Fun

I came up with a glorious word for 2014 after days and days of heaving all these heavy words around in my head like freedom and restraint and peace. 

I wasn't even going to pick a word at all. Then, while I was writing a totally different post that I totally deleted I came across this little word: FUN. 

And my brain went: Oh. Huh. What a nice word. And completely opposite from something I'd normally pick. THAT'S IT! PICK IT.

I was writing a post about how people think sober people aren't fun. And then I started thinking about how I don't really let myself have fun. Like, I'm just all bogged down in the sobriety of sober-ness. Which doesn't seem very fun at all. My dear friend Lilly over at One Too Many is struggling with this right now- how to be sober and fun. 

Why is getting drunk considered the only adult fun? I mean, people look at you like you've grown another head when you say you don't drink. So many people. Why is it "cool" to have too much to drink and then feel like shit the next day? It sounds so stupid and inane to me now: "Hey, I know. Let's get dressed up, go out, spend a lot of money, do embarrassing things, and then feel like shit the next day." Or my regular: "Hey, let's go to the drinks store, spend too much money, ignore our lives, do embarrassing things, and then feel like shit the next day." It doesn't happen every time, but still.

It's like wearing a life jacket, but not the good kind that will save you, more like the bad kind made out of burdens and expectations and weights. One that suffocates and smothers your life until you almost can't even breathe. I mean, no wonder drunk people think they're having all the fun: they forgot the cumbersome jacket. They forgot that thing after two or three glasses of wine. They have "permission"- liquid amnesia. Until the next morning when that strangle-y coat is weightier than ever.

How cool would it be to actually practice having fun, but without the lapses in memory or manners? Have a good damn time but without the morning oh-no's? To be brave enough to not give a whit what people think so much? To do the work of finding people and things you actually enjoy rather than getting drunk again with that same group of people? To take that suffocating jacket off of your life and be the fun person you imagine you are when you're getting your drink on, but without it. Without the protection of the booze: just you.

Why can't we "let loose" sober?

I don't mean drunk let's-sleep-with-that-random-stranger let loose or look-at-me-being-an-ass-but-it's-ok-I-just-had-too-many-jagerbombs loose- I mean the let loose of enjoying the moment, some time of abandon without using booze to numb yourself out of your life, you just are choosing to put down the burdens and having.....fun. Taking off that smothering awful weight of that alcohol straitjacket and finding the lightness of self. Self only. No props, no false courage. That doesn't sound super fun yet, but it gets easier and easier and suddenly you find yourself talking and making sense. That people look at you not to whisper about what an ass you were last night but to admire you. Yes, you. 

A lot of being sober for me has been giving myself permission to grow up. To act like a grown up. To make the right decisions. So I made that one right decision: stay sober. But I still behave like a spoiled brat when it comes to eating too many cookies or laying in bed and not getting up to write. So what about being a grown up and being an all the way grown up? Could that mean not doing this never-ending dance of permission and execution? Could that be.....fun?

I have a hard time with some stuff- my temper can be quick, I can be a total doormat. And then I can be a totally resentful cranky doormat. One of my biggest changes has been being able to admit when I am wrong, and then saying things like, "Help me please." and "I don't know what to do." Which doesn't sound like much fun, but it actually kind of is.

So that's my word for this year. Fun. A reminder to not take it all so seriously. A way to see things differently: that life is to be enjoyed. That all this learning that never ends is not only hard and sometimes soul wrenching but a source of pure pleasure. That even the normal every day stuff can be entertaining. It's all the way you look at it. 

My First Sober Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a lovely day at my parents house. My brother and his family came down, all the kids (five boys under eight years old- my two and his three) got along. All the adults got along. Dinner was loud and delicious. We all agreed that the stuffing was the best, ham too was a great idea, and that we should feed the kids first next year so we could all actually eat instead of pop up and down for kid seconds and thirds before we'd had a bite. "Mom? I need more ham." "Me too! I need more ham too!" And so we could hear each other talk.

Around five or so we came home, built a fire and all piled up in blankets and pillows and snacks on the couch. Put on "The Polar Express".

Kind of in the middle of the movie I had a sudden thought. "Is this what we do every year? Wait, why don't we do this every year?"

Then I remembered.

This was my first sober Thanksgiving.

Usually I would have had wine with dinner. Then Jonathan and I would have wine at the house. I would have wanted to put the kids to bed on time so we could get our Thanksgiving drink on. I would have been bundled in my coat outside smoking and freezing.

I would be hungover this morning instead of popping open a can of cinnamon rolls and making bacon. I would be dreading this whole day instead of wishing it had a few more hours. I would have been upstairs asleep instead of making hot chocolate for the kids. Seeing them grin when I hold up the whipped cream so they'll open their mouths and I'll spray some right in. This delights them and me every time. I would have missed it.

The more time I spend sober, the more I realize that the alcohol industry has it all wrong. I don't have less fun because I don't drink- I have more. They have us all fooled into thinking that life is ho-hum OK, but if you add some chardonnay it will be somehow extra extra amazing. They want us to believe booze makes it better.

Liars.

They also want you to think you are missing something if you aren't drinking. That you are boring. Abnormal. I am of the opinion that having to add booze to an event or to a person to make it fun is just plain dumb. Totally dumb. 

Being sober has made me realize: I'm not missing anything. I see and hear and remember it all. I'm not waiting for the magical time to happen when the wine is right and the night is alive and I am suddenly, because of booze, the woman I was always meant to be. I am already her. I have all the things I need right here. I am not boring or uncool with my seltzer and my sobriety. I am fucking awesome. :)