Getting A Miracle

The Good Housekeeping article! Thanks to everyone for your support and kind words. I've gotten a few emails from people who say things like "divine intervention" and "just in time" and that has been really really cool. Y'all know I deep down believe that when you pray the universe will answer, but you have to listen, and if someone reading about me getting sober helps them get sober.....the totally amazingness of that is big to contemplate.

That article coming out led to this:

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  Hey, Hope all is well. I wanted to give you a heads up about something that has happened/been happening for awhile now. Amy has quit drinking alcohol as is was a problem for her and our family. She will be 1 year sober this Dec 7th. I am very proud of her and her ongoing accomplishment. This has been a strugle that she has taken on full steam. Bravo on many levels my sweet. As a part of her healing process, she started a blog about her struggle. The name of the blog is Soberbia. It is a journal so to speak, of her struggles. As it turns out, many people read and comment on this blog as it speaks true and in line with other peoples problems with alcohol. This blog is out there for everyone to read and we are happy that so many do! Warning, there is colorful language, plain and simple. A few months ago, Amy was contacted by Good Housekeeping asking about her blog. As it turns out they have a column that is all about self-help/betterment, and they wanted to feature her in the magazine. She said OK. We were hoping to get an opportunity to speak about this in person and figured the wedding wasn't right, so here I am not in person letting you know. The article is scheduled to be in the December issue of Good Housekeeping. As it turns out, December is released the first of November. We were unaware that it was going to be on the newsstands this soon, or we would have talked sooner. We wanted you to be aware in case that someone approached you about the article. I am very proud of Amy and hope that you will support her as I and the children have over this last year. Sorry this is coming to you via email, but it is the most effective way for me to articulate our feelings to everyone.

  Please tell Gram and anyone else that you feel necessary.

  Love to all!

  Jonathan

  December 2013 Page 69 in the "Feel Good" section

  Amy you are a rock star, keep up the great work, Jack Hampton and I are so Proud!

This letter took my breath away. So much love coming from my husband to me that I felt about 27 million feet tall. My heart feels so full. Then I called his grandmother (who is 88 and an old school southern lady) and had to tell her I was an alcoholic, and that pretty much everyone might know about it since I was in a magazine.

"Oh Amy! I am so proud of you!" she said, not missing a beat. Not one second of disapproval. NOT ONE. "Good for you!" she said. More love. More taller.

Then the email from Jonathan's mom came:

I am so thankful that you have shared this with us! I only wish I had known earlier. I would have been praying for Amy....for all of you...and would have been one of her biggest cheerleaders this past year. I have plenty of love and support to give. I have started reading the blog.....from the beginning.....but since I do have to get some work done, I have to save the rest until I'm home. I am SO PROUD of you Amy! My heart is about to pop! Love you so much! Mimi/Mom

Now I am hugely tall. Taller than ever. My heart swelled to as big as it could get, and then stretched out to make room for the support coming from my family and people out in the world who don't even know me but believe in me.

Whoa. Thank you universe. I needed that. Ask and ye shall receive. But you have to ask. And also receive.

It seems like that when you put yourself out there you can get what you give. So I put myself way on out there (way way on out there) and the universe made sure I was safe, and loved, and OK. That since I did something brave I could feel the love that was coming from everywhere: but I had to open my heart to get it. When I said to the world "Here I am: but for real though" the world said "Cool. Here's this love. You are OK."

Sometimes when you spend all your time hiding love just can't find you, no matter how hard you wish for it to show up. But then you stop hiding and love shows up. When you say things like "Help" and "Here I am" and you squinch your eyes closed and hope for the best and then open your eyes and the best shows up too. And then you realize that even a little best is so much better than your old idea of best, and this new big big biggest best is amazing and like a miracle.

That you are loved and that a lot of that love comes from within you yourself is a miracle too.

Getting close to my year anniversary and getting emails from people just starting out makes me think about all the things I was just a year ago. Scared. Drunk. Hidden. Worried. Sad. Unable. Suffocating. Drowning. Full of undone wishing. Under my pretty regular life I was a pretty big mess holding it together with linty old tape and fraying dirty string- liable to break at any moment.

A year ago today I was probably hungover. Then I woke up that one day and decided I wanted my miracle. That I could have it. That things like "love" and "best" were actually for naked mole rat people like me too. That I could put down the thing that made me unable to see the gifts the universe had been holding out to me all along. That I was worthy. And strong. Capable. That I was a live-r and not a life-r.

And so maybe here you are: hungover. What if at this time next year you've been sober for almost a year now? What if you look around and decide it's time for your miracle too? What if you think it will be too hard, and that you can't can't can't but then you do it anyway?

If you are reading this you can have your miracle too. I give you permission from me and the universe because the universe once gave me permission and told me it was OK to offer it to anyone else who needed it. It's hard and sad and glorious and you won't even believe that it's you anymore until that day when you've been sober for a while and you suddenly realize you're the you-est you you've ever been. Then you will drop to your knees in you heart and give out thanks for strength and for yourself. You will be soul naked and scared but you will be you and you will love yourself so much for it. And you will cry this deep heartfelt cry, and as the tears of joy and blessing roll down your face you will know.

You are a miracle too.

Regular Saturday, Part Two

I've been thinking so hard about happiness. What makes it, why we want it. Why we want other people to be it. How it is pounded into our heads relentlessly: "Must be happy, must be happy, must be happy." Then I read this brilliant book called Introvert Power and I loosened my grip some.

Like, a LOT.

I am a naturally medium jubilant sort of gal. I am generally pretty happy, but also quite introspective and thoughtful. I like to soul search. I like to listen to other people search their own souls. I'm a hand holder. An encourager. A truth teller. I like to cry, to listen to sad songs over and over. I'm not afraid of sad anymore. Some of these are old me, some are new me that is really old me but had been drunk for twenty years and got forgotten.

But what I really have been thinking about is maybe not so much the happiness, but the need to be it. The need of other people for you and me to be it. All the time. Chin up. Don't be so down. Don't be so hard on yourself. Stop being sad. Don't dwell. Turn that frown upside down. Be better. Be better. Be better.

I am better, y'know? I'm not drunk out on my porch two to five nights a week. I'm better.

I also get super sad. Really down deep into the me of it all. I have all this alcoholism and depression and bipolar shit winding it's way through my genes like a relentless crazy plague. But I like to think about it. I like to feel the feeling of being search-y and looking and not afraid to shine the light right there on all that ugly shit.

I saw my therapist one on one two weeks ago. We talked about some very very very hard things that sucked so much to say out loud. So much that it makes me cry writing about it now. But again in that grateful way that makes it almost over. I said it out loud which means I'm not keeping secrets. Not anymore.

Because I said some of it out loud and I didn't die. And she didn't tell me to get out, or laugh. She held me while I cried and stroked my hair and suddenly I was safe. Safer than I'd been since I was fifteen and buried myself where no one could hurt me again.

So maybe I'm not happy every day. Maybe just not. But that doesn't mean that I'm not OK.

I'm more OK than I have ever ever been all grown up. More right with myself than I've been since I was five and got a little forgotten about. Strong enough to say hard things and to trust people with my secrets. Safe enough to be happy when I know it, and OK with just regular Saturdays.

Flash of Brilliance: Happy-ness

Sometimes I have these moments that I like to give the fancy fixed up name "Flash of Brilliance". A sort of superhero that swoops in and saves the day. A gentle reminder that I really am growing, and changing. Getting better! Feeling.....happier.

These often come at the tail end of a really sad, hard time: just one day I wake up and I don't feel blah. Not a little frantic in my head. And I notice that I've been reading more, running again. Being patient when I want to yell and freak out. Putting flowers from the yard on the dining room table. Not calling myself names. 

You know....."normal". :)

This particular flash comes from my oldest. He is a serious kid. He isn't carefree. He is a kind of grumpy 60 year old man in an 8 year old body. He is so smart, and witty. Sharp. He has a temper, and is a terrible loser. He wants to be the best, and he wants it handed to him with no work at all. As in: "I should be able to show up at the swim meet and be the best at all the strokes just because I showed up." I don't know if you'll understand this but I had to quit drinking just to keep up with him and how he sees the world in this really sharp intuitive way. So we could talk about it at night like we do and I wouldn't become a big drunk dumbass. So I could still be smart and teach him stuff. So I could help him be happy.

Whoa. Now there's the part that I got brilliant about. It is not my job to make him happy. Or anybody else for that matter. I can twist and bend and gumbify myself into a thousand versions of best mom ever and guess what? He still might not be happy. And here's the bad part: neither will I. So I have to let that go.

That is hard. When I was little I don't remember anyone really caring whether or not I was happy. I didn't feel tenderness. Adored. Needed. Wanted around. I was more of a nuisance than a gift. And then when I drank I was the bad daughter on the outside that I felt like I already was on the inside. I have made it my personal mission to make sure my children know they are loved and adored. Important. Cared for. Thought of. Needed. That I am happy they are here. 

But see, that is my mission. And mine and theirs are two different things. Just like mine and yours.

One reason I love Gretchen Rubin is because she emphasizes how different what makes people happy can be. Muddy kids in the backyard makes me happy. But perhaps you can't stand dirt. Lists of hopeful goals makes me feel.....hopeful, whereas to some people that is way overdoing it. Going to bed early and getting up early makes me feel real good. But maybe 5 AM is much too early for you.

It seems like the real unhappiness creeps in for all of us, whether we know it or not, when we are trying to live someone else's happy life. And by doing that we make our own lives miserable. Oh. OH!!!!

FLASH OF BRILLIANCE!

I realized that everyone has their own truth. Their own way. And that where I was really fucking up was trying to fit my path to someone else's. This was so concretely true when I was drinking, heavy and true. Now that I'm sober I see that clearly: I cannot make myself happy when I'm not making myself happy.

Get it? I have other people's standards for a lot of my inner/outer stuff. Weight is a big one. The way I dress is another. (Although sobriety has released me from that big time. I hardly ever have outfit anxiety like I used to.) I feel so judged by my outward appearance that I forget to let my eyes shine when I smile, or I forget to smile at all. I tend to want what other people want rather than take some time to figure out what I want. Being sober makes me not so much that way. And then the F.O.B. showed up and I can lighten up some.

Cause it's amazing how trying so hard to make others happiness makes me so so un-happy.

I've had a rough time of it lately. Not overwhelming, not awful. Just blegh. Sometimes I feel guilty because my demons aren't in the shape of wine bottles, but repetitive soul searches- paths in my head worn paper thin from traveling them over and over again. For me, at this point in my sobriety it's not the booze I miss, it's a sense of well-being. I feel like now I'm getting my groove back, ready for another trip among the pink clouds until the next life lesson comes along. The nice part is that I feel better- stronger. Like I'm becoming more and more me.

P.S. Going to the recovery meetings (I've been to 2) has been a blessing and a curse. The relief, the be-lief, the connection to others has been extraordinary. Cleaning out the closet of my shoved down secret self is no fucking fun. But seeing the look of compassion from other people that says "You're still OK with me even with all this stuff" has helped me. Shored me up. Made me brave and unashamed. Proud of who I am.