tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81362682410548505442024-03-29T03:20:08.867-04:00SoberbiaAfter many years of casual and not so casual drinking I'm staying sober. Right here in suburbia.
amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611431855409976777noreply@blogger.comBlogger243125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-13092762903650975132022-04-29T10:04:00.007-04:002022-04-29T10:04:56.917-04:00Grown Up <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivSNrEtf_f8086_k8ppi_pl1ec3pHkLkA4yuvUJI4JkXIbsya0De4I0AEAToFJmik3E4B65JPBysD8PbTrQI-J-q7AT88KlvVrHsMWlvNvHA6vMP81f7HI5BLdeSzGty6nFqDpX1sPrNveq0Kbgyoqyt-cSNUPGwFnVtF7XkbAQ-oNpZlN6Bhgoea1/s4032/55DF3273-C63B-4E13-BF96-29457DAA6013.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivSNrEtf_f8086_k8ppi_pl1ec3pHkLkA4yuvUJI4JkXIbsya0De4I0AEAToFJmik3E4B65JPBysD8PbTrQI-J-q7AT88KlvVrHsMWlvNvHA6vMP81f7HI5BLdeSzGty6nFqDpX1sPrNveq0Kbgyoqyt-cSNUPGwFnVtF7XkbAQ-oNpZlN6Bhgoea1/s320/55DF3273-C63B-4E13-BF96-29457DAA6013.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Turning 10 years old was a very big deal to me. My age had TWO numbers and I was officially on the way to being a <i>grown up</i>- the magical thing I wanted more than anything else in the world. My little girl heart desperately longed for the grown up-ness of life to begin. I thought if I was a grown up I would securely fit in, fit most somewheres, that several if not all someones would understand me. That what made me hard to understand was the child part of me, which at 10 years old was most of me. That I would be credible, lovable, and believable if I was a grown up. <p></p><p>When I quit drinking I wanted to be a person who was a grown up sober person. I didn't want to be a beginner-a sobriety child- I wanted the convincing distance that age of doing a thing for a long time gives you. It was a sense of security, of being able to be believed. Just like wanting to be a grown up as a child, I imagined long term sobriety/recovery would give me the credibility I longed for. That people wouldn't be smiling with goodwill upon hearing I quit drinking and also hiding behind their back the fan of skepticism cultivated from seeing too many people say one thing and do another. </p><p>The interesting thing about quitting the thing that stunts your growth and keeps you from your dream is that it forces you to grow in a whole other ways besides up. My freedom from alcohol now, living my 10th year, seems like such a small step that was also the biggest thing I've ever done for myself. It was a first step, a footfall. A choice. I thought the biggest thing was the quitting, but really it's all the daily things that happen after that that are the big things. </p><p>When I think about the morning I quit, I still cry. It feels so close, the kids innocently small, me a sick sack pinned to the bed so hungover I couldn't speak or move. The slats on the closet door. The love I found for myself that morning, that I dug down and found my worth, my heart. I didn't know that I did that until now. Then I just thought I was miserable, on my last ditch, and if I didn't quit I would lose my children's love and respect, that as soon as they grew up they would get as far away from me as they could. I had to quit or lose them- that was the choice I made then. I could slowly kill myself but I just could not kill their childhoods. </p><p>The boys were 7 and 4 when I quit. They're 17 and 13 now. They are bigger and beautiful, we have solid close loving relationships and both of them thanked me for being there for them in the birthday cards they each made for me. I have wept a bit every day since with gratitude for who we are together. The scariest thing I imagine is how different their lives would be had I drank for the last 10 years. What their lives would be like today if I was still a blackout drinker. How big my mountain of shame would be. Would I still be alive? Would I be alive but dead to them?</p><p>I thought drinking made me a grown up. I thought getting drunk was a sign of sophistication. I learned getting drunk made me forget my pain. I didn't know. I didn't know. </p><p>But my children know. I have been open and age appropriately honest with them and we talk about my drinking and why I did it and what they remember about it and what they think about them drinking or using drugs themselves. I am incredibly proud of how quitting drinking makes me the mom I always wanted to be. Present. Loving. Honest. Patient. Supportive. My children love me. We love each other. </p><p>I am also incredibly proud of how quitting drinking makes me the grown up I have always wanted to be. Present. Loving. Honest. Patient. Supportive. I love myself. </p><p>Now I think being a grown up means you learn that there's a lot more to things than you thought. Yes, I did quit for them. What I've learned is that I also quit for myself. As I've reflected on these past 10 sober birthdays and the years that go along with them I am pleased to realize that along the way I found the love I have for my children for myself. There is both. </p><p>That by being their grown up, I also became my own. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p><br />amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611431855409976777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-26432443927297784652022-04-17T10:35:00.004-04:002022-04-17T10:37:49.028-04:00Caring<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZu7mUiOQw3Sz73gq88oFHYhfjLRFOOv1cWsQ5A86Ef_NrCpakvfGaeQZosKh_qzA6YbexZRaV9y7tyiODOeJkxtvoinSBRT17F5BNKvi2Cnfhu-L5rbbXvxEfxvJ_I1rr6iVq7KUpOUUkTvKHcT56n977ad7lH5nZfqvqFkW1KWsvz_m7qJsw-nkl/s4032/FDBB7305-5711-48B1-96D0-E1E72910543E_1_201_a.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZu7mUiOQw3Sz73gq88oFHYhfjLRFOOv1cWsQ5A86Ef_NrCpakvfGaeQZosKh_qzA6YbexZRaV9y7tyiODOeJkxtvoinSBRT17F5BNKvi2Cnfhu-L5rbbXvxEfxvJ_I1rr6iVq7KUpOUUkTvKHcT56n977ad7lH5nZfqvqFkW1KWsvz_m7qJsw-nkl/s320/FDBB7305-5711-48B1-96D0-E1E72910543E_1_201_a.heic" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This morning I woke up and finished watching Broadchurch. I canceled my Saturday clients because my voice is still gone. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A dear friend suggested fresh ginger tea. I gather the things together- the little knife I got at the thrift store, the pretty stars and animals saucer, part of an espresso set from when I worked at a restaurant called Upstream when I first moved to Charleston when I was 30 years old, which is now 20 years ago. I got that espresso set because the cup was chipped and cracked and it was going to get thrown out. Where's the cup? I’m not sure, it was around for a long time but things like that get lost in moves or suddenly seem like garbage since they're chipped and I maybe threw it away. I can’t remember. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It made me think about how hungover I was then, at 30, a lot of the time. A lot of my life. Being hungover, feeling bad- it’s just not part of my life anymore, it's been gone for so long. That I did that to myself, dragged myself through my days like that, had babies like that…oh, oh. How it makes my heart ache. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I look at this scene: my own little house, the pretty things I have, behind the lovely cup my mom gave me last Christmas because it’s deep blue and has nature and owls on it and she knew I'd like it, the good loose leaf tea in the beautiful blue jars that belonged to my great grandmother. Was I always this loved? </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s strange to realize how much I suffered at my own hand. Is this a stage of recovery/sobriety? What would I call it? Realization? I’m winding my way to 10 years this year. TEN. YEARS. WITHOUT. DRINKING. Me. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">How did I do it? Go to work, live? Feeling so shitty? And how did I decide to do it over and over again, not caring about the me on the other side of getting drunk, drunk, blackout drunk? It makes me proud of my determination in a strange way- that I was so driven to show up even when inside I was suffering so so much- physically from the effects of so much alcohol, mentally from so much else. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This morning I woke up, made coffee. I did my little morning routine- while my moka pot heats up the coffee I unload the dishwasher and make my bed. I empty the litter box. I check my email and social media while I drink my first coffee and poop. I sit at my round dining room table, the one where I sat with my beloved grandmother as a little long haired girl, drinking sweet milky coffee. I read my book. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I didn't used to be able to drink coffee when I drank alcohol. The anxiety and edginess it produced was so overwhelming- when I think of it now I know it just made the voice of <i>something is really wrong here </i>unbearably LOUD. I would get so shaky and nervous and uncomfortable that I just became a person who could not drink coffee instead of a person who could not drink alcohol. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Now, my morning coffee gives me a sense of accomplishment- I can drink some coffee and be okay in the world. I don't know why it's these little things- these every day little things that make me feel the most like I found my way. These little things like coffee, making my bed every day. Washing my face and brushing my teeth at night. My patience and not taking things personally with my children, who are now both lovely teenagers. I don't just care about myself, I care <i>for </i>myself. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Being sick this past week has been a bit of a chore and a light bulb in my head. It has taken me a lot of reality checks and presence to remember that being sick people aren't bad people. I made myself sick drinking for so many years and then had to deal with those consequences like nothing was happening. Like I was fine. Years of pretending you feel fine when you actually feel like you're dragged out dying makes it weird to be actually sick, or hurting- like I'm faking this cold, or I went and did this to myself on purpose. Like it's my fault. Like there's blame to be tossed around and I will throw it and catch it and hold it tight because that's what you do when you drink a lot to cope. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I am really proud of myself. It seems like such a small thing: take sweet tender care of yourself when you're sick. For me, my work continues to be showing up in the world with the truth in my outstretched hands. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611431855409976777noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-88568760677088496902022-04-14T10:47:00.010-04:002022-04-14T22:51:28.660-04:00How to be Sick<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-jzB3n4vTuolv7aW2Hy1PLsfZAxnmdNFy79icaLmu6gjVCQxAvKrv4zy8_BkLqEyN-hYXFcTcwE7W3YM9GikapJwAqUZKDRIRtYzVK1ETaI_4e7XYOI1c6cky7u9SRabI5u1iss2k7Dx2lcGPc-inLEjQ7d9Gpv2GWwgV9vtmq-CUlDuYIkhKJQCI/s3088/324ED0E4-36E7-401D-B063-0EF802B84F3E_1_201_a.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3088" data-original-width="2320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-jzB3n4vTuolv7aW2Hy1PLsfZAxnmdNFy79icaLmu6gjVCQxAvKrv4zy8_BkLqEyN-hYXFcTcwE7W3YM9GikapJwAqUZKDRIRtYzVK1ETaI_4e7XYOI1c6cky7u9SRabI5u1iss2k7Dx2lcGPc-inLEjQ7d9Gpv2GWwgV9vtmq-CUlDuYIkhKJQCI/s320/324ED0E4-36E7-401D-B063-0EF802B84F3E_1_201_a.heic" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Does it seem like I'm always at the doctor? Here's another selfie, this one from urgent care on Monday when I had what felt like strep throat. My hair looks lovely but I feel like total shit. </p><p>I felt pretty worn out on Sunday, I took an at home Covid test and it was negative so I kept the walking date I had that morning. By Sunday afternoon I felt exhausted, heavy. <i>Rest</i> I thought. <i>I just need a good night's sleep. </i></p><p>I woke up Monday morning and it was clear I was sick. I had several things to do on Monday- clients, a meeting for a class I'm taking, and not just clients, one of the appointments a brand new client who was considering working with me. <i>OH NO </i>I thought. <i>How can I make all these things happen? How can I just get through it?</i></p><p>Then, the sweet moment of realization that I did not have to make anything happen. I was sick. It is normal to be sick. It is normal to cancel everything when you are sick. Relief, then dread, thick dread. It felt wrong, and weird to think that way. What would my clients think? What about the brand new person? What a terrible impression to have to reschedule our first meeting. What about my classmates? They'll think I don't care. </p><p>I had the out of body experience I have when I understand that my training is at work and I am living in my habit instead of being in the moment. I become two people: the old me, the one who thinks people judge you for canceling and it destroys your credibility and I am not really that sick, I am just lazy and dumb and careless. Ouch. Then the this me, the 50 year old who has been in recovery for almost 10 years and therapy for 7 years and working so hard to know what's real me gently comes in. She knows not to rush, or be loud. She mothers me, tenderly. This me knows what's real. </p><p>I have to break it down into the most basic of basics in actual conversation with myself because I am still young in my practice of this kind of knowing about things. <i>Wait Amy, </i>50 year old me says, without force or agenda. <i>You are sick. You can feel it. You know what you're talking about. What would you tell someone else or your clients? Tell yourself that too. Now, what would you say? </i></p><p>I answer myself, shyly. <i>I would say if you're sick you take care of yourself. That being sick is not a character failing, but something that happens to everyone. That people are understanding. That if they aren't understanding those aren't your people. That to be in my integrity I cancel everything. I go to the doctor to make sure I don't have strep. And then I go to bed until I'm well. </i>Old me and 50 year old me look each other in the eye. Together we open my email, we text clients to reschedule. No one is mad, or disappointed- they know who I am. We make the doctor appointment. Together. </p><p>Often I am so angry at the part of me that kept me drinking and numb for so long. The part that made me work when I was actually sick, that never let me see how bad things were. TWENTY SEVEN YEARS!!! I want to scream at that part, over and over. I want to be so angry at it, to burn it down, to shame it and hurt it and reject it and ask it <i>how on earth could you be so fucking foolish</i> while I'm standing there close in so it can see the anguish of what it's done. </p><p>It knows. She knows. I know. </p><p>I am to the point where I am starting to <i>feel</i> my feelings and recognize <i>my</i> true feeling. I don't know how to say it better than plain like that. When you master numbing out for the majority of your life there are fathoms and trenches to tirelessly swim through before you feel the tiny jolt of aliveness that matches what you're truly actually really feeling. <i>Oh, </i>I will think. <i>I FEEL MAD. Oh. </i></p><p>It seems like such a simple thing: to be sick. And then to take the normal steps that you take when you are sick, that are new steps to me. What a glorious moment! To recognize myself and to openly care for myself in front of people. It feels monumental. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><i><br /></i></p>amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611431855409976777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-71326895705176861602022-03-23T15:36:00.012-04:002022-03-24T10:59:35.288-04:00Replacement (Part 1) <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiO-FCteLbEaqnwzGc5UVFkw_RZvFwSjnKQNIG5xHXDAgQXmLGr6JWJTyNnX5WT86Q-UYdT_m8MLDQznQlmqkwLPxqYCAlR6hIE8geVs2YjKH2fjZJELn6P3Xev1Y4x6fll8H8-2SYsMEu6k77e2UochOsuS7FqD60rqsNIBMpXrxDY2OwAYzEYCJsb=s3088" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3088" data-original-width="2320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiO-FCteLbEaqnwzGc5UVFkw_RZvFwSjnKQNIG5xHXDAgQXmLGr6JWJTyNnX5WT86Q-UYdT_m8MLDQznQlmqkwLPxqYCAlR6hIE8geVs2YjKH2fjZJELn6P3Xev1Y4x6fll8H8-2SYsMEu6k77e2UochOsuS7FqD60rqsNIBMpXrxDY2OwAYzEYCJsb=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>I've been a runner</b> since spring of 2005. In my memory I started running to offset the boredom of walking with the baby in the jogging stroller. But, it was probably more to combat the extra weight I was carrying from having been pregnant. (baby weight on top of the extra weight I was already carrying from a lot of late night binge drinking) <p></p><p>Another fighting my body. </p><p>I have always wanted to be effortlessly beautiful. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>When I was in</b> my early 20's, I moved home a year or two after dropping out of college. I got a DUI the night before my mom was driving three and a half hours up the mountain to Boone, NC to pick me up and bring me home. I called her as soon as I got out of jail just before dawn that morning, lying, saying I had to work just one more day, could she please come get me tomorrow? </p><p>Back at home, I got a job waiting tables at Chili's and I'd go hike up <a href="https://www.ncparks.gov/crowders-mountain-state-park/home" target="_blank">Crowder's Mountain</a> whenever I had free time. I lost weight- down to a size 2, which to me felt like a weird miracle, and yet I still often felt excruciatingly big and uncomfortable in my own skin. I was probably a size 8 or a 10 to start. None of that feels important now, and yet it does- these decades old numbers and the images that go along with them tattooed on my brain. Anything past about size 6 started to mean you were an <i>out of control body failure</i>. I have spent years of my life resenting the body I have- wishing someone else would find me substantially beautiful enough enough times so I could start to believe it myself. </p><p>You know how you get so tired of something, exhausted from carrying the idea you were taught that wasn't even yours to begin with? And yet, resigned you sigh, heave it up, ratty and worn, heavy old burden that's super glue fused to your thoughts, the boomerang that can't be tossed far away enough to not come back? God, <i>damn</i> my fixation about my body. I'm so sick of it. </p><p>I start to feel uncomfortable. I start to try to control it, but then following my pattern, I alternately want to starve myself or stuff myself. I stress. My body is the first place I turn against when I'm stressed. I immediately start finding things wrong- my stomach isn't flat, my legs are dimply. The solution seems to become "look different and all problems resolve themselves". I feel ugly. I start to change clothes 7 times when I get dressed, my anxiety making it harder and harder. But also looking too pretty is a problem, so I have to find the right balance of <i>I look great </i>and <i>I didn't try at all</i>. </p><p><i>If I only could look right then everything will be okay. </i></p><p>What does "look right" even <i>mean</i>? </p><p>It's interesting to be 50 years old and still feel like this. To tangibly want to give up giving a shit about this, and to be so attached to it as a coping mechanism that losing it feels like losing myself, in a way. What do I have if I don't have this consistent criticism of my appearance in my thoughts to comfort me? </p><p>The empty space is harder than the familiar. It is hard to quiet the voice and wait. It feels inauthentic to cheer myself on, the other option feels like waiting for what else I have to say but that is so...empty. I resort to comforting myself by trying to say the truth (<i>I look like me, I 'm supposed to look like me</i>) but I can only approve of myself in an echo chamber for so long before my own voice coming back to me feels insulting. </p><p>It seems like it's about control. I think about myself on the beach in a bathing suit and the people who see me are thinking: <i>look at her body, she has no self control.</i> </p><p>Ha! I am overflowing with self control! I have a grand surplus of it! It squeezes out of everywhere, bursting forward, leaking all over everything. </p><p>To let go of control. Or approval? Or both? </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Circling back to the</b> beginning and me being a runner..now I physically can't run much more than a mile. I can walk about 4 or 5 miles, only after some ibuprofen and it isn't great. I have to stop some, and the last mile or two I'm often wishing I were finished already. So I don't go as often, even though running in the woods is my redemption, my saving grace. </p><p>It happened suddenly, not being able to run. Around Christmas I was continuing a long practice of running 6 miles four or five times a week, sometimes further. I was signed up for an 8 mile trail run in February. But I had to email the race director mid January and let them know I wasn't going to be there. I physically could not do it. </p><p>My body reflects this change in my running practice. It feels like a slap in the face. I have been devoted, careful, dedicated to running in a way that felt wise and good. Losing it means I lost my comfort in my own skin. I feel like I'm in a stranger's body. Like I inflated a little and can't exhale. It's not much, no one would notice. Like a rock in my shoe, you probably don't see it, but I feel it. It's painful, and annoying, and also feels petty and vain. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>The picture above is </b>one I took of myself before my consult with the surgeon who is going to replace my hip on June 13th. Finally, after years of pain and lack of mobility I will get a new hip. He will replace the one that's worn out, the one that is bone on bone, with bone spurs that act like locked doors and that for the past couple years has only let me do one kind of movement: run. In turn, running let me feel okay. It gave me control of my body, and my own approval. </p><p>Now, it's gone. </p><p>And it's not okay. </p><p>For now, I'd like to acknowledge that. To not rush myself past what I'm experiencing now, but to feel it, suffering vanity, the lack of approval, the discomfort I have in my own skin. </p><p>Not rush towards the solution, to the but, but, but! </p><p><i>"But no one can tell!" </i></p><p><i>"But it's not forever!" </i></p><p><i>"But you know you are (insert positive descriptor here)!"</i> </p><p>I am here now to say: I want the time to feel uncomfortable. </p><p>I want to see what it feels like, to get to know it, so maybe I learn something about myself by <i>not</i> being okay. </p><p>To be patient enough to hear the silence of me not knowing what to say. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04611431855409976777noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-11324532775407927752022-03-18T10:35:00.001-04:002022-03-18T11:22:19.933-04:00Permeability<h1 style="text-align: left;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0m0fnoTQjJMJmz5Dpctg_P5UQzIqoM2WKcNaXifZnqkR0TRKt8OPGv6DMLPiK5w9U51N0DErWPidRuRgOKqCnvmX3-m1ww73t89alsQ6H2pruIcmAXTRYXBR1O6OPUh-dCMqkfsdvcrOqGmr_PLcEbFfz4c0bcK_EqUHVfj9Ls9FKfHxz6YHcCPFQ2Q=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0m0fnoTQjJMJmz5Dpctg_P5UQzIqoM2WKcNaXifZnqkR0TRKt8OPGv6DMLPiK5w9U51N0DErWPidRuRgOKqCnvmX3-m1ww73t89alsQ6H2pruIcmAXTRYXBR1O6OPUh-dCMqkfsdvcrOqGmr_PLcEbFfz4c0bcK_EqUHVfj9Ls9FKfHxz6YHcCPFQ2Q=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /></h1><h1 style="text-align: left;">Permeability</h1><div>Out on a run/walk/wander I remembered what I thought on a recent early morning: <i>I am separate from other people</i>. It really struck me that what I feel, think, decide, am... it's all mine. And that other people's those things are all theirs. Like I am a cloud, and you are a cloud, and we are each our own weather systems that can also create weather together. </div><div><br /></div><div>I spend a lot of time thinking about humans- how we behave, our histories, our family histories, our behavioral legacies, our training, choices, conditioning, changing, stagnating- it's all fascinating to me. I think about myself and how I got sober and what it took to get there. </div><div><br /></div><div>What it was like to live the life I lived before I quit drinking. </div><div><br /></div><div>What it was like to <i>live</i> that life. </div><div><br /></div><div>What it's like to live this life. </div><div><br /></div><div>The things I have learned and how much I still have to go. I remember being out on a run in the beginning of my recovery and thinking "What if I never finish?" and starting to cry because then I thought with relief and joy "I will never finish!!!" </div><div><br /></div><div>I realize periodically that something I do unconsciously pretty often is: I try to not make any mistakes by being me the individual. I really guard myself closely, collecting myself, looking for loose threads or flyaways of self. <i>Oh this? That's nothing!</i> And I scoot that part of me you might have seen under the rug. It's weird for someone who is like me- I am open to talking about <i>your </i>behaviors or <i>your</i> life so I seem like I am open and revealing, but just try asking me about my<i>self</i> and I will probably clam right up like a... clam. I'm so good at it you may not even notice that I change the subject or that I'm very brief and that I rarely talk about myself. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am working on this. It can feel like being pushed out onstage naked when I talk about myself. I watch the audience closely. <i>Was that my line? Am I saying it right? </i>I watch for signals. <i>Did I mess that up? Am I in the right place? Did I hit my mark? Your mark? </i>I try to be palatable. Too much of me and I start looking around for you, but you coming <i>from</i> <i>me</i>. Talking about myself makes me feel afraid. I don't like it. I worry you/the world won't like it. </div><div><br /></div><div>My afraid is the fear of being ridiculed or looking foolish, of making a mistake. My therapist and I have discussed this for several years now and I am at this place where I really love and trust myself inside. How to put that on the outside? It's like if you had a beautiful treasure but you keep it hidden. I love my beautiful treasure and I'm afraid if I show you you'll make fun of it or tell me it's stupid or that I don't know what I'm talking about. So it's much easier to live inside myself where I'm safe. </div><div><br /></div><div>Vulnerability is hard. </div><div><br /></div><div>Except.. I want to connect. I know I'm mostly not breakable fragile like that anymore, and I'm working on remembering that I'm a 50 year old woman who made my own recovery (don't we all?) and I've been purposely living and studying human behavior for almost 10 years in my own cool way and I have pretty terrific things to share about that and about me. I have mothered and run my own business and been married and separated and/or ended and/or repaired signifiant relationships- like my marriage, my relationship with my parents, a couple of friendships. </div><div><br /></div><div>These boundaries, the separation from other people is not a wall, it's a defense mechanism. A coping skill. I was thinking about how I tend to think people in my life think like me, but it's more like I try to guess what people are thinking and then I make myself like them. Writing that makes me think about how I don't really do that as much anymore but I feel like I do and I need to catch up to where I actually am. </div><div><br /></div><div>The idea that I am separate from other people means that we might be in relationship but we aren't the same person. </div><div><br /></div><div>What a relief. And what a mind fuck. For a lifetime I have thought that if someone was in my life it meant we matched. A strange sort of branch of codependency. Gaining the understanding that we can be in each others lives and differ vastly feels like maturity. It feels like I'm responsible for me, you're responsible for you- and we are responsible for each other too, but not dependent on similarity to function. </div><div><br /></div><div>This gleaning of personal separation feels like a wise expectation. </div><div><br /></div><div>As in: </div><div><br /></div><div>I expect me to be like me, and you to be like you. </div><div><br /></div><div>That seems real, and honest, and much less confusing than thinking the people in my life are mostly like me but I actually have to be mostly like them. It was a blind spot. It feels validating to see myself in the pool of that insight. </div><div><br /></div><div>I was reading something somewhere about how lately these days we all think we are unique and separate and individual and that's what's getting valued- that the collective has become the pieces, not the picture. I think it's both. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's the permeability. </div><div><br /></div><div>The ability to allow things to pass through you. To keep your self while keeping community. A frog's skin is permeable to water- but the frog does not become water, and the water does not become frog...they exist together, and apart. The frog is a frog, the water is a water. And there is the frog in the water, and there is the water surrounding the frog. </div><div><br /></div><div>Putting <i>yourself</i> - the youest you- out into the world as yourself is crazy: hard/easy/hard/easy on and on. There are so many ways we are bombarded with different options and opinions...how do you know? And then how do you not short circuit when rejected or laughed at or made fun of- <i>even if it's only in your own mind</i>? Being the "right" frog in the "right" water- it can be exhausting. </div><div><br /></div><div>And such an unconscious habit to be absorbed instead of be permeable. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I am absorbed I do not have boundaries. Something I have started noticing is that I do have boundaries, but I tend to set them and then erase them. It's wild to watch. I'm learning that if I am permeable I don't lose myself, or my boundaries- and it feels healthy and care full. I know where I am. It's kind of like always telling myself the truth and being willing to stand with that truth, and knowing that truth can change. That it isn't a threat to know more or do things differently. </div><div><br /></div><div>Taking it apart- here's me in a situation:</div><div><br /></div><div>Me deciding what feels wisest for me. </div><div>DOING THAT THING. </div><div>Wanting to erase it (oh no! I didn't mean it! never mind! it's okay!), but not erasing it. </div><div>Feeling totally uncomfortable in the itchy scritchy sweater of not erasing it. </div><div>The sweet nugget of warmth that comes, a bit of confidence, of trust, of love. </div><div><br /></div><div>I have to do things in these kinds of instructions because then it makes more sense: I slow down, recite my practices to myself- whatever they may be- <i>First you do this, then you do that. It's not about right or wrong. Please slow down. You don't have to go fast. </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>There's a sense of recognition and congruency that arrives. I am me, and I am here, standing next to you, apart and together- permeable. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h1><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-33074857228287929562022-02-01T14:47:00.004-05:002022-02-01T14:52:48.406-05:00Moving Back <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhokYFf0y1yO_KKnAD0VUxaoFnyeAxaAxNvbFzckgoW4A5VQDR9moIgVMAAMpeS-dmM2t2OpBRSKXZPLEKSKSpuVizGf4EQpiIwcPWNFuB__w2GDNqdqK9cCe_028BJWodVVA5OFkVT07NiTKiTKHZIaD1s1AMzgUjv7UG03D16neiFTK14zEe6eqdwFw=s3264" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2176" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhokYFf0y1yO_KKnAD0VUxaoFnyeAxaAxNvbFzckgoW4A5VQDR9moIgVMAAMpeS-dmM2t2OpBRSKXZPLEKSKSpuVizGf4EQpiIwcPWNFuB__w2GDNqdqK9cCe_028BJWodVVA5OFkVT07NiTKiTKHZIaD1s1AMzgUjv7UG03D16neiFTK14zEe6eqdwFw=w213-h320" width="213" /></a></div><i>(pictured: where I first started writing Soberbia)</i><p></p><p><br /><b> It's funny how I loved writing this blog so much</b>, and then as life got different, I got things like a my own website and I left Blogger to move on. I wrote on my website on Wordpress for a while, but it felt confusing and flat. Now all of those posts are gone, deleted by Wordpress without me seeing their look out warning. I started to blog on my current website but that didn't feel right either. </p><p>Thankfully, these early years are still saved here. I started thinking about jumping on the Substack bandwagon, made a Soberbia page there, and yet...every time I wrote something it remained a draft and now there are 10 or so and it just doesn't feel like me. So I just leave my writing hanging in the draft space in Pages or on Substack and in my mind I keep promising myself to publish something, <i>anything</i>, for gods sake. </p><p>But alas. Months go by, years..and nothing. No publish. </p><p><b>Then on a call with a potential client the other day they told me they'd read this blog.</b> And my old blog before this blog. I'd forgotten there even was a blog before Soberbia, but there was and it was called Sell the Goat. </p><p>When I started Soberbia my method used to be: get up at 5 am. Sit at the computer desk next to the fireplace and hope no small children wake up early. Start writing, or find a picture that says what I'm trying to say and build on that. Be as honest as possible. Don't overthink it. Just write and publish and write and publish again and again, learning and living my way into some answers. Words are the flashlights for me. Scour the landscape and find the thing that needs light, writing is a lighthouse. </p><p><b>It feels real and right to sit here</b>, now, in a totally different life, nine years later, to return to <i>write for the deep deep pleasure of writing</i> writing. That it's a way to connect, to be in community, to build real relationships, and to offer what I know and to learn from others. I left Blogger when I decided my writing needed to look important, and be more legitimate, and got on social media and promptly killed my love of writing words with the soggy blanket of comparison and shiny expectation. It's interesting, I did that with my running too- made it complicated with times and miles and achievements and appearance and then let go of all of it and found the deep deep pleasure of running again. </p><p><b>Maybe it's because I'm 50 now that I value my experience of my life</b> more than I value the experience others have of my life. Maybe it's humility, or freedom, or the heart of dedication to my art- my beloved and temperamental writing- that beats steady and loud in my ears. </p><p>Or maybe it's just that somehow we always manage to find our way home... </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-15369786718629262882017-04-12T12:14:00.000-04:002017-04-12T12:14:53.551-04:00Moving Along...You can come too!!! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>After over four years here at Blogger I'm moving over to my very own website!</b><br />
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<a href="https://amyknottparrish.com/" target="_blank">HERE IT IS!!!! </a><br />
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Come visit me at my new digs. You can still email me about anything, and I'll still be writing blog posts. I'm also offering Life + Recovery Coaching over there too.<br />
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Thank you to everyone who reads along with me here, I hope that you'll continue to be part of the Soberbia community. With this community I have grown into the woman I am today. Let's keep going. BIG LOVE.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-88318361507687397402017-03-14T17:56:00.000-04:002017-03-14T17:56:49.172-04:00Love's Not Love<br />
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The other day my oldest son, age 12, brought home a lovely bouquet of dandelions and sweet little purple flowers for me. He stuffed all these flowers into his LaCroix lemon seltzer can during outside time at school, carried them around with him half the day and all the way home on the bus- the bus that carries <i>eighth graders</i> who are relentless in their teasing of my under-tall unfashionable glasses wearing boy. He came in the front door grinning. "Mom! I picked these for you!"<br />
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I am never surprised by his open heart, the heart that stays open in spite of always being teased for being different and this year, 6th grade, is the first year he's finally had a solid group of real friends. His love for me is so big, and he is so honest about it, that sometimes it feels so vulnerable for me to witness. He is so confident in it- this love we have for each other- that I find myself being envious of the person he loves so much until I realize she is <i>me</i>.<br />
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I love him back in this same open way, he and my other son are the only two people on the planet that I can really let my own apprehensive heart reach out to and receive back from. I relax into both of my children like soft pillows, my love for them feels so good and safe. I relish their arms around my body, their faces pressed into my shoulder or my side, giving me love. Even when they yell things like <i>I HATE YOU MOM</i>! and <i>YOU ARE THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WHOLE WORLD!</i> I know they don't really mean it, without any doubt. I let them love me in whatever way they do, unafraid of their anger or resistance, encouraged by their independence, secure in the knowledge that they love me, really <i>real-y</i> forever.<br />
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It is easy for me to give love. When I say that what I really mean is <i>it is hard for me to accept love</i>. I cringe at being offered love by anyone other than my children. I am the first to offer a hand, a heart, or a help, but I vanish to last in line with my blind eye turned when those things are offered to me. I am uncomfortable when given things like tenderness, empathy, and care. So uncomfortable that I can feel my shoulders tensing even now, just writing about it.<br />
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This makes a marriage hard.<br />
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Sometimes in my head I am the loving wife I think my husband might need- I imagine melting into his arms when he reaches for me as I walk past in the kitchen first thing in the morning, I picture looking up at him with kindness and a kiss, but then I react the way I always seem to when offered the soft gift of love: I straighten and panic. I can feel the wall clank into place, annoyance fixed on my face, impatience brushing him away, again and again. How many times can I do this before he stops reaching?<br />
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I'm working on it- chipping away at the days and years of self protection with a tiny chisel and a fearful yet courageous heart. Logically I know, I know I'm safe. I know I am capable of watching out for myself, and knowing when I don't have to be protected, but my involuntary nervous system is well trained and stubborn.<br />
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And thankfully my husband is patient and good humored.<br />
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The longer I'm sober the more I recognize what I need- and god... <i>do I ever </i>need and want love. Funnily I hate even admitting it, that I cannot be some self contained underwater breathing apparatus, a closed system, a solo artist. I long for and cringe at the thought of fading into the amount of trust it takes to allow myself to be loved, it's like I'm dying of thirst holding giant glasses of water. It makes sense to drink it, but <i>what if? </i>So I stand there thirsty, sheepishly smacking my lips, taking smallish sips and seeing if anyone noticed.<br />
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Sobriety has given me the courage to even think about all this. It gives me the ability to laugh at my hunched up shoulders and to share these thoughts with you and to keep going further and further into the woman I really am inside all the years of hurt and fear. It allows me to see who I am and to recognize myself clearly in all the messes and rejoice in the finding.<br />
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So maybe love's not love. Maybe it's more than that- more than a word, more than a feeling. Maybe it's acceptance, maybe courage, maybe nothing more than a grin and some flowers, held tight then given freely on an early spring day. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-78077518595340129582017-03-08T13:06:00.001-05:002017-03-08T13:06:30.327-05:00New Blog Hey y'all!<br />
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I have a long time pen pal who has started a blog and his subject matter resonates with me. So much of recovery can be faith or religious based. I come from a totally not religious/spiritual background and he comes from a background rich in religion and faith. Yet somehow we are so similar when it comes to the way we speak about what faith and spirituality means to us, what it means in recovery. He is writing about his struggles with and interest in different ways of believing, and I think that is something many people can identify with. Hope you like it!<br />
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<a href="https://shiftingbeliefsblog.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Shifting Beliefs Blog</a><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-68559529593434011782017-03-07T07:38:00.000-05:002017-03-07T07:38:32.938-05:00Lovely ProfileHi Y'all!<br />
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I wanted to share this profile from drugrehab.org<br />
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I think this is the nicest profile I've had done yet. I am always so happy to share my story- who I am and where I am in my recovery. It seems like we all have a recovery story of some kind, and I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to put myself out in the world so I can connect with others and we can have those "ME TOO" moments that help us all feel our belonging.<br />
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<a href="http://www.drugrehab.org/profiles-in-recovery/amy-parrish/" target="_blank">Profiles in Recovery</a><br />
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Thank you for reading and for commenting and for being part of this community. :)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-56830384059552458942017-02-11T11:46:00.000-05:002017-02-11T11:48:15.887-05:00These Revelations<br />
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I sent a complaint letter.<br />
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I've never done this before, me, people pleaser extraordinaire, forget the thought of me speaking up when mistreated or handled in a clumsy way, but I did it.<br />
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I have revelations all the time- Oh! I <i>can </i>do this! Oh! This seems so <i>normal</i>! - it's disconcerting how I realize and <i>understand</i> so much about myself in these short bursts, like an explosion of light bulbs above my head, it's so blinding and so illuminating all at one big time. Sometimes I have to laugh because I feel so off center and wobbly that if I don't laugh I might just cry and revelate forever. I reassure myself with little victories: I'm learning to walk, how to stand while bearing weight on both legs- to be <i>in</i> my body. I can take deeper fuller breaths than I could a year ago, I'm not always holding my breath. My accomplishments may seem small in the grand scheme of things- I can keep my chin level now instead of a little up ready to defend, I think about sex without wanting to seethe, disappear or hide, I danced with other people in the room, I sent a complaint letter. Revelations. <i>Grand scheme ones</i>.<br />
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I've gone from reading about sex to reading about grief. Unexpressed grief is basically like shoving giant wads of gunk into your feelings pipes so they get mucked up, impassable, and you become anxiously paralyzed by the fears you'd meant to cry out but drank down for twenty years instead. I can connect the two so clearly, sex and grief go hand in hand for all of my life. I can see how the grief was the beginning, I can take myself back to me at five sweet years old, strawberry blond hair hanging down my back, past the ties of my favorite pinafore, sucking in my tears because I was too dramatic and so so stupid for crying, my parents teasing me for having feelings. I can <i>feel</i> how much it hurt when I needed tenderness and my parents had no idea what that even meant since their parents had no clue how to do things like feelings either. How that grief led me to using sex for hurting myself and being hurt, how drinking helped me unrealize who I was enough to do it, over and over until the beauty of my body was lost and I spread my legs again, bereft. <i>Revelation.</i><br />
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I can feel how much I try to hide myself, too big to disappear and too unwieldy to blend in.<br />
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I sit on the couch across from my therapist and stay a good girl, unable to sob out the tears that are dying to get out because I want her to like me and have me please come back again next week. I have stuffed it all down for so long that I'm afraid to let it out because I could possibly head into a nervous breakdown, never to return- we only have one small hour, and then I have to head to work. Not a lot of time for falling apart and then back together.<br />
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I imagine a time when I don't have all this work to do, that these moments of glaring understanding, these revelations, will happen only a few times a year instead of a few a week. These things that come up, these elementary understandings that could have been lessons learned long ago had I only been bravely paying attention instead of fearful and drinking. I feel so stupid sometimes that I'm just now getting the idea that I can ask for what I need and it isn't a crime, it isn't wrong. Why wasn't I this person I am now all along? My years of work boxing up and shoving down all of the feelings and it turns out they never disappeared after all. All that work, down the drain.<br />
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The other day I was talking to my mom about being sweet when people are hurting and she said she uses humor to make people feel better. <i>WHAT? </i>I felt so sad and angry thinking of all the times I cried, hurting, and got <i>humored</i> by my own parents. They were using their <i>humor</i>, the very people who were supposed to love and heal me instead making it worse. Making it funny. I'm in total disbelief that she thought that teasing was what made people feel <i>better</i>. I want to stomp my five year old foot and scream <i>stop laughing at me!</i> right in her smiling face. Which would have only made her laugh harder.<br />
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No wonder I have no clue about what a normal emotional response is. No wonder I don't know how to take myself seriously, or how to speak without questioning myself, or how to be tender, or where to put all these big feelings. No wonder when I sit on the couch at therapy when the most hurty things come up I laugh. God, no wonder. No wonder my life is full of revelations, these connections that lead me from disappeared to conscious again and again.<br />
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I'm all spun up, so much happening, so many feelings that I don't know where to put them all. They're all unruly as puppies, scattered and making messes everywhere. I don't feel like myself anymore, but I don't know who I feel like either- sometimes it feels so much like me and then I hardly recognize who I am. It's like giving birth, but for <i>years</i>.<br />
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I feel so fortunate to be coming along in my understanding, and also so right at the beginning, like I've been running for a hundred years and somehow I'm still within sight of the starting line. It's frustrating in this gracefully annoying way, this is where I have to laugh, where it actually <i>is</i> funny, and lovely, sweet and amazing. Me, at forty-five years old, stumbling along, learning to walk. Learning to fly. Being exactly myself at my life. Being born, by revelations.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-18475040948894047852017-01-17T17:34:00.000-05:002017-01-18T06:19:10.950-05:00What I'm Reading: MATING IN CAPTIVITY<br>
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Hey y'all! Something I've been kicking around for a while is a virtual read along. I love to read and I always appreciate it when a blog I read posts about books <i>they're</i> reading...and then I thought it would be cool to post it <i>before</i> I read it, in case you wanted to read it at the same time. I'll start a discussion by writing a post about it, people can join in, and we can have some "me too's" and maybe some "whoa <i>really's?". </i><br>
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I started with this because sex and intimacy is my biggest thing I am working through. It has taken me <i>years</i> to get to a point where I can actually almost talk about it and <i>almost</i> not feel like I should probably find the nearest rock and crawl under it. In other words that tiny little s-e-x word is HUGE for me- I have a ton of stuff around it: my body, my freedom, my violations- but what I don't have is a clear intelligence about my own self as a sexual being, how sobriety has changed my sex life, and what all that even means. In talking with others I've learned that I am definitely <i>not</i> on my own when it comes to this subject.<br>
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So let's read <a href="http://www.estherperel.com/book/mating-in-captivity/" target="_blank">THIS BOOK</a> and then talk about..(moving rock)...sex.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-75266209461826091632017-01-10T17:49:00.000-05:002017-01-10T17:49:50.990-05:00Backbone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Do you ever feel like you are an incredibly capable superhuman amazing person and then things happen to make you remember you are certainly all of those things but mostly you are the <i>human</i> part? <i>ME TOO.</i><br />
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I've been stretching thin, starting big new things, internalizing all the stress from thinking I might die from skin cancer, juggling all the things that are supposed to slow down after the holidays but that really just keep going. My body has been so lovely, healing my stitched back beautifully, having the energy to balance my ever persistent roller coasters of anxiety, putting up with having coffee instead of rest when I'm tired. I've had a little patch of eczema in between and around my eyes since the fall, for four or five months, this tiny spot, controlled by a cream the urgent care doc prescribed for me when as an afterthought I had him check out my rash while we were there for my son's fourth bout of strep throat in as many months.<br />
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Those creams you can't use forever- so in addition to removing a piece of my back the dermatologist prescribed a different cream I refuse to use (holy warning on that sucker- please read your paperwork at the pharmacy before you pay $50 for something and then get it home and realize you wouldn't use it, which I didn't do and learned a $50 lesson) and so my eczema has been like a wild animal unleashed- moving around both eyes like a blotchy red lizard-y eye mask. I hate to admit how vain I am, but I am. We've been snowed in and I've spent the snow days peering at myself in the mirror half horrified half amused at what seems like a really bad joke.<br />
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I have to laugh kindly at myself when I start bargaining with the universe: <i>Um, hello. I just had that skin cancer scariness so all this eczema all over my EYES so soon seems a little...unfair? </i><br />
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And then in typical universe fashion the universe sort of shrugs and says ...<i>meh, what're you gonna do?</i><br />
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My body is always obvious, it just takes me a long time to listen. Even though I've been sober for four years that doesn't mean my body isn't still processing almost 25 years of drinking. It's interesting how me being able to say "I'm sober" seems to make me think that my sobriety absolves me of all bodily (mental or physical) debts incurred over my long career as a drinker. Like living while drunk was punishment enough, but now that that part's over, it's just over. It's kind of like when you start working out for like two weeks and then get a little pissed at your good intentions daily because your jeans feel a little tight and you still want to eat all the cookies.<br />
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Are you as good at hide and seek stress as I am? I can take on so much and still seem okay, it reminds me of a duck: gliding at the surface, paddling like mad underneath. I push it down and push it down until my body throws up the flag of surrender: I get sick, or I get a big rash all over my eyes, or I have a breakdown and pick fights with everyone in my family until I can finally admit that I'm freaking out some and then I work my way back to being fine, shedding good intentions as I go.<br />
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My good intentions can also be my downfall. I get myself into too much and then I have to get myself out of it, I get wrapped up in taking care of everyone else and forget the instruction that I am the first person to get the oxygen mask always. Then my sweet body shows up for me, making me more tired than usual and when I still don't listen my face blooms in a messy rash around my eyes making it impossible for me not to see where I am <i>really</i>.<br />
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I spent so many years making the wish to quit drinking, I wished and wished and drank and drank, wishing to be well. It wasn't until I got out my backbone, stopped wishing and made a life out of reality that I got sober and started to heal. This is always the truth: when I get with my backbone instead of my wishing I move myself to more healed. I find my remedies rather than my excuses- it's then that I am back to my backbone, facing reality.<br />
<i><br /></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-38726996663351098702017-01-03T11:16:00.000-05:002017-01-03T11:16:27.919-05:00You Love Her<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My youngest has the sweetest crush on a girl in his class. She is his seat mate, they talk all the time: "<i>Even more than me and you mom!" </i>One day after school we waited for her mom to show up so we could ask her to come over to our house. I introduced myself and said to my son's friend, "Would you like to come over to our house one day to play?" She said, "No thank you, I'm fine," and my son pulled in his lips and made the please don't let me cry face and I kind of laughed politely and said, "Oh, okay, um see you later. Nice to meet you." We walked the long walk to the car and when we got in he tried to smile but cried instead. I tried to make it better by saying things like <i>be patient </i>and <i>maybe today just wasn't a good day to ask </i>but he kind of got himself together with a ragged sigh and proceeded to act like it didn't matter.<br />
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This has been my relationship with myself. I send out these fancy love letters to myself and then when it seems like time to become home friends and not just at school friends I clam up and refuse politely, and I also forget to feel how heartbroken I am and I breathe a lot and pretend like I'm just fine anyway, thanks. Mixed signals all over the place.<br />
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Is it embarrassing and a little self indulgent to admit that I love myself? Does that make me one of those people that persistently posts selfies and quotes about how they just keep going no matter what because even in the darkest day there might be a slice of light? When did it become wrong to love yourself? Does school beat it out of you? Your peers? Just life? Can it just be okay and acceptable and not make me arrogant or full of myself if I am okay with saying I'm okay?<br />
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I'm reading <a href="https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Badass-Doubting-Greatness/dp/0762447699" target="_blank">THIS BOOK</a> and although I get tired of all the rah rah rah I love reading about giving myself permission to be cool with myself. Gratitude to <a href="http://www.hipsobriety.com/home/2016/12/29/the-best-16-books-i-read-in-2016" target="_blank">HIP SOBRIETY</a> for publishing her book list, I hadn't seen <i>You are a Badass </i>before and I really am almost to the liking the idea of thinking of myself as a badass cool lovely woman point. What have I got to lose? I mean I hated myself for years, so I'm giving love a chance. It's all part of the <a href="http://sober-bia.blogspot.com/2017/01/word-of-year-2017.html" target="_blank">MERGE</a>. :)<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-47199362035412903042017-01-01T18:24:00.000-05:002017-01-01T18:36:42.271-05:00Word of the Year 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The photo above is us, New Year's Eve, 2009. It was the first or second year my oldest stayed up until midnight, he toasted our flutes of champagne with his own of sparkling apple cider and felt so grown up while his little brother slept through it all. I had worked that night and had a bunch to drink before I rushed home to ring in the new year with my dears. I'm guessing that after the ball dropped we shuffled Jack quickly off to bed and we drank more, my husband was probably tired and ready to go to bed and me just getting started- "Just one more!" I would demand and he would acquiesce rather than risk setting me off and end up staying up even later to fight instead of drink.<br />
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I'm well on way to drunk when we took that picture. My eyes are always my dead giveaway, but sometimes I'm the only person that can see that I've disappeared, to me my eyes look blurry, crossing a very tiny bit, looking far far away even though things are quite close. And this is exactly the way I wanted to feel when I drank: far far away, signals all crissed and crossed, <i>swallowed up</i>. I'm not here anymore.<br />
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When I first got sober I wanted to leave that shitty woman as far from me as I could go, I wanted to shed her skin a thousand million times until I was unrecognizable to myself, until you would never ever guess she had ever ever been me. I wanted to be separate from that version of myself, so cut off that there wasn't even a blurry memory of a single phantom limb or reminder of the amputation.<br />
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After a few years of sobriety I began to understand that I was still here, that I wasn't leaving. I was beginning to be at peace with admitting that I was <i>my self</i>, my view had expanded wide enough to see past the drunk woman I hated to find the tender girl I was before the hurt of life got in the way. But I was still two separate versions of myself: the unspoiled breakable girl and the woman who didn't drink anymore. Built with courage but scared, free but jailed, I could hold my own hand but not been ready to merge these two: I think of them both as parts of me that are who I really truly am but they remain friendly strangers- these parts of me that recognize each other but haven't trusted that one will allow the other to exist.<br />
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A few months ago on a walk in the woods the idea arrived that I was ready to be one person again. I could be finished protecting myself from myself, after four years I am allowed to be trusted. The two hands that represent what I was and what I am have reached across the middle and kept holding on when they used to drop. Instead of passing on the street with a friendly wave they shook hands and held on, each as each, melded together as one person, one woman who is unspoiled and breakable and sober and trustworthy. I have been protecting what is sweet and tender in me from the damage I've been known to do. I know now that this isn't necessary anymore.<br />
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My word this year is <b>MERGE</b>. Combining one into the other. Blending what has been and what will be. Becoming indistinguishable: the parts that are fragile and the ones that fight all singly recognizable as just <i>me. </i>Merging the hope and joy of my five year old self with the wisdom and care capably held by this woman at age forty-five. All the heartbreaking hard lessons I learned along the way? They are here too, part of my merge, here to make certain that this one woman never forgets to honor where I came from, where I've been, and all the places I'm yet to go. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-46443554995303024032016-12-31T15:25:00.000-05:002016-12-31T15:32:40.778-05:00Maps at Halfway<br />
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I have twelve stitches running up the middle of my back. They've been knitting themselves together for eight days now, pulling together pieces of skin on my back that have never been neighbors all these 45 years until now.<br />
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I have a mole on my upper lip that once concerned a periodontist when I was in my middle thirties. At that time I was still feeling pretty immortal, I'd picked up smoking again while I was training for a marathon and was drinking heavily in fits and starts, trying to parent two people and failing miserably at parenting myself. I had no time to worry about concerning moles, I could barely keep my daily shit together. It was monumental that I was having my gunky gums deep cleaned, that was as healthy as I got that year. For some reason this fall I got around to the idea that I should see a dermatologist.<br />
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Something happened to me when I turned 40. One day the big thought occurred to me: <i>MY LIFE IS HALFWAY THERE.</i> My mind dropped to it's knees and my heart sank and I think that was the moment that I realized I was really going to have to quit drinking, I just didn't know when or how I'd be able to put the other foot down to take the full step. It would take me until 41 years and almost 8 months old to bring my feet together in that life salvaging step, and then two more years after I got sober to realize that being sober was not enough anymore, that I needed to use my sobriety as a push off point for the deeper care of myself- my body and my mind.<br />
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I finally got around to calling the dermatologist this fall, waiting three months for my appointment. The mole on my upper lip was fine, she said. The odd blurry mole on my thigh came off, and one on the middle of my back got taken off too. I got two band aids and a prescription for the weird rash around my eye and left her office happy that my favorite mole got to stay.<br />
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About a week after my appointment the dermatologist called me. She left a message. <i>How nice of her to call,</i> I thought, and promptly forgot to call her back. She called me again the next day and left another message. I had some time so I called her back and was put right through. I should have known that it's not good news when the doctor <i>calls</i> you, but I thought she was being super attentive and still had no clue something could be wrong. She started talking, saying words like "melanoma" and "melanocytes" and "dermal nests" and "severely atypical" and I still didn't understand. I asked her to say all these things in Amy Parrish language instead of doctor language and still didn't get that it could be serious until her nurse called me five minutes later and said the the doctor wanted to get me in as soon as possible to do an excision. Oh. Shit. Shit.<br />
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I Googled melanoma. Mine was a stage 0, <i>in situ, </i>survival rates 99-100%. I decided to freak out and also to be okay. Cancer is a big word, I am a big person, life is a big deal. I kept thinking <i>Don't put the cart before the horse</i> and then I'd do things like pull up to the stop sign at the end of our street on my way to pick up my youngest at school and I'd look at the traffic going by and the sun shining and I'd imagine that all of it would go on even if I didn't, that someone else would pick up my smallest boy at school and he would miss me with all of his heart and be so lonely in the world sometimes without me but he would live and go on just like the traffic and the sun.<br />
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I talked with people close to me. They had two kinds of stories: the everything was fine story and the dead in 4 months ones. I kept thinking I was going to either be okay or dead before summer.<br />
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It's a strange thing to come up against my own mortality, the breathtaking sharpness of thinking about myself dying, of no longer being, my family's empty arms longing for me. Even stranger the deep calm I felt from knowing that I am actually living now. Dying doesn't seem like such a raw part of the deal. I alternated between thinking it was no big deal and desperate that my life was over. I was mostly okay, but fearful sorrow would come on suddenly, I would burrow my face into my husband's chest and gulp out a sob and feel so bereft and he would pull my chin up and look into my eyes and say he was scared too but we were going to be fine. I knew he meant I would be well, but I prayed hard for them to fine no matter what, <i>no matter what.</i><br />
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I went in for the excision on December 23rd at 2:30. I thought she was just going to take out a bigger circle around the spot she'd had tested. No problem. No biggie. There were five people in the room, my doc, her resident, three nurses. I still thought she'd be taking at most penny sized piece of my back and I'd be sewn up and out the door by 3:00.<br />
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She started with the lidocaine, about eight shots. Talked me through what she was going to do: cutting more skin around the site, there'd be inner stitches, cauterizing, outer stitches. I'd need to take it easy for 2-3 days. After a while I began to wonder what was taking so long, it couldn't possibly take this long to cut out a penny sized piece of my back. So I asked, "Hey, just out of curiosity, how big of a circle are you doing? Is it like a dime? A penny? You know- <i>size wise."</i> There was a pregnant pause. "More like a dollar bill," said one of the nurses. I pictured the small side of a dollar bill, but as a little rectangle of skin coming off my back. Like the white edge part of the dollar bill. No big deal.<br />
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They sewed me up, bandaged me up, let me know the pathology would be back within two weeks, maybe longer because of the holiday. I made follow up appointments, went to work, still thinking I had this slender rectangle of skin taken, wondering why it felt so sore. I left work early and Googled melanoma excisions and dollar bill measurements and figured out what had actually happened: she had taken a 2.5 inch long oval out of the middle of my back.<br />
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We spent the next day traveling to my in laws. That night my husband changed my bandage and counted 12 stitches on the outside. He took a picture with his thumb for scale. It was twice as long at least. She took a lot. She was more concerned than I had ever imagined.<br />
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Late Christmas afternoon we took the boys out to the beach while the sun was starting to set, they ditched their shoes and ran shrieking to the water, then down the beach, watching them my heart caught so hard while the cold wind whipped my hair, I reached out for my husband and sobbed out <i>What if this is our last Christmas? What if we were too late? </i>He held me tight, the boys ran up, my oldest asking "Mommy? Why are you crying?" stopping my breakdown, allowing me the white lie of saying something about the sunset-y beach being beautiful before he hugged me quickly and ran off. <br />
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Yesterday, the 30th of December, I got an email from my dermatologist's office. AN EMAIL.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #be9e6f; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10px;">Your surgical margins are clear, and no further treatment is necessary. We hope you are healing well and will see you at your next visit. </span><br />
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My margins are clear. No further treatment is necessary. I did not make it this far for it just to be over. I get to keep going. I get to live this life that I have only now just started to have the courage to live. When I thought it was possible that I might be dying the one thing that was my saving grace was the fact that my life got to be lived, that I got to be sober for these four years, that I wasn't going to head into dying never having known what it was like to live as me.<br />
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There's something about thinking I could be dying that makes it simpler to make hard decisions, to take chances, to be kinder when I would have been impatient- to look and see the good in everyone. To stop thinking there's plenty of time left and instead using the time I've got as if it's valuable currency rather than an all you can eat buffet.<br />
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I don't know how to not be preachy here, so I will just be it. If you think you should stop drinking you should stop. Today, right now, this minute. If a doctor told you that you might have a disease that could kill you how would you decide things differently? What if you could save yourself?<br />
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I realized yesterday afternoon that if I were still drinking that I would never have made the appointment with the dermatologist, that maybe if I hadn't quit drinking I would have died from skin cancer at 50, never having gotten sober, never taking the time to check out my moles, sadly ragged and hungover while going through cancer treatments and trying to make it up to my children and failing miserably. My decision to quit drinking has saved my life twice now. In all the maps that have led me to this place, the middle of my life, the clearest directions have come from my efforts to care for my own self, to save my own life.<br />
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Here's to life. Here's to living, to surrender, to finding the courage when there's none to be found, to grace. This time, it will be different. Happy New Year y'all.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-67713610277482745742016-12-07T10:02:00.002-05:002016-12-07T10:09:37.981-05:00FOUR YEARS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This morning I studied spelling words with my youngest son. On this morning four years ago I woke up so hungover I could not get out of bed.<br />
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If you have read my story you know that four years ago today I was supposed to get up, make french toast, and study spelling words with my oldest son. Instead I had gotten so wasted the night before that I could not even get out of bed. Both of my boys stood by my bedside- eyes wide- part trusting, part curious while I squinted at them and tried to hide up how un-able my body was to function, while downstairs my husband made french toast and covered for me, again.<br />
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FOUR YEARS AGO.<br />
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December 7th has been an important date in my life since 2004- my oldest son was due to be born today, twelve years ago. He arrived exactly a week late. My sobriety arrived late too, not until December 7, 2012. But it arrived. That's the important part.<br />
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I've thought so much about that morning, about the piece of my brain that packed up and disappeared forever, the idea that I am a person who never ever drinks moving in in it's place so quickly and miraculously that I still examine myself with a sense of wonder at the revelation that occurred right here inside of me; inside of my sad, struggling, hungover, yearning to be free body that couldn't get out of bed because I'd gotten so wasted- just four short years ago.<br />
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I am a miracle. Since I got sober I have always believed it in a secret way, in the aw shucks and scuffles my foot across the floor way. I have believed it in a quiet way, in the way that delights me but that I feel like I should hide because I don't want to hurt anyone else's feelings who maybe doesn't know that we are all a miracle, and also I feel imposter syndrome big time sometimes. Add to that the way I wait for the other shoe to drop, only almost all the time, and I push down my light so no one can see or get overwhelmed by who I am.<br />
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It has taken every day of these four years to light my light- for me to get comfortable with being a lighthouse, because that is what I am. I've been doing so much reading and thinking and listening and learning all this time about what it means to own and embrace the who of being this person, to understand that I can say <i>I am a child of God </i>out loud and without feeling like a total dumbass because it means what <i>I </i>want it to mean- it means that the things I am alive to be and share are unique to me, to me alone. I found God in my spirituality, which for me is a totally different place than religion.The idea of God and saying God out loud still makes me feel squirmy, but I love the holy way it makes me feel inside to let myself be loved unconditionally by God, who is maybe the most beautiful version of us all.<br />
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I am proud of who I am. I took a shitty situation and made it beautiful, I took my broken self up gently and cared for the hurt and the pain and worked so fucking hard to get my feet on the ground and my heart into my hands. I will do that good work every single day of the rest of my life.<br />
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I am the perfect person for this job. "You are exactly the right person to do this," someone said about something else and I immediately made it my motto for my life.<br />
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I hid behind my drinking until I couldn't bear it one more day. I have hidden behind my fear until now. Does this mean I don't ever feel afraid? Um, HELL NO. It means that I know I am afraid and I keep going. I am the only person, the only one who can do this just like I do. The only one who resonates and speaks and loves the way I do.<br />
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I've been practicing yoga for a long time. I used to worry about if I was wearing the right thing to class, get there and worry the whole class thought that I wasn't doing it right, that people were thinking I didn't belong there, convincing myself that I was an outsider in every situation in all parts of my life. Even through yoga teacher training and beginning to teach I felt like at any moment someone was going to come in and announce "<i>GET OUT!! You are obviously not qualified to be here!" </i>And then everyone would know I wasn't supposed to be here, that I wasn't supposed to be <i>anywhere</i>, that I wasn't supposed to <i>be</i>.<br />
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These are all things I told myself, that I did pretty much everything wrong while struggling mightily to do everything right. No one ever walked up and said "<i>Um, your downward facing dog is wrong" </i>or "<i>You are driving wrong" </i>or "<i>You obviously know nothing about putting groceries in a cart" </i>or even <i>"You suck"</i>. It was me. All me. I told myself all these things to protect myself from being the person I am meant to be in the world. Because that shit can be big and scary! And it was easier to hide behind booze and fear than to put my naked vulnerable sweet self out into the world.<br />
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A few months ago one of my favorite yoga teachers said something at the beginning of class that blew me away. He said, "Think of your practice as an offering." Later in that same class during a particularly challenging posture he said, "Do this pose as if God is watching." <i>As if God is watching, watching my offering </i>I thought, and really put my whole heart and being into it- not to do the pose picture perfect, but to do my version of the pose as a beautiful offering to God, who was watching. Then I immediately made that another motto for my whole life.<br />
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This is where I am, four years in. I am living my life as an offering, because God is watching, because y'all are watching, because everyone I meet is watching, and someone else is watching them. I am exactly the right person to do this, I am the only person that can do it this one way I do. It is who I am meant to be: an offering lighthouse, practicing for God, shining my light gloriously every single day as a tribute to the gift I have been given. Thank you so much for reading, and for being here. We are all lights, miracles shining together.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-12386636787578635902016-11-02T10:27:00.001-04:002016-11-02T10:27:24.507-04:00How to Take Care of Yourself Part One<br />
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I'm reading this amazing book called <a href="http://rebeccacampbell.me/sisterhood/" target="_blank">Rise Sister Rise</a> and listening to <a href="https://www.tarabrach.com/" target="_blank">Tara Brach</a> and blowing my own mind almost daily with new stuff to think about, and new stuff to think about <i>myself </i>which translates into new stuff to think about us. Like this: </div>
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I am a people pleaser- many of us are, it makes self avoidance so much easier. If I'm working on making someone else happy then I can totally avoid looking at my own contentment which means I also avoid looking at my own <i>dis</i>contentment which means <i>yay! I'm safe! </i>Which I understand now is complete bullshit, I've <i>known</i> it for a long time, but there's this big difference between <i>knowing</i> something and <i><b>understanding</b> </i>something.<br />
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Like how I knew I had a big drinking problem for ever, but I didn't understand it until I just blammo, GOT IT. Got it hardcore on the last morning I woke up hungover and saw my future full of shame, empty bottles, full ashtrays, and deep sadness.<br />
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I sometimes think about my life as a series of lines and tributaries- all these ways and paths to places I've been a thousand times before or never seen, that the places I've been maybe I've always been looking left when I really needed to be looking right, or the places I've never been I haven't gone because I was afraid or it seemed too hard or mostly because I felt uninvited by my own ineptitude.<br />
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I am inviting a lot of opposites and bravery into my life these days. And by that I mean looking at situations from ALL the sides, not just the ones that are comfortable to me, or the ones I know, but trying to see it from another point of view, and then another, and then another because all things don't have just two sides. There are a thousand sides to see, then another thousand after that, and by looking and <i>seeing </i>I can make informed decisions. So I try to see things from a few different sides. (not a thousand though, I mean I don't have <i>that</i> kind of time) That takes patience- and that's one way I take care of myself, by having the <b>patience</b> to not rush my brain and my heart into rapid fire judgements but to take my gut reaction and then de-gut it, look at it from exactly the opposite reaction, and then work my way around the circle to see where I might land when I stop being dragged along by myself.<br />
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I spent a long time thinking I felt one way, and then opened myself up to the possibility that maybe I had no frickin' clue who I was at all, but that it would be pretty cool to learn about who I might be, and then allowing for that person to change and metamorphose and be dynamic rather than stagnant.<br />
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One of my biggest mistakes has been sameness. I have always thought that I would strive and push and pull and get myself fixed into this idea of the woman I think I'm supposed to be and then I'd happy. That if I weighed the right amount and wore the right thing and said the right words I would somehow be initiated into the secret society of people who have their shit together and other people would wish they were me and I could feel glad and even superior and wooo! be at the finish line. All I'd have to do every day was be this same person, over and over again.<br />
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How fucking boring. ACK!!!<br />
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I am not even the same person from when I wake up to lunchtime, much less even when I go to bed, how did I think that would ever work? I found so much <b>freedom</b> in the idea that I do not have to stay the same, that I can like blue one day and orange the next, that I want to be alone this morning but I need company this afternoon, that I am anxious today and tomorrow I am courageous and calm. I am an ever evolving, ever changing being. THANK GOD. It means that I lose feeling groovy, but it also means if I'm having a shit day that can change at any moment. It's kind of all up to me.<br />
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I put a lot of pressure on myself about this blog, I take it so seriously these days, never publishing anything because it isn't "significant" enough, or I don't proofread it enough, or I compare myself with other people and get bogged down by what I imagine I'm not and then I don't write because you know, I'm suffering from paralanxiety. So this morning I'm just writing what I'm thinking about, and then instead of picking it apart I'm going to publish it, just like I used to do.<br />
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This is where the<b> bravery</b> comes in: allowing myself to be me. Not complicating it by wondering what someone else might do with my life, not holding back because someone might think I'm stupid, not talking myself out of putting myself out into the world. There's a place for us, there is one other person out there who reads what I write and thinks "<i>me too". </i>Even if that someone else is me. :)<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-64997477539080617252016-10-10T10:30:00.002-04:002016-10-10T10:59:39.649-04:00A-holic<div>
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Do you ever feel like you're getting your shit together for like the nine hundredth time this year? That's me. I mean, do people who aren't a-holics just understand this all their lives? I'm getting used to the ebb and flow of my life, although I'm still surprised by how it does it. After almost four years sober I know what's coming mostly- about four times a year I get sad and lost, and about four times a year I pick myself up and find a way around that corner again. </div>
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I wonder if it's stretching out my life suit, like growing but instead of in sizes in measures of prayer and hands up. But also like my ass is spreading out some, like I'm settling it down into the mud that is my life, wiggling it into the mud for a long stay. Getting comfortable. Finding a home.</div>
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I was laughing with my therapist the other day about how impossible it seems that until about eight months ago <i>I had no idea</i> that I struggled with anxiety. And now that I know it I recognize it everywhere- in traffic, at work, teaching yoga, when my kids argue, when my husband doesn't seem to see me, when people disagree and I'm not even involved, when I feel lost about who I even am anymore, should I have a cup of tea or water- there it is: anxiety. Is it attachment to outcome that makes me grab on so hard or just the fear of being an afterthought? </div>
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But because I recognize it I can <i>recognize it</i>. And then that helps me to understand that if I recognize it then I can surrender to it because it's something I know. It's like the day I decided to quit drinking- I recognized myself as a person who is an alcoholic and so I understood that I could surrender to that, that it was safer to be an alcoholic than it was to be someone who would spend another day denying what I knew was the truth. </div>
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Is there a difference between an alcoholic and a problem drinker? I only know that as soon as I slapped the label of "alcoholic" on myself I got sober. How fucking weird is that. It brings me a strange comfort in a way to be able to call this strong forceful part of myself something. Over the years that grew into calling myself an "a-holic" because I don't just only want to drink all the booze, in varying degrees I am driven to have more more more of anything that feels like permission. Giving this part of me a name gives it a form, it gives me something I can grab on to and hold and shake and shape. It gives me a part of myself I can identify and recognize. It makes it so when I feel anxious and I'm holding a handful of chocolate covered raisins I can think about <i>who</i> is holding those raisins and be able to put them back. It gives me someone to run to in the dark, someone to hand the light and pull in and tell sweet things like "it's okay" and "I think you need water".<br />
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I'm interested in your thoughts. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-86999154836311240082016-09-14T10:45:00.000-04:002016-09-14T10:45:24.131-04:00Shell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've recently discovered the shell around me. It's a deflector: it protects me from anger, disappointment, and criticism. It also shields me from kindness, compliments, tenderness, and good intentions. It prevents me from receiving help gracefully, and from loving fully.<br />
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This shell appeared around the time I was five years old and has been slowly and constantly spiraling out, winding around and around me for the past forty years. Trying to squeeze myself out from inside it could be why I <i>started</i> drinking: I wanted to feel, and I didn't want to feel the way I was feeling, but then I realized I was feeling <i>too much</i> and so had to drink <i>more</i>. When I stopped drinking my shell helped me have a place to hide and heal, it's been such a dear friend to me- a security blanket, a refuge, a prison.<br />
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My beloved protector has also been my jailer, guarding against <i>all</i> the feelings- guarding against the ones that make me feel loved and cared for same as the ones that hurt. My first inkling of this was when my therapist noticed when I told stories that should bring up big emotions for me I was just...flat. Or smiling, even. I'm relating stories to her that have caused me years of pain and I am...<i>smiling.</i><br />
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I've noticed how the shell prevents me from being myself, but only in those moments when I am <i>out</i> of the shell and I feel that feeling you get when you are one hundred percent in your own body, speaking your own words, feeling your own way- safe and open to the world. As soon as I recognize it I am right back inside the shell, afraid I'll be found out and unwilling to chance hurt. I don't want anyone to recognize me, know me, help me, or...love me.<br />
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I noticed how frustrated I get whenever the dogs come around and want me to pet them. They run towards me, smiling and panting- nubby tails wagging, delighted that <i>Here she is!! Our girl!!! YAY!!!! </i>and I get... pissed. I ask my husband for more affection and then he gives it, so I get mad because he's getting in my way and interrupting me. I have this way of handing out instructions for how I want to be treated, but then I don't have a clue how to handle being treated the way I asked for. I have all this big love to get and to give, but then <i>the actual getting and giving it part </i>comes up and I'm all angry and clumsy and lost, looking like I know how to read the map on the outside but on the inside the map is lost under all the shit in the glove box. I'm like a two year old in relationship years.<br />
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Do you ever have those moments when you discover something so big about yourself that you cannot even believe you've been alive all this time <i>not knowing </i>this gigantic thing is true? It's like the time I stood at a crowded fancy bar with the back of my skirt tucked into my underwear, so buzzed after dinner that I was careless in the bathroom and didn't check my skirt, I didn't realize my entire ass was hanging out for all the world to see. <i>No one said anything.</i> Maybe no one noticed, or they didn't really care, until finally a friend ran up to me as we were leaving and urgently whispered in my ear "<i>AMY YOUR SKIRT IS IN YOUR UNDERWEAR!!!" </i>and she quickly jerked the hem of my skirt out of my undies while I stood mortified, paralyzed with how long it had been since I'd walked out of the bathroom.<br />
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Like I thought my skirt was settled and adjusted properly back there, I've always thought I was that way too: settled and adjusted properly in my heart. Lovable even. My big discovery is that I may be love <i>able</i>, but I am not able to be loved. Regardless of my impatient attitude towards accepting love for myself in my mind I am open hearted. On paper I feel safe exposing things I cannot in person. I have the temperament and the tolerance to sit and be thoughtful and careful when I write, but in person I am ham handed and impatient, intolerant of love towards me and of giving love when asked.<br />
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I might be partly an asshole.<br />
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I am not a total schmuck. I do have a big capacity for giving, so there I am <i>not</i> an asshole, but in the receiving department? Oh, man. I fear that I am, in fact, kind of a jerk.<br />
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I think I'm kind of a jerk because of my beloved shell.<br />
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Oh, no! My darling shell! I hold my head in my hands, my eyes down, heart heavy because I have to leave my constant companion behind- the thing I thought made me okay and life livable is in fact the thing that is holding me back.<br />
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Getting sober and being sober seems like it is relentlessly about the things I have to lose to keep going. It's sort of like the simplicity trend: get in there and get rid of stuff, and then when I think I'm as bare bones as it gets <i>I've just gotten started</i>. Which makes me want to wail about how unfair that is because, fuck. I quit drinking- can't that just be enough??? Why does there have to be so much of the <i>squeezing</i>???<br />
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But there is, there just is. Being sober is all about the squeezing. And the molting. It's all about the fears and the tears and the snot and the feeling so one hundred percent uncomfortable that you might die. It feels so hard and so awful sometimes that I think I cannot go on even one more second and then I realize: <i>Oh, hey...look at me. I'M FEELING! I'M FEELING <b>FEELINGS</b>! Oh, yeah. That's what this is about. I'm doing it right, even though it sucks. </i>The feeling feelings is the point.<br />
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Sometimes I sit in my therapist's office, there on the worn out beige and red striped loveseat, looking out the window through all her plants at the parking lot, and I feel like I'm being skinned alive, like every single nerve I have is sticking out of my skin and the world is made of sandpaper and it's on fire. There's nowhere to hide. I hate it. I do it anyway. I don't want to talk but I do, I speak up and stare off into space and gulp for air and speak again.<br />
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I'm...molting. It is as inelegant as it sounds. There is crying, and snot, and deep sorrow, and being afraid, but relief, such relief too because my shell has gotten really tight since I started to grow out of it a few years ago. It is squeezing me. Maybe even squeezing the life out of me, but in a <i>good</i> way. There is laughter, and recognition- it's me catching myself in the mirror of myself and knowing who is standing there. It's stretching and moving and seeing clearly through to who I really am.<br />
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It's me, without my shell.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-18686021568190294832016-09-06T09:43:00.000-04:002016-09-06T09:43:39.544-04:00Back Around<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby me. An approximate representation of who I was after I finished yoga teacher training. </td></tr>
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Hi y'all! It's been months and months and here I am, still sober. :)<br />
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Yoga teacher training pulled me apart. In ways like warm rays of sunlight shining on fragrant fields of growing grass, but also in ways that are like the stinky liquid goo you find at the bottom of the kitchen trash when someone hasn't put the bag on right. I have been feeling <i>the hills are alive with the sound of music </i>along side<i> I want to be in bed, in the dark, maybe forever.</i><br />
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Did you know I was a waitress? It's what I've done my whole adult life, aside from a four year stint at Whole Foods where I thought I was going to set the world on fire- maybe in ten years I'd be running my own store! I could make great money without having to go back to school! I could stop waiting tables forever! Then I quickly realized I was not cut out for working at a corporation- even if it was Whole Foods. I still stayed there for four years. It's where I got sober, halfway through my time there. It's where things got so bad that I had to either quit drinking or become a total fucking failure- me at forty, working at the grocery store and not able to handle that much less my life and my family.<br />
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I've been sober for almost four years, and back waiting tables for two. It seems ironic and at the same time a bit awful that I make a living serving food and loads of drink. Bottles of expensive wine, big cold martinis, things to taste and pour and talk about and enjoy and I just smell and play along, relying on knowledge I gained fifteen years ago when I was at the top of my booze game. It doesn't bother me much, randomly I'll long to be a person who can go out to dinner like some of the people I wait on, people who can carefully select a bottle of wine and then make it last all of dinner, maybe even leaving a glass in the bottle. <i>How can you just leave a whole glass behind?</i> I'll think and I have to laugh at my disbelief when this happens, knowing what I know about my a-holic self.<br />
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My husband waited tables at this same restaurant, I took over his job two years ago when he left to go to computer coding school. I stayed at Whole Foods too, working two jobs so he didn't have to work at all while he was in school. Our whole marriage has been one of us waiting tables at night to supplement the other person who is working a "real" job during the day. It means that one of us is always around for the boys, and that we are not much around for each other. After twelve years of this style of marriage we are both ready for the way out- not out of being married, but out of being apart, single parenting patiently together for what is starting to feel like might be forever. Now that he's finished with school and has been working for over a year at this amazing job that we still both can't believe happened and I'm finished with yoga teacher training it's time to make some decisions. It means that I have started to think about what I want to be now that I'm grown up.<br />
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If there's one thing being sober has taught me it's dream big, and then think bigger. Half the reason I ended up as a waitress is that I never dreamed all that big- in spite of being smart and creative and capable I chose instead to dull myself down because success scares me. I remained contained and small, safe in the place of not pushing myself deserving the just settling. Amazingly enough it seems that I can't tolerate that anymore. That's part of what led me to do my yoga teacher training: I had to. I knew it was going to wake me up in ways I may or may not be ready for and for sure, it did.<br />
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After teacher training I had to take a break: I had to gather all my scattered thoughts together to see what thoughts I even wanted to be anymore. <i>Who</i> I wanted to be anymore. To see if I can handle blogging about who I am and what is happening to me. To see if I was ready to move away from putting sobriety front and center, if maybe I could just quietly be sober and perhaps something else would become a beacon of my life.<br />
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Lessening the importance of my sobriety didn't happen. What did happen was that every time I though about my life and choices, I was reminded of how recovery has given me the life I have today. Recovery is the lighthouse, it is what sends my ship to sail and plants my feet on the ground. It doesn't need to be in the background, because it doesn't have to. <i>It isn't everything I am, I am everything it is.</i><br />
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My recovery is an ongoing, lifelong project. I quit drinking, but that isn't the finish line, not even close. I get alternately frustrated and overjoyed with the prospect that <i>la la! recovery is going to last forever!!!</i> and that <i>recovery. is. going. to. last. for. ever.</i> There isn't even a finish line. ACK!! How can this be?<br />
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How to stay? How to remain open and transparent and stay in the blogging world when things have gotten so much bigger than simply quitting drinking? How to give value to the privacy my life deserves but to also let it all hang out because what if my honesty can be a thing that helps someone whose ship's almost run aground find their lighthouse too? Can this be part of what I am? Is it okay for me to be who I actually am, all out in the open? Can I stop hiding and offer and accept the gifts I am given? Who the hell am I anyway?<br />
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I figured it all out... the answer is <i>I don't know</i>.<br />
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So here I am, back at my keyboard, thinking of myself and of you there, reading and maybe finding some something that makes you feel ok at your life. I apologize if I left you stranded while I put the oxygen mask only on myself for a while. I thought at the end of my yoga teacher training I would be awake and alive and healed- so healed that I would glow with it, emanate it, radiate it. Instead I was a tender naked mole rat- more than ever out in the bright scary light of the world with only the steadiness of my breath and my feet on the ground to carry me along to where I am today. Yoga helped save me at the beginning of my sobriety, it was an answer to my S.O.S. that now anchors me when I start flailing around. But it also can be so fucking hard because if I practice with honesty and integrity there isn't anywhere for me to hide.<br />
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I'm okay with that now. I'm not in a hurry anymore, I'm not searching for the finish line. I'm afraid every single day without pretending I'm not anymore. I'm glad to be here, back where I belong.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-85838751521128409392016-05-30T10:56:00.000-04:002016-05-30T11:00:27.938-04:00Grace and Stillness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am still thinking so much about all the things I learned about myself since January. I haven't written here because, well, because it's so hard to put into words, all the things I can see but can't explain because they are ideas and feelings, not things I can contain in a sentence or a blog post. Maybe just not yet.<br />
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One of the things I learned is how to hold myself responsible to myself- for me this means not doing things just because other people would want me to, but because I want to. It means not writing blog posts when I can't do it, it means leaving the laundry because I need a walk, it means flossing my teeth even when I'm tired and all I want to do is fall into bed. The amount of honesty I have gained in these last few months is still such a pleasant surprise- like when a dear friend arrives with no notice at the front door and the house is dirty but you don't even care, there are just hugs and hellos and gladness for the arrival. Maybe you push the dog hair out of the middle of the floor and wipe up the leftover breakfast crumbs and teacup rings and you're ok, not feeling judged by life because the table is messy, but being understood because life, sometimes, is messy.<br />
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I have been thinking so much about what it all means. Doing yoga teacher training and starting my first go at one-on-one therapy together was the smartest thing. It meant that all the deep deep stuff I dug up had a place to go rather than skitter around in my incapable hands. Therapy for me means I have to be really really brave and speak up from myself because otherwise we just sit there and talk about the weather or nothing and then I leave and feel more scared than when I arrived. Yoga does that for me also- whether we're practicing asana or breathing or supporting each other I have to participate as the me I am or I end up lost then too.<br />
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I learned that I really have to start with the basics. Like breathing. Feeling my feet on the ground. Walking. I still have trouble sitting and not feeling like I don't know where I am, but it's better. Sometimes when I sit cross legged I can't find my balance, I feel like a toppling top. Then I get frustrated: <i>my god! who doesn't know how to sit? </i>and then I remember <i>oh right, me</i> and I breathe and adjust and smile to myself for having the courage to not know how to do even that.<br />
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I cried so so much over these past months. I am almost crying now. It became a tender running joke at training that I would probably cry, but I was understood. It's all the sad and glad feelings I pushed down so hard all my sweet life having to get out because now the door is open and it's safe out here. I discovered something I'd secretly always thought about myself and could now recognize as true: I am lovely. I can offer love and care freely, nurturing others is something I am good at. Now that I feel safe and held I can give what I've got and not be ashamed or nervous that people will reject me, I give what I do because I want to, the results of that aren't really in my control. Other people aren't in my control: all I can do is offer my wisdom, my compassion, and my caring with humility and grace. Joy and sorrow go hand in hand- I'm not ashamed of either of those. My hands remain open.<br />
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I'm learning when to speak up, when to be quiet, when to say yes, when to say no. I challenge myself to be out there, trying headstands and intelligently pushing my practice when I want to act tired and stay safe in the way that means I'm cheating myself. The thing is, yoga is not just asana- it's every moment of every day- so pushing my practice means I push myself to be filled with grace whether that's not yelling when I'm frustrated, or being disciplined with my work, or taking rest, or breaths, or doing things I'm afraid of- like having an open heart.<br />
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I am still full of doubt sometimes, afraid I'm an imposter and a failure. I still eat too much when I can't figure out how to handle things, and I bail on myself when I get that anxious procrastination feeling where I just wander around doing nothing while I worry over all the things I could be doing. Only now I know how to take my hand and see what I need instead of should-ing myself to death- making it better instead of making it worse. I don't do that every time, but I do it some times, which is a yard better than how it used to be- no times.<br />
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I am here. I am sober, I am alive, full of grace and hope- lovely. I have thought so much about how to write about all this, and I guess I still don't know. Or I do, but it comes out as it comes out- forcing things just isn't my style. I wondered about y'all- whoever still reads or missed me, or who might find me. I knew whoever was here would be here when they needed to be. I knew I would be here when I needed to be too.<br />
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Hello :)<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-46903483194898738082016-03-23T10:38:00.002-04:002016-03-23T10:39:21.563-04:00Just Warming Up<br />
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This past few months have been hugely intense for me. Starting therapy and yoga teacher training is big: so big that I am still looking at it on my plate, chewing my first bite. I have come up with so much forgiveness, so much comfort and care for myself by allowing myself to pursue a dream that is still undefined but so needed. I have pushed myself mentally and physically and soulfully in ways that I totally hated every second of, but did it anyway because I know the hard stuff I can barely stand is the stuff I obviously need to pay attention to and do. I have loved so much of it, deep down constant gratitude and joy for being here, where I am.<br />
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It all winds back to the decision I made to quit drinking. That moment, that life defining choice, has built and grown my courage to be nice to myself. To care for the being I am that lives in this body, the person I have always been and am allowing myself to become. It was so awkward and weird at first, this kindness and care for my own self, but it keeps getting easier and more normal. This goes on forever- I am always healing and forever changing because healing and staying always one way aren't necessarily the same thing.<br />
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In teacher training we did an exercise about shame during our study of the third chakra. Our teacher had us write down three things we were ashamed of. I wrote:<br />
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<i>my drinking</i><br />
<i>my lack of sexual abandon, yet TOO MUCH unconscious abandon</i><br />
<i>breastfeeding my children after I'd been drinking- losing their early childhoods</i><br />
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Then she had us decide about that shame. Decide yes or no, then stand up in this lofty open wood and brick big windowed wide space and push our arms out with great force away from ourselves, one arm at a time, side to side, yelling our word: yes or no. Hands open or in fists, eyes open, she started us off- yelling yes! YES! YES! her body swinging back and forth with the strength of her conviction. We started too, shyly yelling and moving. It took us a minute to warm up, and then we all yelled our yes's and no's and threw our arms out and in pulling our way towards a bit of freedom.<br />
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My shame about my former life is so big when I think back on the things I do remember and cringe to imagine the things I don't. I can't live in the steps I've already taken. I am not that person anymore, even if my brain wants to drag me back there for another round of punishment.<br />
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After about five minutes she stopped us, and said <i>write it down</i>. <i>Write down what you mean about that shame now</i>. I wrote this:<br />
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<i>YES</i><br />
<i>it wasn't right. it was awful, and selfish, and it's OK. I did it the only way I knew how. It was wrong and I am forgiven. I am forgiven. My heart was always there </i><br />
<i>ALL ALONG</i><br />
<i>ALL ALONG</i><br />
<i>ALL ALONG </i><br />
<i>ALL ALONG</i><br />
<i>ALL ALONG</i><br />
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Then she said <i>write your biggest wish.</i> I wrote:<br />
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<i>to continue</i><br />
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I cannot change what I've done, but I can honor myself every moment from now until I die. I can forgive myself, I can surrender to the bad and the good of who I've been and the woman I am at this very moment. I am all of my history and I'm making history all the time, the longer I live the more I can tip the scales so memory mostly recognizes who I am now. We'll tell it like used to be stories you tell about your children. "Remember when Amy would only wear dresses to school and ate cereal every day for breakfast? Remember when Amy used to roller skate all the time? Remember when Amy used to drink? Whoa! That was a long time ago." Then we'll scratch our heads and look off into space trying to even remember what that felt like.<br />
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I got myself sober and then I learned how to live like that, and now I am feet on the ground enough to open my heart enough to love and be loved by others and the world. To trust that my dirty laundry can be what it is, and not be more than it's been meant to be. I know that I am all those blacked out hook ups, those nights I had too much to drink and picked up my innocent baby sons in the middle of the night and fed them breast milk laced with alcohol, I am the fights I picked with my husband, the drunken wish for it to stop but not stopping. I am all of those things, <i><b>but that is not all that I am</b></i>.<br />
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I am just warming up.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-82790111181418813282016-02-18T11:34:00.001-05:002016-02-18T13:48:58.497-05:00On the Ground<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoizXgvxfNiYmvE_HraIKvFvdk6xdkXXa4f405kbAfMgXV_Yogh25cWZOzQJhYE_fiX0of9xtpCCb5aAx9JIbNUihrcyypH_cforYy6tb-f18WbM4N6e9jY0HkqvwDEPlQHprIZyKFKRv9/s1600/IMG_2690.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoizXgvxfNiYmvE_HraIKvFvdk6xdkXXa4f405kbAfMgXV_Yogh25cWZOzQJhYE_fiX0of9xtpCCb5aAx9JIbNUihrcyypH_cforYy6tb-f18WbM4N6e9jY0HkqvwDEPlQHprIZyKFKRv9/s320/IMG_2690.JPG" width="320"></a></div>
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Back in the spring of 2011 I decided I was going to do yoga teacher training. I'd been doing yoga regularly for a year or two, and I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Yoga teacher seemed better than waitress, so I found a studio, paid a deposit, and signed up.<div>
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Then, because the universe is so <i>universal-y</i> I developed an umbilical hernia six weeks before training started. <i>No yoga</i> said the doctor. <i>No yoga, no running. Let's see if it heals, or surgery. </i>Heartbroken I cancelled yoga teacher training. I stopped yoga. I stopped running. </div>
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I drank. We moved. I had hernia surgery. I drank a lot more. Then I quit.</div>
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Yoga helped save me. I would get up before dawn and write and then at 6 AM roll out my yoga mat and practice with the lady on PBS. I remembered what it was like to flow, to move. I was creaky and felt a little silly and a lot delighted that I was up doing yoga rather than nursing yet another hangover. We joined the Y and I meant to go to yoga class but I never made it. I practiced some at home and wanted to do more but just didn't. You know how that goes, I mean just... <i>life</i>.</div>
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Then in early 2014 a friend invited me to visit a new yoga studio that her friend had just opened. The space was beautiful- a big loft on the third floor of a downtown building that was not only the studio but home to the owners. The wood floors stretched long and lovely, the windows full of sun. It felt welcoming and warm, so pretty that it felt almost like it wasn't real. I met her friend, who is now my teacher, and my life changed forever. </div>
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I'd been secretly thinking about being a yoga teacher again, wondering if I could. I didn't have a steady practice, but I started taking classes there sporadically. I really liked the people who owned the studio and always felt so welcome. I'd go steadily and then I'd be gone for months at a time but then back. I started thinking about taking teacher training there, then seriously thinking about it. It took over a year for me to arrange it but here I am- learning how to be a yoga teacher. </div>
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People say things like "This changed me forever" and then the rest of us get skeptical and sort of waggle our eyebrows at each other behind that crazy person's back, but damn if it isn't true. I have been to two weekends of training and I am pretty fucking different. Not unrecognizable, just more me, more of a being with the world. </div>
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One of my teachers is a sixty year old woman. She is bright and bold and thoughtful and incredibly human and honest. She encourages us to feel and move in our own ways, to get to places in our own time. Her influence in my life has put my feet on the ground. She is teaching me how to stand, how to sit, how to walk- physically teaching me how to walk on my tibia, not my fibula, how to stand on the big toe side of my foot and the little toe side and my heel. I am a forty four year old baby learning to roll around on the ground and feel connected to the earth. You wouldn't think rolling around on the ground with no effort would be so freaking hard, but try it- you'll be efforting all over the place- trying to hold your body just right or to look like what you imagine is the "proper" way to roll around on the ground. It is hilarious to realize that there is no right way to do it, but you've been trying to do it right the whole time. You're on your mat, on your side in the shape of a banana, all tensed up about it, then you let go, and you roll from side to side and something in you loosens and you can breathe again.</div>
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After the first weekend I felt like I had the flu. My hips felt like someone was grinding my femurs into them like a mortar and pestle. I was tired and achy, listless, spent. Our training is a lot of talking by all of us- sharing our stories, supporting each other in the spirit of our sangha, learning how much alike we are and how different. Noticing each other. There are the Yamas, and the Niyamas, and the chakras, it is also physical- we do classes and practice teaching each other. We chant, and breathe. That first weekend took a huge toll on me emotionally. Then we got to the second weekend and our second chakra- water and sexuality- and I almost fell right off the world.</div>
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I have come to terms with many things since I got sober at the very end of 2012 but sex has not been one of them. I have a big sad history of big sad things that I did or that happened to me because I was drunk and that is almost impossible for me to shake. I lost my virginity in a drunken blackout when I was fifteen. Was it taken from me? I don't know, I was so drunk I wasn't in my body. It all rolls on from there, getting bigger and bigger until I get to here: me clueless about how to be a sexual and feminine woman in this middle aged body, still sometimes shaky about just being a person. I don't know how to feel comfortable being a woman, how to not equate sex with sadness, how to not equate feminine with sex. I spent half of a morning class silently sobbing, tears leaking and leaking out of me wanting to run from the room and break down but I stayed and let myself quietly cry and start to heal. I've run away enough. That's yoga.</div>
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It all goes back to basics. I got lost when I was twelve and started drinking at fourteen to stop hurting. And that's where I stopped knowing how to be in the world. I don't know how to walk in the world as a woman because <i>I haven't done it. </i>It has taken three years of me swaddled in sobriety like a baby to be ready to learn how to stand. But I am ready. Oh, I'm ready. My feet are right here on the ground. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8136268241054850544.post-79736324251110750502016-01-29T10:31:00.000-05:002016-01-29T10:31:06.651-05:00Radical WaitingI have made a radical discovery. It's probably something you've heard of.<br />
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Meditation. And waiting.<br />
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Dude. Whoa.<br />
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I remember back in my twenties I went to a meditation class and I thought I might have both disappeared <i>and </i>fallen asleep. It was incredible. So of course, I never did it again.<br />
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I have tried meditating so many times. It goes something like this:<br />
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<i>OK, I'm going to meditate now...I'm breathing in. And out. Following oh. I wonder why I hey! We need toothpaste! Ugh, my legs look kind of sausage-y in these pants. Oh, right. OK, back to it. I'm breathing in. And out. And in. And is the alarm going to go off? Do we have anything for the kid's lunches? What am I going to have for lunch today? What's going on this weekend? I want to go camping. I'm terrible at this. I give up.</i><br />
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It was like that every time. I would hear about how amazing meditation is, how it can change your life, and since I'm still way open to some life changing I would try again. I would flail again. So many times that I have a little meditation PTSD. I think about meditation and there's a lot of eye rolling and hurumphing. Until now.<br />
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How did I not know about <i>guided</i> meditation? Do you know about it? I have this great app on my phone called "Stop, Breathe, and Think". It is the bomb. It is mostly free- I think I spent $7 on some additional meditations. It asks you how you're feeling and then pops up a few meditations for you to choose from. They run anywhere from 5-20 minutes. I have five minutes!<br />
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Turns out I have ten minutes- after a few months of having only five minutes now I can meditate for ten minutes and I can do it every day.<br />
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What's radical is not only the meditating but this: it took me a few months to get here- but I'm here. What's radical is that big changes don't happen overnight in these life exploding moments but in the slow but sure collection of days and weeks. This is true about meditating and about being sober, about a lot of other things too.<br />
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There is the big decision (I quit drinking, I start meditating, I write every day, I floss at night) and then there's the waiting, the doing over and over until the day you realize that you really have made a difference in your own life, and that it is good. I've started looking at the things I say in my head I could never do and then that's the thing I try to do. A year ago I only did one thing on that list up there, now I do all of them. It took a year, but now here they all are. Part of me.<br />
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When I think about change I always imagine it to be sweeping, and instant. This is just not true. Change is slow and steady, it progresses at a pace about fifty times slower than I want but the timing isn't what's important, it's the steadiness that's key. It's about being satisfied with who you are today and being able to hope to be (not <i>have to be</i>) more tomorrow. It's about not letting yourself make bullshit excuses ("I'm too busy/ I don't have time for that" is the biggest bullshit excuse ever- I think that's fear talking) but taking something you think is important and making it <i>important</i>.<br />
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I get so impatient with my sweet life- <i>Be all the things I want you to be RIGHT NOW!</i> but really, I am starting to feel so radical in my waiting. My own slow day at a time revolution that takes patience and persistence- ten minutes at a time.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com14