead of emotionally I can come up with a better solution. I'm not trapped after all.

That one word- trapped- got me really thinking this morning. All my thinking from a meeting yesterday at work until this morning was trapped thinking. No options thinking. I'm stuck. No solutions. Nothing I can do. Helpless.I can't. Can't have a different schedule. Can't go to part time and lose my health insurance. Can't understand why things just won't roll along smoothly the way I want them to. Can't you just let me be for a bit? Get steady? Get it together? Keep it together?

When I was drinking I always had the "if only's":

"If only I wasn't so worried about money I could quit drinking."

"If only being a mother wasn't so stressful I could quit drinking."

"If only these jeans fit better I could quit drinking."

Now I think I have a case of the "can'ts":

"Can't you just let my job be less problematic so I can stay sober?"

"Can't life be easy so I can be sober?"

"Can't these jeans fit better so I can be stay sober?" ;)

Y'all! Then I had this great thought. I have been looking at it all wrong. All wrong! Because I have always felt trapped instead of free to make choices. Choices that may be right or wrong, but choices! Here I spend all this time whining to the universe and God about "If only" and "can't" and I've been talking about the wrong things the whole time. No wonder no one is listening, even I'm not paying attention!

So look at me, up there swinging from that ladder. Hanging from it, you could say. It looks hopeless. Helpless.

But then. Ho ho. I think I'll swing my feet up and then grab a rung. I think I'll climb up to that big strong branch holding the ladder and look around. I'll shimmy down that tree and check out all those roots at the bottom. I'll decide to look at it differently. I'll decide to be un-trapped.

Perspective and perception can change the way I think about things. I'm so glad to be sober so these thoughts can get through my mind soup. Instead of worrying and fighting my own head fight and resisting change I can embrace it. (carefully though, maybe we'll just go to "second base" today...) Looking at things rationally instead of wailing away about things being unfair. Seeing the options. Weighing them. Not taking it so personally.

When I first stopped drinking every day felt like a gift. A beautiful glowing healthy anything's possible gift. And then days turned to weeks, and now it's been almost two months (which is so short, but so long!) and I have to remind myself that every day still is a gift. And then I have these mind blowing conversations with myself and I'm freeing the birds.

No Joke

I've been sort of stuck lately. I was chalking it up to having the flu and the cold medicine. Today is the first day in over a week that I've been up at my "regular" time. I am bad a interrupted routines. I'm worse at getting squirreled away into my own head and starting the call to war. "Time to worry...you suck...time to worry...you suck...you're not doing it right...not doing it right..."

It's weird, but now that I'm all in with my sobriety, to me too far to go back now, I think my brain needs something to obsess about. And since I'm going to be finished with this fucking Whole30 (thank you sweet baby Jesus made from a biscuit) on Thursday I feel like my poor self is a little lost. What will I worry over? What makes me working on myself? What makes me special?

I am always starting some new restrictive "diet" or plan. (husband can tell you that) For example: no gluten, or no dairy. Or vegan, or paleo. Macrobiotics. The lists are endless, and the information is too. Today: eat grains. Tomorrow: grains are horrible for you. I have no food allergies. I am often jealous of people who can just eat and not wonder where the meat was raised, or who go to the grocery and pick up a pepper and not check the sticker to make sure it's organic, or look around for local produce. Who just use the creamer that is right there in their coffee instead of always asking for something other than dairy or soy, and then being a little annoyed since it's the regular almond milk not unsweetened. Is it being conscious or crazy? I get a little sick of myself.

People have always thought I ate weird stuff. It's my "thing". You know how we all have one. Like: He only wears flip flops. Even in the winter. Or: She only writes with blue ink. Or: He only wears black t-shirts and jeans. Something that's your "signature move". I have one neighbor that gets it. Everyone else stuffs their children full of Goldfish and candy and looks at me like I have three heads. What will I do when I have no food stuff to fret over? Start wearing black turtlenecks every day?

Because I've decided (gasp!) to give it a rest for a while after this is over. Quitting drinking and starting the Whole30 (two weeks later, what was I thinking? Oh, yeah. I ate fourteen thousand Christmas cookies) taught me something very important. I really don't want to shift my bad relationship with alcohol over to the way I eat. And I want to be aware of my food choices, but not every moment of every day.

But even deeper than that, I don't want to get into attaching myself to another "cause" that prevents me from seeing life day to day. I don't want to hide behind the curtain of another better-me scenario. I think that keeps me from dealing or not dealing with the minutiae. That whole seeing the forest for the trees.

Getting sober and staying sober has been such a gigantic release of distress. I picture myself opening my mouth wide and thousands of birds flying out- an avian worry spew breaking away from me. Every bird a voice that gave me permission to keep lying. But then I get afraid to live inside out and so I flutter my hands around trying to stop them, trying to keep them in. Trying to put myself back in the cage I've always been living in. Back where it's safe.

It's a scary prospect for me: to just live. To take each day as it comes, with no death grip hands on the wheel  muscling it this way and that. Instead to sit back, and enjoy the ride. Giving up control is no joke. But missing out on the nuances of life because I'm too busy trying to make it what I *think* it needs to be isn't so funny either.


p.s. I found the picture after I had the thought about the birds. I love the internet.