Change is Fucking Hard

I get letters with some frequency from people who want to quit drinking, who quit and then started again. Who have quit and I helped and they send me a letter of kind thanks. Which always delights my soul and amazes me all at once.

Change is fucking hard. I've been mishy mashing around reigning in some bad habits and general constants all winter. Getting the thought from floating in my head to actual bodily practice is so...erratic. From great idea to maybe tomorrow happens every day. Every day. And then I'm comfortable and in the same place I was yesterday. Sigh.

It's like even though I know what will keep growing me I keep on hiding from the rain and the sun. I stretch a little new green leafy arm out towards the light and then get distracted and lazy and there withers my new leafy little arm and there I am- dirt buried and too tired to try again. But just like a little seed I just can't resist the wanting to grow.

This is the hardest part: the wanting to. The knowing, the need. The have to but I don't want to. Someone was explaining to me how our bodies are like pendulums and how they want to be aligned the up and down swing side to side way, but how they can just get used to being off sideways after a while and then sideways is the right way, even though it is really really the wrong way. Then that fucked up way is the comfortable way, but still way in there you know it isn't the right way so you just yearn to get back to where you belong. But fight it the whole time.

Ack.

I have started and stopped so many things this winter: things that have to do with food and sweets and yoga and hikes and writing. I have started, but I have not. Sometimes I use quitting drinking as an excuse to not push myself harder because SHIT. I already did that one hard thing, right? Can't I just go with that one? Forever? Lol.

I made a list of the simple things I want to do to feed my soul. I made them things that I know make me feel the most like myself: most like I'm living according to the inner blueprint that just will not shut up. I suppose that voice will nag me until I actually do what it wants me to do.

I thought about how wonderful it was that first year I quit drinking to not have to listen to that never ending voice that constantly begged me to please just stop. I thought about how now I have more room inside for more big stuff, and how because I'm scared I just keep on staying the same- scared to be anything but guilty and miserable- scared to really really live this life for all it's worth. I thought about all the time I waste on Facebook, and playing Two Dots, and checking my email again, or Facebook. Ugh. How all of that shuts up the inner voice during that mind escape and then it just comes back. I thought about how I love to write, but then I don't because I'm afraid it won't be the very best thing I've ever done, or that it will be stupid. I thought about how I love to run, but I don't because I can't even run a mile anymore without it being hard. I don't do yoga because I am not as good at it as I used to be. I just tug on the waist of my jeans, wish for what used to be, and grab a cookie and my phone to forget what I really want to be doing, but I'm just so afraid to be good at life. I'm so used to sucking at it.

This all sounds pretty miserable, and truthfully it really is. I'm exhausted trying to pretend I'm OK when I am not.

The good thing is that I am exhausted but not done. The nagging voice keeps telling me the answer, and I want to listen. I realized that I tell people all the time: do it. Quit drinking: you will not regret it. I realized that I was being a total hypocrite. I can't stop what I've started. Getting sober wasn't the finish, it is only the beginning. And maybe that voice is not a nag, but my biggest fan.

Healed Sometimes

After my last post something happened.

The person I had a tough time with in group contacted me by text. There was apology. Acknowledgement. Explanation. Kindness.

Boy, was I pissed.

So I slept on it.

I'm all about being here and now, but sometimes that means I have to wait a minute. That right now isn't my moment. I was pissed and I was hurt and I needed time to think. So I took it. It amazes me that I used to handle big emotional things so off the cuff. I can still have my beginning thoughts while I move towards the end and the middle, but I'm letting the water boil and cool. I'm making my intention pure and safe. For everyone.

The next morning I woke up and read the text again. And again, my ego got right on up. "How dare she!" "What was she thinking?" and then. Then I saw her. I saw her pain, her confusion. I saw that she is no longer that same person in that room that day just like I'm not either. I saw us, us- two women. Just doing our best, and sometimes in spite of that hugely sucking at life anyway. I saw her- the person I know her to be. Open hearted, kind, and generous. I saw the parts I love, and the parts that hurt me. I saw myself, misjudged and mistreated so many times in my life because I did things without thought or remained quiet when faced with hard things. I saw the two of us, side by side- questiony blank faces: what should we do?

What else could I do? In my soul I forgave her, forgave us. I let the women decide, not my ego, not the hurt, not that old day. I let myself be humbled by her grace full brave hand that reached out even though she had no idea how I was going to react but just went ahead and said I'm sorry anyway. I got a moment of grace and made sure to notice it, made sure to act in it.

There's a difficult balance between forgiveness and doormat. It's hard for me to not make every person in the room okay except me sometimes. I have a tough time not seeing all sides when really I just need to see my side. I am getting used to saying things like "That's not right to me" and "I just can't agree with that" but then being able to get on with it and not stay stumped at the speed bump of this way or that way.

It's like this: we disagree. You say po-tay-toe, I say po-tah-toe. Well well. My old way would be to clam up, think about all the reasons I was wrong even though for me it felt right. Then I would just agree with you to keep the peace and feel like an asshole because I couldn't honor myself enough to stand up for myself and be firm about what I believe. Wishy washy is one of the things I can't stand about myself. I'm that way because in spite of my best efforts I just really really want everyone to like me. Ack!

The big hurt happened: we disagreed. And in my new way I said what I felt and I didn't let myself go. And just like I suspected I got hurt. Other people got hurt. The was not even a little bitty hint of peace anywhere around- and it was all my fault. "I knew it!" I told myself. "I am never right!" I said to myself. "I suck." And then I remembered that I was right for me, even though I might not have been right for anyone else, I was right for me. I made it okay for me. It was not all my fault. And I quit my group, and I got on along with it. It hurt all summer long, and all summer long I didn't blame myself. And I healed some.

I healed some. Some people from group showed up out of the blue. And so I knew it was time to take a look. I had to write about the hurt because seeing them reminded me that it still hurt and that's what writers like me do: I write to put the jangle jumble in my head in some sort of order. To settle my debt.

I was ready to be unstuck. And because I was ready, and someone else was ready, it all lined up. Now there's a part of me that's complete where there was a dangly string before. I was ready to forgive and forget. Forgive both of us for being human. Forget about that hurt and understand that it can happen and be and we can be stuck but not forever.

So much of sobriety is all the unsticking. The grace it took for both of us to unstick and see each other as whole people rather than this one hurt was quite beautiful. Last summer I would have never guessed that I would be thankful for the turmoil and upset of that weeks long hurt. Sometimes the grace we gather isn't always wearing the suit it shows up in.

Hurt Sometimes

There have been two big hurts in my two years of recovery. Both happened with me: that is, I was a part of the hurt.

The thing about hurt is that it really wants blame. It wants a face to glare at, a person to shake a finger at: you did this to me. Like all things scuttle and switch their feet for balance hurt does too. And there can be fault, and there can be blame. After some time I forgot about blame and fault and realized that I was ok again.

Both of these things were disagreements. They were instances where I thought one way and someone else thought another way and although I thought we thought the same way we couldn't or wouldn't meet in the middle. These come and go in my daily thinks inventory: some days my heart hurts, some days my head hurts, some days I don't think of them at all. I have distance from both things and so I have lost the urge to be right, but I still feel sad about it, mad about it. Some days.

The other day I saw one of the women from my old recovery group. It was so lovely to look at her grinning face and hug her close and remember that deep down without words she gets where I'm coming from. That is a comfort I share with few people in my life so it was such a good feeling to hear her say kind words and to say them back. It was a balm to my spirit to remember that this woman is in my corner, that she would help me if I needed her. I was sort of collateral damage in my leaving of the group, I was in the hurt, part of the hurt- but I didn't make the hurt. Even so I had to quit the group to honor my own self.

There are things I no longer stand for.

There are so many things that have nothing to do with me. There are things that happened to my parents that shipwrecked them both, things that happen to other people that I can't help, control, or even know about. These things made me so careful with others that I forgot to be less breakable for myself. Both of these hurts came from me standing in my own two feet and saying my own brave truth. In both instances I lost something: a dear friend, a recovery group. But to sit quiet and muzzle my own self would have hurt worse in the long run. That's what I used to do: remain silent. Since I started silent I had to stay that way. Now I am allowed to say what I mean because it makes me who I am: me.

I've been thinking a lot about impermanence. About how, when my six year old cries because he doesn't want to take a shower, it just won't last forever. About how some days I feel angry, or happy, or calm, or extra hungry. But no matter, because it will be different tomorrow, or next week, or by 3 o'clock. I've been learning to live in the moment by recognizing that it is really just one moment. I've been thinking about how when I'm looking for my piece of just right it is already that way because it keeps changing.

I thought I would drink forever. I thought that because I did and had it was the way I would always be. I'm learning that I can change course midstream. That maybe because even though I believe a friend is forever we may change and not be forever and then that's ok. I can take the parts of our friendship that taught me and use those forever. That a group can help me for a time and then I can do what's best for my feelings and not make it right for anyone but me. That because something is true today it does not have to be true tomorrow, or even for the rest of today.

I think about how much I have changed in the past couple years. How I used to be afraid to care for myself. How I would go out of my way to make it ok for others even when it wasn't ok for me. I think about all the times, the hundreds of them, that I put up and shut up because it was easier than doing something hard: sticking up for myself. I have been practicing disagreeing and compromise, along with ignoring the fairy tale that is all or nothing. I have been honoring the power of somethings. Some things. I have been trying to be graceful and not too clumsy, and I apologize when I get ham-handed. Happily some people love me anyway.

In that wonderful way the universe has of giving me a pat on the back I saw another of the women from my recovery group yesterday. It's been such a nice surprise to see two of them because I haven't seen anyone since I left the group around June-ish. We hugged the same heartfelt hug. We looked into each others eyes and no time had passed. It made me miss group- the way it was before everything went all sideways. I really dig the way that when I've shelved something the forces at work remind me to take another look and see how I'm doing.

It's hard to explain the mechanics of loss- what it means to lose a friend, or a group. What it means to plod on. How in that moment it all feels gigantic and huge but then time keeps passing and somehow I get healed even when I think that could never be true.

There's a reason why it's called "growing apart". Because even though I am being apart I am growing- and because I am growing maybe things just aren't matching up the way they used to. That while I am growing everyone else is growing too. Growing apart doesn't have rules, and just because I grow apart it doesn't mean I have to stay apart, it just means there needs to be some stretching room- even if that room gets to be stretching months or years. Part of stretching can always be a bounce back to check- and part of growing is knowing if it's the right thing for me to do so.

This moment isn't really forever. The labels you and I give ourselves don't have to stick. Life things that get too tight or too loose don't have to be made to fit. Today I am open hearted and kind, tomorrow I have no patience for anybody's shit.  Seeing that things aren't permanent helps me see the levels and layers of what I thought was only my simple self. It helps me try things again, do-overs that were maybe meant for another time after I'd had more practice. Because I change every day my life can change every day too- and that isn't bad or wrong, it's just different. It feels different to wave like seaweed when I want to be stock still like a stick in the mud. But all of this gets better with practice. I keep practicing waving around, and I keep getting more comfortable at it.

It helps me know that some things aren't forever- and that's totally fine. When I can see past the permanence of the moment and be comfortable in the sometimes of it all I can handle things like hurt and shift with the bravery and grace my self deserves. I can see that maybe things aren't always like they seem- that retrospect (looking back) and introspect (looking in) can give me the perspective (looking around it all) that allows me to flow with my life instead of fighting against it. That I can be hurt, and feel hurt. But I am not hurt. Only sometimes.

Socially Awkward

I've been having a thought provoking back and forth with a pen pal about social anxiety. I have always been uncomfortable in social situations. I don't like small talk. I'm not really all that patient with meeting new people- I kind of just know if you are my sort of person. As I've grown older I have stopped trying to be friends with everyone and just tried to be friends with people who feel like part of my tribe. You know the feeling- you just click with some folk. You recognize them. This can take time, and now that's OK- you know how when you're hammered you are immediate BFFs but without the booze you actually have to take the time to get to know people?

For a long long time the only people I recognized were the people who could drink as much as I could. It was my main requirement for a friend. I discovered that reality a few months in to being sober when I was friendless, and so it stands to reason that my close friends now are people I haven't had a drinking relationship with because they are people I chose with my heart and not my tolerance.

So, say, ten years ago, I was in a social situation. I would beeline for the drinks. I would have had a few at home to loosen up- you know, because I am pretty socially awkward and booze made it easier to talk to people. I was more charming, funnier. I was a sparkling conversationalist. Because I am more at ease in small intimate groups the booze made bigger social occasions more fun. Wrong. Totally wrong.

It made it so much worse.

Thinking back on it I realize that drinking made me extra incompetent at handling gatherings- public or private. I would worry always about several things- would there be enough to drink? How much could I drink and not black out? Would anyone notice I was drunk? Would I do or say something embarrassing? Would I remember enough of the details of the evening so I could do damage control the next day? While I was paying attention to all that stuff I was never really paying attention to where I actually was. I was in my own obsessive drinky la la land. No wonder it was never any fun and made me nervous- I never was actually at the place where I was. Plus the people I thought were my friends we people I never really connected with- they were drinking buddies. The way I drank didn't allow for genuine close relationships to develop. I was never comfortable enough being myself.

I think about the lot of us that started drinking to ease the discomfort of social situations in the first place. What a mistake that was! In my entire drinking career it never got easier to be at a bar or a party. That solution never worked. I think about the group mentality that (here in America for sure) the best and brightest are the ones who love to be social and a popular in their peer group. I think about people like me who don't like parties or big to do's. How would things be different if I'd known at fourteen that having one or two close friends was the right thing for me? That my weirdness was OK, and that not every single everybody wanted to be a Guess jeans wearing adorably dumb in class cheerleader? How would have been to know that at twenty-four? At thirty-four?

Drinking made me even MORE socially awkward. It didn't make me more of myself- it made me even less of myself. It works for some people- but it didn't work for me. I suspect, if you're reading this, that it didn't work for you either. Now that I'm sober I can be in a group of people and just be quiet. I can not have to talk at all. All the mental chatter about my drinking and how much people are liking me is quiet too because I can sense how I'm feeling. If I need to leave early I leave. If I need an excuse to walk away I just head for the bathroom or just say excuse me. (wow!)

I'm not a big fan of the label "social anxiety' because I think it lumps us all into a ball and it sounds pretty negative. I am a big fan of labels like "introvert" and "extrovert" because I think it helps us to understand the sort of people we are. Of course we all feel totally weird and uncomfortable when we're freshly sober. It takes practice to get that ease. Of course some of us love parties and loads of people and some of us want things to be more low key and small. Of course meeting new people is hard and a little scary. So some anxiety is totally normal.

So much of what we feel seems so permanent at the time. It seems like things will always forever ever forever always be just like this and never be different. But it will be different. With practice anxious becomes uncomfortable. With more practice uncomfortable becomes knowing. And with knowing comes ease.

Wherever You Are

I have been reading this book and it has been rocking my world- in good and bad ways which are really all good ways. Sometimes it hits way too close to home and I wish I was in the middle of another book too so I could give myself a break. But then I am so intrigued by what it makes me think I just go on back to it.

Because I haven't gone to AA I haven't done any step work. I know there are steps, and that there are twelve, and that surrendering is a big huge part of the AA message that I really really like. I believe to this day that the reason I stay sober is that I surrender to my alcoholism and by surrender I mean own it. When I stopped making excuses for myself lo and behold! I was able to quit drinking because I wasn't lying to myself anymore. I need this about sweets too, and people pleasing, and also being a tiny bit bad at asking for help. But, as they say, one step at a time.

The part I am really really loving is the higher power part. Which really surprises me since I have never ever been religious, but then it really isn't all about "religion" but more like faith and prayer without an official title or a building or even a name. I puzzle over it all the time. "Hello!" I say. "Hello          !" I say. "What the hell do I call this person/thing I pray to?" I think to myself. Today I described her as a serene mother nature-y person with long gray hair with flowers leaves and twigs woven into it wearing a dress made from moss, some tights and some clogs when it's cold. She smiles benevolently at me with all the patience in the world.

So instead of being afraid of the higher power part I am totally embracing it. Some because of that description above and then mostly because in A Woman's Way Through the Twelve Steps Stephanie Covington says our higher power accepts us just as we are. That our higher power expects us to be kind of broken and fucked up, BUT it isn't there to fix us but to support us. That it is a shared energy. That it is an eternal safe place inside and outside of all of us. That my higher power and I are a team.

Word.

And so then, if I surrender to being part of this lovely team who tells me the truth and tucks my hair behind my ear softly and will love me as big as I will let it, then I can be more self full. More solid. More not me against the world. That makes me feel so safe. It makes it easier to not drink. It makes it easier not to eat seven cookies, or say yes when I mean no. It means that I can think "help" and not "read my mind".

There's a song by the Dixie Chicks called "Godspeed"that I love. My dad made a video of clips of my oldest when he was around two and put this song as the music. I cry every every time, but especially at the part where she sings "God hears amen wherever we are and I love you". My heart breaks open a little bit and I just know. I know that my higher power hears me wherever I am. That I can have my own version, that I have faith. Not in a name, or a religion, but in me. That I hear my amens wherever I am.

Ground + Connect

Happy New Year!

So much has been changing around here that I haven't made time to sit and connect in weeks. I've been situating myself into working two jobs for a while which has made things a little wonky. "Oh no!" everyone says. "Two jobs?" everyone says. "How will you do it?" everyone says, and then shakes their heads and looks like they've just smelled something funny. Do they doubt me or just feel sorry for me? I am kind of worn out by trying to convince everyone, including me, that it will be fine. It's only until April.

It will be fine.

Did I mention that my other job is waiting tables? At night? In a fancy-ish restaurant where there's loads of good wine and clever cocktails? Yes, I've been opening and pouring wine. Carefully carrying full martini glasses. I've been to a wine tasting. And sniffed and smelled and passed mine on to my neighbor. It amazes me how much I used to know about wine, and how much I don't know anymore. Somehow without the tasting it just isn't the same.

It isn't the same. Thank God.

It is fine.

I have moments, seconds, of twinges of wishing I could do it. Drink normally. When I open a bottle of something lovely for a couple to share and they settle into the warmth of that first glass I miss drinking so much for a minute. But then I take myself to the end of my night: me, drunk. Outside in the cold. Smoking too many cigarettes and pouring wine down my throat urgently wanting that warm just for a moment feeling back from that first glass of wine. I take myself to all the mornings I woke up hungover and so depressed and guilty. Then I am sober and happy and fine. And I go have some water. It has taken concentration and control but I can do things like that.

I have noticed that I have been doing the hibernating thing I do when there's a lot to think about. When I was thinking about my word for this year I thought about that. About how I have stopped blogging. How I have eased back on my connections with friends. How I have stopped being connected to myself. How I need to find my feet again. Life has needed a lot of arranging for the past six months- there have been big decisions to make and health concerns (no answers yet). It can get overwhelming.

I think it all started when my recovery group went sideways and I lost a big sober outlet. I sort of flung myself out into the world without a net and then got lost in the atmosphere. I'm still sort of new at this and so when I get knocked around a bit I am still not very used to reaching out and saying help. So when I was thinking about 2015 I knew I needed to reconnect with my sober life. That I needed to stop being alone in my cave and come on back out onto solid ground. To find my feet again.

It's hard, when you are being sober and figuring things out about yourself, when people question your passion and your intentions. I am very passionate about my sobriety and I sort of lost that after I left the recovery group, because of what happened in group. Which means, instead of hiding and being safe from others (which is what I've realized I was doing) I need to find a group that fits for me. I need to put it back out there to the universe that I'm strong enough to put myself out there again.

That's where the ground comes in. My head is often in the clouds- all involved in it's own thinks and thoughts and none of those are about my feet on the ground. For me I need a strong base so that when something happens I can remain safe on my own two feet. I still struggle with a lot of self doubt: who am I really? what do I stand for? what do I believe? who do I want to be? I think that spending most of my life drinking has taken the opportunity to find those answers and cement them a lot more difficult. As a peace keeping people pleaser it is hard for me to know who I am when I am made up of  molding myself to fit so many other people. How to un-shape and un-pretzel into standing straight on my two feet me.

Luckily I have grown patient. I have untangled enough to know that things take time. I can look at this next year with tolerance and not feeling that unsettling urge to be all fixed all at once today right now. I made a New Year's resolution to mind my posture. It seemed kinder than promising myself my typical promise: lose weight. I made a decision to meet myself the way I am today, not some version of me I wish I were, but the version of me I am. All that head speak about "I need to be             and then I'll be OK" is bullshit for me. It's like smoke and mirrors- it distracts me from living. It's like a trick my mind plays to keep me from growing because it's comfortable right here. If I concentrate on all this flim and flam then I stay right where I am: promising to quit drinking, to lose weight, to be a better wife, a better mother, a better anything that what I am today.

So instead I'm going to sit up straight, I'm going to stand tall on my two feet and find the ground. I'm going to be brave and connect even when I'm afraid that people are judging me and think I'm a fake and I'm doing it all wrong. I'm going to open myself to connection again. Blog again. Put intentions out into the universe again and not be afraid of the things that come. Ground + connect.

Almost Two Years

"The rain is over; what we're left with is the life that follows the weather."

Ann Patchett

At this time two years ago tomorrow will be the last time I got wasted. I can't remember if I drank on the 5th of December 2012, but I know for sure I did on the 6th. (Did I ever.) I remember lots of wine, and then eating these coconut oil pot cookie things a friend made for me, sitting out on the porch chain smoking even though I'm betting it was cold. It wasn't a terribly unusual amount for me, it wasn't especially worse than the other nights I drank. It was the same as always, a lot.

I remember waking up on December 7, 2012, my children next to my side of the bed, their hair rumpled, their faces expectant and sleepy. I'm sure they were both in their underwear. I had promised French toast and spelling words for breakfast- my oldest had his class spelling bee that morning so we were going to have his favorite breakfast and go over his words one last time. My oldest was eight- to be nine in a week. My youngest was four.

I was so hungover I could not get out of bed.

The enormity of that really strikes me as I write it. I drank so much that I couldn't get up the next day. It makes me feel small and tight like a walnut. Ashamed. Cringe-worthy. I can picture myself as I can always picture me when I was drunk: eyes half closed certain that I'm with it, that I'm fine. Certain that one more drink won't hurt, certain that I can handle that awful hangover I'll have tomorrow because haven't I done it so many times that I'm like some kind of evil hangover expert genius? The picture I have is a physical one and a spirit one: I can feel what I felt like when I drank, when I was a glass or two in, a bottle in, a blackout in. I can easily dredge up the sick anxiety I felt the next morning: my brain can start the guilt tapes over with no problem. "How could you? It's OK, you know you need to quit. It's OK, you can quit...TODAY! Then everything will be fine. I suck." I was a two-faced finger pointer cheerleader. Both worried and relieved because what did I do and I was quitting today anyway so it didn't matter. But until December 7, 2012 I always drank again.

I didn't really even mean to quit that day. I meant to quit every day, but that day stuck for me. It was the day my oldest was due to be born in 2004 and my reasoning was it was a day marked for a new life, it just wasn't his, it was mine. It was my lowest point as a mother: bedridden while my children held out the plate of French toast they'd made with their dad and I couldn't take it so they just whispered "We'll leave it right here mommy" and they put it on the bookshelf next to my side of the bed and tiptoed away. The fat sad tears that slid down my face as I knew the truth about myself deep deep down: I had a problem. A serious problem.

I'd had this problem for years. I always knew I drank differently from other people. I was always glad to find another person who drank like me. I did most of my drinking by myself though- none of that pesky sharing to worry about. I knew, even in my teens, that I shouldn't drink, that my family history basically screamed out NEVER DRINK ALCOHOL!!!! and I chose to ignore it. Between four of my grandparents three were raging alcoholics. Two committed suicide. The deck was very obviously stacked against me. Odds totally in favor of me being another raging alcoholic. But I hurt too much to care.

That hurt carried me through years of drunks, years of mistakes. It piled it all up until by laws of balance and toppling it had to fall. I had to fall. So I fell- my years of free fall finally touched down with a resounding thump and I knew I could get up again. Not that I had to, but that I could.

Sobriety happens in all different ways. It worked for me to blog a lot at first, to have a pen pal. A sober therapy group worked for a while. I never went to AA. I don't really have a lot of sober support except for what I make for myself which is true for everyone I guess. I've learned along the way how to nurture and care for myself and for me that doesn't involve a lot of other people. I look back at the beginning of my sobriety and marvel at the fact that I stopped drinking and smoking by getting up early every day and emailing my pen pal (endless gratitude Belle) and having my own one woman free yoga class in my living room. To this day I am still jealous of people who get to go to rehab: what would that have been like? To free myself from my life for thirty days and get it together without having to do my life and get sober all at once? I probably romanticize it too much. It was harder for me to manage AA meetings than it was to cobble together my own "meetings" by reading other sober bloggers. I plodded through my first days clutching my wineglass full of seltzer and fresh grapefruit juice at dinner time and putting us all in our pajamas and in my bed at 7:00. It was safe up there.

I discovered something amazing: I was really good at being sober. Being good at it didn't mean it wasn't hard, sometimes heartbreakingly so, but I keep practicing and so I keep getting better and better. Being sober makes my life livable. It makes it so I could deal with the things that happen on a daily basis that threaten my sanity. I've learned to recognize when I need a minute or a weekend to hibernate and shake myself back out. It's given me the patience and courage to rebuild my relationship with my husband and my parents. It's taught me who I was, who I really am, and then it taught me to be just fine with that. It gave me my love story of a life time. Mine + Me.

So this morning I am sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the hum of the dishwasher. It's spelling bee time again. My oldest will be ten (ten!) in ten days. We all had scrambled eggs and pears this morning, argued about crazy eights cards and no one wanted to put their shoes on. My life has gone on even though at first I thought I could never ever ever make it without wine. I have made it and put two years of consistent sobriety together on my own. I have something I only dreamed of: an alive life. I am what I never thought I was: capable. Honest. Sober.