Tag: sobriety

11 Days Down Isn’t Much

flammable gas

It’s only been 11 days since I stopped drinking alcohol. If I’m being honest (and why not?) it feels good to not drink but it irritates the fucking bejeezus out of me when people encourage me or tell me how healthy it is.* I definitely don’t want anyone agreeing that it feels good not drinking alcohol. It bothers me that I don’t have any evening treats to look forward to.** I’ve been drinking tonic water with lime. It’s good. It’s okay. It DOES-ish.  I’m not sleeping better than usual, but I’m not sleeping worse than the poor sleep I usually get. I’m certainly still more irritable than normal, but I suspect that won’t go away. It’s the real-real me. I like myself better when I have beer to look forward to, it keeps me mellower all day long knowing I have that pillowy mellowing drink(S) to look forward to and I like that less edgy sharp me.

Other people do too even if they aren’t willing to admit it to my face or out loud.

What makes me itchy is realizing how it’s only been 11 days and I have nearly a full year of this left to go. The fact that it makes me itchy is the reason I’m doing it in the first place. My mom is going into surgery tomorrow for a hip replacement. This is routine and I should be able to get through it just fine without any alcohol and that’s what I’ll do.

Unless something goes terribly wrong, which it most likely won’t since it’s a very common low risk surgery. I’m just saying that if something goes wrong with her surgery I will probably end up drinking beer and will have to start the clock over. But today I’m preparing myself to fly through this experience alcohol free because I’d really rather not have to start over. That I have to do this there is no question. Life is full of trauma and bad days and rough seasons and it’s okay to swig some liquid courage through all of that if you’re not guzzling liquid courage every single day just to deal with other humans. Being able to get through a bad day without booze is important. It’s an important thing to know you can do and to often DO. It’s a life skill I let erode away.

Not only is tomorrow my mom’s surgery, but it’s also registration time for Max. He’s going to be a sophomore in high school in just a week.

Working on turning my dining room into my apothecary has been fantastic. It’s strained my back but it’s worth it.  Getting my cabinets organized means it’s easier to find what I need to make things. It’s easier to see what I’m low on and what I have way too much of. I’m excited to have that room looking good and being functional.

The kittens are all sleeping off their post-breakfast exhaustion. Right before they ate they were playing on every surface of my office, paying special attention to my laptop keyboard. Here’s a piece of unsolicited advice: NEVER DISTURB SLEEPING KITTENS. It’s the same rule with human babies.

That’s the kind of rule one lives to break and regret.

My dog’s seratoma thingy is filling up again. I’m trying really hard not to think about the vet saying surgery is the only option. What if we can’t afford the only option? What then? I can’t bear the thought of Chick being in discomfort but what if I can’t do anything about it? I’m going to tuck that thought up into a neglected corner of my brain for now because I have too much to do in the next couple of days. I’ll call the vet on Thursday and discuss reality.

I’m on my last cup of coffee right now. This means it’s almost time to shower and go run those pesky errands. I’ll feel better once I’ve done them. Then I’ll have to work on freezing all the soup I made and pick my mom’s dog up from the groomer and then make Max food and then take the kittens in…

One foot in front of the other.

I just paused for a second to admire my tiny oak leaf that I keep on my desk. It’s smaller than the pad of my pinky finger. And it’s absolutely perfect.

 

 

 

*Remember that I’m a deeply conflicted person pretty much at all times.

**Don’t make any suggestions at this time, please. I will bite you.

1 Week Down, 51 to Go

Jesus calling 2

Yesterday was one of those days designed to either show me why humans have been brewing alcohol for a few thousand years or that I can get through anything without it.

I woke up to an intense ant infestation in my office/kitten nursery. Ants swarming through their food and even on their fur. Tonka the tiny black leopard appeared to have fallen into his own diarrhea and had to be washed. My dog had what appeared to be an abscess on her ear. And after washing Tonka and clearing out the litter box and mopping my office floor and setting out ant traps and rigging them up with kitten-proofing, the kittens all decided to PLAY in the litter box. 3 kittens with terrible diarrhea playing in the littler box is my new worst nightmare.

It turns out Chick had a seratoma rather than an abscess and the only way to fix it if it doesn’t stay drained is surgery which we absolutely can’t afford. So fingers crossed the antibiotics and steroids will keep an infection from forming and the blood from pooling.

I want to be working on my fiction. I haven’t got the brain space for it what with this litter of incontinent (though adorable) kittens and not drinking alcohol (if that’s your biggest way to relax your mind it takes a lot of energy to simply NOT do it). I had this revelation the other day that this year of not drinking can be anything I want it to be. I do feel pressure to make money to cover our increasing bills (rent went up by almost $200 a month, for example) but we’re squeaking by and not drinking means less money is being spent on alcohol. As long as I don’t replace that spending with some other daily spending, then not drinking is a little bit like making us more money.

This year is about rediscovering other modes of self care besides drinking tons of beer. It doesn’t matter what that might mean to other people, it’s about what it means to ME. It’s vital that I remember that fact. This is my life. I get to make up the rules about how I live it. What I strive for. What I work on. Outside of my responsibilities to my family and my animals, what I focus on is up to me.

It did strike me yesterday that I’m doing volunteer work. I didn’t really think about that before. These kittens are so much work and have taken up so much of my brain space and at the end of the day I couldn’t be mad at these little beings for helping to make this week really tough, and yesterday in particular. There are so many animals in need in this world. In need of medical attention. In need of being adopted, protected, nurtured. Being part of an organization that dedicates itself to the care of feral cat colonies is an honor. I say I’m doing it because kittens are adorable. And they are great therapy in some ways. But they are a lot of work. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Putting in a lot of hours to care for sick motherless kittens pulled from a feral colony. It’s worth it. I’ll need a big break from fostering after this. But it’s worthy work. Being part of the vast network of humans who are actually doing good for other animals on the planet.

One week down, 51 to go. I probably shouldn’t think about that too hard. Has it been torturous so far? No. It’s irritating more than anything. I’m more irritated than usual. With people. With myself. With the perpetual sunshine and heat. With food. With clothes. My tolerance for mess and chaos is lower. But so is my energy to deal with it all. There’s no treats I look forward to at the end of a hard day. I bought some potato chips because that’s something I don’t eat often, mostly because they make me feel disgusting afterwards, but I ate a few handfuls and realized that chips aren’t that good. Certainly not better than beer. There’s nothing soothing about them and they make my body feel like shit. Fuck that.

I’ve been watching a lot of Poirot. (I’ve watched them all a million times before, it’s comfort tv) The nice thing about watching it is that it reminds me of one of the reasons I have to stop drinking: so I can get my body back and get dressed up again. Not in full period deco costume. It just reminds me of how much fun I used to have dressing up and how I have no fun getting dressed now. It reminds me of how I would like my house to look. It inspires me and delights me. I re-watch the Miss Marple episodes all the time too.

I’m so tired from this week that I want to be on the couch all day watching more of both. Maybe eat some Chinese food. Look through magazines. But I have to cook some food to freeze so it doesn’t get wasted. I have to do some laundry. I need to do some yard work. But I don’t know, maybe I’ll just sit back and watch all the Poirot. I’m making up the rules right? The most important thing I’m doing is not drinking. And that’s a lot.

362 to Go, If I Was Counting

LOVE

I have just 362 more days of not drinking alcohol and I feel fine.

TOTALLY FINE, FUCKERS.

I’ve been burying myself in food prep and preserving. No exciting beverages to drink is a thorn in my side and please don’t tell me how good kombucha is because I’m telling you that NO BEVERAGE IS AS GOOD AS BEER.

If you’re going on this ride with me then you have to let me be all up in my feelings. That’s part of what this whole year of not drinking is about, because one of the marvelous things about alcohol is that is has a great capacity to take the edges off of one’s feelings. But if you’re like me and you have ALL THE FEELINGS IN THE WORLD AT ONCE INSIDE YOU PRETTY MUCH ALL THE TIME – you come to look on alcohol as a cloaking device. It’s blissful. No tea or juice or fungal beverage is going to compare to that. Believe me, I’ve tried them all.

It’s no big mystery why people like me seek out substances that can quiet down the noise in our heads and hearts. In my opinion we shouldn’t have to live life in such torturous conditions. There are those who suggest embracing all the noise as a beautiful part of life. I think people who say that don’t actually know what the fuck they’re talking about. I suspect they don’t know the level of noise I live with every day. If drinking tons of beer every day weren’t one of the main things keeping me fat and my pocketbook empty (and let’s face it, if people weren’t so fucking judgmental about it) I wouldn’t bother quitting drinking alcohol ever.

Don’t think I don’t know what I’m doing either. I’m 45 stinking fat years old and I was born an old person who grew up super fucking fast. I’m no novice in dealing with life’s gnarlier side. I’m not new at this struggle with my mental illness. I’m not a 20 year old just realizing for the first time that maybe I’m different and maybe JUST MAYBE I might be mentally ill and in need of self care and medical care. I knew I needed help by the time I was 13 years old. I just want to make that clear. When I open up about this kind of stuff there are always people who (in a genuine – I like to believe – wish to be supportive) make suggestions as though they imagine I’m completely un-selfaware and totally new to the problems I’m facing and also weirdly incapable of doing my own research.

This lights a flame to my already hugely flammable irritation. One of the main things I experience when I’m fully up in my super raw feelings is irritation that is easily fanned into rage. I usually turn this onto myself when it reaches the rage stage because I feel guilty for being so irritated and it’s no one’s fault I’m such a mess anyway BUT SERIOUSLY, CAN YOU ALL STOP BREATHING FOR A WHILE SO THE NOISE OF IT ISN’T IN MY HEAD ALL DAY LONG?!

Luckily for me (and everyone around me) I AM actually medicated with psyche meds. They really do help. A lot. Like, a lotlotlot. If I stay off of alcohol for long enough they very likely may work better than they do when I’m drinking alcohol. The fact that I’m on two psyche meds at significant (if not large) doses and still feel the level of irritation and noise I do should give you an idea of how bad it is when I’m on zero medication.

I’m especially suspicious of anyone handing out ideas that sound cultish and/or anti-medication. Nope. I grew up around a lot of cultish people and it gave me a strong allergy to them. One might even say that the commune I was in the first few years of my life was basically a cult. I can sense out a cultish vibe even when the person emitting it isn’t aware they’re doing it.

So here I am. Only 3 days in. What will I do today to take care of myself? I think I’m going to do a little cleaning. Cleaning is hard to start but it’s the same as writing – it clears out noise. In this case it’s physical noise. The dirt on my floor. The grime in my sink. All noise I can scrub away. It comes back practically immediately, of course. But the act of doing it is an act of self care because it’s giving yourself a cleaner space in which to exist which gives you more space to fling out the unwanted mental crap. It reduces the distraction of noticing all day long how long it’s been since the last time you cleaned and consequently reduces opportunities for self flagellation which can be a dangerous to people like me. We’re masters at finding reasons to punish ourselves.

I might not do a lot of cleaning but I know I have to do some laundry and I know I have to clean the kitten’s area in my office with an actual mop. I’ll start with that. Because I also have to clean the litter box and will need to use the tub for that, I’ll probably end up cleaning the tub because otherwise I’ll think about how gross the tub is after using it to clean the litter box. We’ll see what all gets done. I will NOT allow myself to kick myself for anything I don’t get done. Them’s the rules today.

This constitutes writing for the day. Though I’m thinking about fiction projects and my desire to sit down to some good fiction writing since I haven’t in ages and ages – I must ease into new routines slowly. So first is the daily writing to self (either here or in my private journal).

What are you doing to take care of yourself today?

365 Days Alcohol-Free Started 2 Days Ago

P1030648

Today is the last day I will be drinking alcohol for a year. Unless I fail miserably at my self-imposed challenge. I haven’t been that loud about this. I don’t need too many people doubting me or suddenly confessing that they think I should have done this a long time ago.

I declare the next 12 months a year of healing.

A year of mental health care. A year to cleanse my body and get healthier. Things I will NOT being doing:

Dieting * Yoga * Meditation * Nature Communions Hippie Style * Saying “fudge” instead of “fuck” * Finding Jesus * Getting Fitted for a Trump-style Toupee * Going Paleo * Taking up Macrame * Wait, maybe I want to take up macrame, I take that back!

Things I most certainly WILL be doing:

Becoming the Mocktail Queen * Learning to Make New Food Dishes * Journaling * Writing * Swearing * Screaming * Watching Tons of Comfort TV * Continuing to Work on Becoming Miss Marple * Wearing Make-Up Again * Selling Herbal Remedies * Re-Discovering the Art of Self Care

***

Whoops. I meant to finish this as my last day of drinking post but my last day of drinking slipped by quietly and now I have 365 days to get through without booze. I think I must take it easy today. Super easy.

***

Oh for crying out loud! Another day and this same post languishes. Tuppence the fluffy tiny foster kitten has required much energy from me as she has a terrible case of the runs and requires several cleanings a day. Also – FOOD PRESERVING IN FULL SWING! In a few minutes I will be going with Philip to forage for elderberries and later I might have a bunch of pickling cucumbers to pickle. Day one of my year of not drinking has already slinked by. If I’m being honest (and why wouldn’t I be?), the first day wasn’t hard. It was just a mild irritant in my head knowing that normally I’d be drinking and drinking is my routine and I don’t like my routines being upended. Other than that, I think my body was really happy to not have beer. It will probably be like this most days with the irritation ranging in sharpness from mild to angry-red on Fridays. Maybe. Or maybe not.

All the other times I didn’t drink there wasn’t really a physical craving component, just a little outrage that I was denying myself one of my favorite things. If any of you have a hard time relating to not drinking alcohol when it’s one of your favorite things in the world, put in your mind’s eye your very favorite comestible. Right now. Is it there? Pizza? Cheese? Bread? Pasta? Chocolate? Cake? Now imagine that a doctor told you it was very bad for you and you need to not eat it again for at least a year. Take yourself to that place where you can’t have it for a really long time, maybe forever.

If you don’t feel some kind of irritation or full blown panic, I don’t think you’ve imagined going without your favorite thing. So for those of you who don’t care that much about food, usually it means that sex is your favorite thing and you crave the feeling it gives you. Am I right? Go there. Doc says “Hey, you have a really unhealthy relationship with sex. For most people it’s a healthy part of life but NOT FOR YOU. You need to give up sex for at least a year, maybe forever.”

ARE YOU WITH ME NOW?

I thought so. Now you can feel my pain.

***

Are you kidding me, me?! Three days and you still haven’t posted this? Ridiculous. I’m posting it right now, as is.

Self Care: Part 2

Tiger versus Art

*Continuted from Self Care: Part 1*

One thing standing in my way is alcohol. Going sober last year for 3 months and earlier this year for 5 weeks has shown me that I’m fine when I don’t drink but that when I allow myself to drink I feel that the only way I can feel calm and mellow is when I drink many drinks. I revert so fast to many drinks because it’s so damn effective at soothing my frayed nerves and convincing me that everything will be fine. What I’ve lost is the ability to drink one or two drinks and then move on to something else like tea. I used to be able to do that. But it’s become all or nothing. It’s a favorite mode of being for me, the all-or-nothing way of life. It’s dangerous and unhealthy.

If it’s going to be all or nothing with alcohol then I’ve come to the point where it needs to be nothing for a long enough period of time that I can re-establish my dependence on other ways of self-soothing. It’s not working for me the way it used to. I now have a lot of anxiety about the fact that the only way I seem to be able to soothe my anxiety is to drink a lot of alcohol every day. I also have a lot of anxiety and self loathing about being so weak and also that this mode of self soothing is keeping my body so fat. The fat weighs on my joints which means I can’t exercise without being in pain or injuring myself. This is a vicious cycle. Exercise is another way to work out some anxiety but it has become a source of pain and anxiety in itself.

I’ve talked so much over the years on this blog that all of this feels like old news.

The real news is that I’m going to stop drinking for a year. From August 1st 2015 to July 31st 2016. It feels impossible but it also feels necessary. I don’t actually know how to socialize with people without alcohol in the evening at gatherings where merriness and fun is meant to be had. The thought of trying to do this while others drink and I don’t makes my brain flicker into an abysmal darkness. So I may have to simply not gather with other humans outside of my family and my home in the whole time.

Though that would be a disservice to my mission which is: to learn to live life without alcohol as the prophylactic between me and other humans and me and my anxiety. What I intend to do is retrain myself. To hitch myself to the earlier me, the one who knew how to socialize and BE without alcohol. The one who drank a lot of coffee and tea. So perhaps I won’t socialize much for the first few months. But at some point I have to be able to navigate my whole life without alcohol being a factor. I have to rebuild my whole life foundation so that alcohol gets put back in its place as something that is meant to be enjoyed and not used as a floating island of comfort.

Who knows what will happen after that. I think I’m going to need to get some fresh therapy which means having to audition a new psychiatrist through Kaiser because the last time I tried to tackle this my psychiatrist seriously let me the fuck down. Then I went to a substance use counselor and SHE pissed me the fuck off with her inability to actually LISTEN to me, her assumption that she could know me better than I know myself after knowing me for less than 15 minutes. So navigating healthcare to find a good support stresses me out but I think it’s important.

I may check out going to group meetings but only if I can find one that is completely non-religious or spiritual based. Not sure that exists. No steps either because I still don’t believe the appropriate word for my problem is straight-up alcoholism. There are different schools of thought on this these days and I hold out to explore what my own deal is. Is it repairable? Can I put it in its place?

One thing I DO know is that I can live without it. The problem is that I never want to.

So here I am. Again. With the beer thing. With the self care thing. With all the THINGS.

Growing up I drank a lot of herbal tea. And then a lot of herbal and black tea as a teen. I want to find my way back to that as a comfort. Iced for when it’s hot and hot for when it’s cold. I think I’ll develop my own chai. And I plan to experiment a lot for possible good blends to include in my Sugar & Pith product line.

I also plan to write about self care as content for my business website because that’s what’s at the root of an natural remedies and teas and herbs – self care. But I’ll keep the more raw content for Better Than Bullets. You know, all the swearing and really creepy inside-head stuff I let out sometimes.

I have to work hard at my daily and weekly routines. Finding what works best to keep my interests balanced. Most of my interests ARE self care. But the most important of them all is writing. I can’t let that slide.  Not the brain purges (here) and not the fiction writing. I need them. They keep brain clutter and chaos from derailing me completely. It’s my internal housecleaning.

A year of purposeful healing and self care. I can do this.

Self Care: Part 1

move along

I haven’t been writing much at all lately. I don’t like the way it makes me feel. I don’t like how disordered my mind feels when I loosen my discipline with writing. I have let it slide because there are only 24 hours in a day and I needed to work on setting up my business. Now my labels are done, I have added a few new products to my apothecary line and have started working on my website. I’ve also been cooking more and doing some preserving. My garden is in disrepair because I need to do some major soil amendments and then mulch and actually get my drip line set up because keeping a garden thriving during drought conditions and with giant privet trees dumping an inch of leaves and pollen on it every year is brutal. Plus, there’s only 24 hours in a day and my back is pretty weak.

The lack of time is a fact, not an excuse. There are so many things I always want to be doing. I feel lousy when I miss out on food preserving opportunities. I feel lousy when I don’t write. I feel lousy when my garden flounders. I also really need some new clothes and can’t afford to go buy all new clothes even if I could find ones that fit me okay. So I need to sew. Then there’s the every day things. Hanging with my family. Giving them some energy. Making doctor’s appointments for Max. We need eye exams. He needs to have his teeth cleaned. On and on and on and on.

On top of all that is my need for hours and hours of mind numbing so that I can handle my anxiety and depression and other mental and emotional discomforts. Plus the large quantities of alcohol I drink to keep myself calm and mellow.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about self care. About what constitutes self care and how much of it I’m actually doing. About what undermines it. I’ve been thinking a lot about a period of time when I was first learning about it when I was 19 years old until I was 20 and living in my own apartment all by myself. I didn’t drink much alcohol (being under age) and I stopped smoking. I began to learn to cook and bake bread and that was the first time I ever got interested in herbology on my own. And I wrote a lot. I wrote a lot of nonsense  bullshit crap that’s awful to read now, but I wrote all the time when I wasn’t reading. OR talking to the cockroaches. Or leaving the cockroaches notes to read while I was at work. I drank a lot of coffee. Too much coffee if I’m being honest.

One of the things I developed during that time that I’d never done before on my own was to be on a weekly apartment cleaning schedule. Naturally I always had a schedule for that when I lived with both my parents. But before I was 19 I took no pride in my personal space. I took no care with its upkeep. I was, basically, a slob. But I missed the order of routine. So for the first time in my life I started cleaning once a week, every week. It became a pleasurable routine. I got dressed up to do it. I always put on lipstick and played jaunty housecleaning music like Carmen Miranda or Fats Waller. Then I’d go do my weekly shopping. Also a newly discovered pleasure. Grocery shopping. Though on a tight budget it was the first time I even truly had a budget for groceries like a grown up. I began planning meals for leftovers because I couldn’t afford to eat out at work every day. I loved (and still do) grocery shopping. That was the first time in my life that I started to understand what making a life is all about. Making rhythms and finding ways to take care of myself. Some of those things seem really basic, I know. But these activities are the foundation of self care.

You can meditate, get great exercise, see a therapist, take psychiatric medications, take St. John’s Wort, do great philanthropic works, be a mentor – but if you aren’t caring for your living space, however modest or meager it is, your mental, emotional, and spiritual foundation is not strong enough to support you during the worst of times. Think of depressive episodes as earthquakes and your living space and your daily routines are the foundation of your house. If you don’t reinforce your foundation, if it’s full of cracks then it can’t weather even mild earthquakes (let alone big ones) and your whole house can topple down around you.

I’ll tell you why it’s important to keep your life foundation strong through routines of self care:  the first thing to suffer (for most of us) during a depressive (or other mentally disruptive episode) is our daily routines like cleaning. How can you tell a disorderly mind and spirit? It’s reflected, often, in the environment of the body. You let the laundry slide. You start getting irregular about cleaning. Your exercise routines go by the wayside. And it isn’t our fault. But when these things start to slide our environment can start exacerbating our mental disorderliness. The stronger your foundation of self care routines are, the longer it takes for them to deteriorate and the longer it takes for our environments to become as chaotic and dark as our anxiety or manic swing or depression. Some of us may be lucky and clean our houses even more during these times but in my experience this is not often the case. Few of us are lucky enough to eat better during mental episodes than when we’re at our most balanced.

The last ten years have been a tremendous challenge to me and I’ve struggled this whole time to regain my footing, to re-establish my daily routines of self care, to strengthen a crumbling foundation beneath my feet. My health has suffered. I’ve undermined myself in so many ways. I find myself middle aged and at a crossroads. I’ve actually been at this same crossroads for a couple of years. Moving back to Santa Rosa saved my life. I’ve become healthier mentally and have slowly been reclaiming my space and cleaning more regularly. But I’m so far from having the kind of strong foundation I need to support myself during bouts of bad anxiety and depression.

*Continued on Self Care: Part 2*

 

Bottleneck

glass

I haven’t had an alcoholic beverage in 2 1/2 weeks. I’ve been super grouchy and prickly. I haven’t wanted to be around any humans. Yesterday was a particularly thorny day. Got my feelings hurt on Facebook by a group of people that brought me to tears. I try to wear a thick skin when skating around on social media but sometimes thoughtless spears and careless conversations stab through the softer bits. Not drinking alcohol means a whole layer of protection is missing.

I’m still on a news fast. I’ve been on a news fast for almost 2 months. There’s no way I can let myself go back to reading the news while I’m not drinking. I can’t handle it. I see the headlines so I know what everyone’s getting mental wedgies over but I have clicked on no news links and watched no news programs. I miss The Daily Show a lot. The day I found out Jon Stewart is leaving the show I felt so betrayed and depressed. When the only sane voice in news gives up on us all – it’s pretty much OVER. I realize that someone else will take his place. I also realize that his team will still be there writing and producing a good show, but without him…I can’t even bear to think about it right now.

I have spent a lot of time on my couch under my favorite blanket watching Murder She Wrote. Most days that’s all I can do after I come home from work and take care of Max and do a few dishes. My days off I try to get work done on my apothecary business. But to be honest, I’m just tired all the time.

I know I’m not going to be like this all the time. I know this fog will lift. I know I’ll move forward. I know I’ll get some energy back. So I guess I’m just in a holding pattern until I can dislodge whatever has been blocking all my words and shake them loose. Every morning before work I open Scrivener and I try to get a few words out. Some mornings it’s like shoving my head into a plastic bag, other mornings I squeeze out a couple hundred words and it feels great. I try not to focus on all those times I wrote 5,000 words in a day.

I’ve found solace in quilting some evenings and have almost finished the quilt my friend Pam sent me over 6 years ago. I’ve also been finding some peace in my front garden. I don’t like my back yard. That’s where the dogs poop and we don’t keep up with scooping it up. It’s over-run with bamboo and oak. But the front garden is all mine. I can sit on the porch to enjoy it. I can do little things to it, plant just a couple of flowers, weed one bucketful, and it makes a big difference because the front is so small.

I’m excited about making more potions. I’m excited about learning to make soap which is the next skill I want to add to my arsenal. I still love living in the house we live in. I’m still incredibly happy to be in Santa Rosa. I love this place. I’m excited that Max is taller than me* and his shadow mustache is growing more distinct. I’m enjoying the last kisses on those baby-soft cheeks of his because they’re going to be rougher soon. I’ve let him mature at his own pace and it’s paying off.

Five years ago I worried so much about his eating issues and now he loves trying new foods and though he still doesn’t like much produce for its own sake, he ate fried plantains not long ago, ate coleslaw on a pulled pork slider, and eats avocado (and sometimes tomato) on hamburgers. He’s become a gourmand just as I predicted he would someday be.

My mom is doing really well. She gets stronger all the time even though she still feels tired a lot. I’m hoping this year will be surgery free for her.

I guess I’m giving all the updates today.

I’m going to pour another cup of coffee and chisel a few more words out of my brain into one of my manuscripts. Later I will be heading to the library to renew my card and find history books on San Francisco in the 1870’s if they have any, and costumes from the same period. I also might look up a book or two on typhoid for fun.

I hope you all have a peaceful day!

*He thinks it bothers me that he got taller than me so don’t break it to him that I enjoy seeing him grow taller.

Choosing the Open Ended Adventure: Swimming Towards the Ocean

selfies in the sun

I’ve been thinking about choice. The choices I make every day that lead to new choices to make. I’ve been busy listening to other people closely for the last couple of years, more than ever before. Listening to people so hard I can feel the blood pumping through their voices and feel their cells trembling with emotion. The exercise of listening to others has made me listen to myself more closely too. When I find myself criticizing other people’s choices, I look harder at my own. When the things they say make me angry, or terrified, or crushingly hopeless, I listen closer to the words I’m using every day and how they sound to others.

Whatever I find in others, both positive and negative, I always find some of it in myself too. Even if it’s just a weak shadow, I can always find some scrap of everything that lives in the hearts of others in my own. I believe this is because of the interconnectedness of all life on earth and the universality of human experience.

There are very few instances in which we don’t all have a choice in how we act and react to everything in our lives. One of the most important things I’ve learned in life (and I learned it a long time ago) is that not liking the choices you have isn’t the same thing as not having choices. When people say “I didn’t have a choice” what they mean is “I hated all the choices I had and I’m pissed off about it”. It means the choices they had were hard and unpleasant. Everyone is faced with hard choices in their lives at some point. Most of us will face hard choices at frequent intervals in our lives.

I hate it when people use the fact that we all have and make choices to shame those who’ve made what appear to be “poor” choices. I don’t look at choice like that. Who of us hasn’t made the easier choice knowing it might not be the best choice? Who of us hasn’t made choices out of fear or wishful thinking? Who of us hasn’t made choices we regretted? Anyone who claims they haven’t made choices they’ve paid hard for later and regretted, at least for a little while, is lying through their teeth.

Sometimes the choices we make that others criticize for being “poor” are the ones that lead us to the greatest personal growth.

What will help you (and me and everyone) grow the most and find the greatest satisfaction in life, is taking responsibility for the choices we make. This isn’t about being right or wrong. It isn’t about what you should or shouldn’t have done. It’s about acknowledging that you almost always have CHOICE and to make those choices consciously. It’s about forgiving yourself when you make choices you later regret while simultaneously giving yourself permission to make new and different choices every day. It’s about appreciating the rewards of choices you make as much as admitting responsibility for the choices that led you to more pain.

When you choose to do things to take care of yourself, like resting when you need to, like saying “no” to people when they’re asking more of you than you have to give, like spending the money for a good fucking pound of coffee because coffee makes facing every day sweeter even if it means you’ll be eating plain baked potatoes for dinner because you can’t afford both good coffee and a great dinner. Whatever taking care of yourself means, when you choose to take care of yourself, you’ve got to acknowledge that you did that for yourself. That YOU chose to give yourself something you really needed.

I’ve made a lot of hard choices in my life. I remember sometimes thinking “This is total bullshit! This is no choice at all!” and I remember the bitterness that comes with feeling I had no choice. I remember the feeling of powerlessness when faced with terrible and terrifying choices to make.

Feeling powerless isn’t the same as BEING powerless.

Finding the courage to use the power you have is sometimes the greatest challenge in life.

Choice is on my mind a lot this week especially as I near the departure day for a choice I haven’t wanted to make. A choice I’ve avoided making for a long time. I’ve taken steps close to it and retreated in fear. I’ve shared quite a bit of this journey here on this blog but I’ve kept plenty of it private too. I can’t and won’t allow other people’s opinions and prejudices and dogma to steer my ship.

That’s me choosing to protect myself and nurture my fragile courage.

People are scared to acknowledge that they always have choices. They’re scared it’s the same as saying that everything that ever happens to them is their own fault. But that’s not true at all. Other people are constantly making choices that affect our lives too. None of us can (or should be able to) control the choices others make. As our lives are constantly intersecting and overlapping, we create situations for others that they, then, have to decide how to react to or act on. And others create situations that we have to decide how to react or act on.

Acknowledging that you always have choices isn’t about laying blame on yourself for your unhappiness or sorrows or misfortune. It’s about empowering yourself to SEE those choices for what they are. It’s about empowering yourself to make choices more consciously because acknowledging all the choices before you when you’re in the trenches of misery allows you to see all the possible ways out of the trenches. Those choices might be really hard, they might suck, it might hurt your heart (or the hearts of others) to make them, but the person who’s hurt the most when you stumble blindly making decisions out of fear or choosing to NOT make any decisions* is yourself.

So this is what I’m practicing. I keep saying “you”, but I’m talking to myself and about myself most of all. Maybe “you” aren’t ready to hear this shit, or maybe “you” are way far ahead of me and are on to new lessons and meditations on life. That’s cool. But this is where I am right now.

Acknowledging choice is allowing me to be kinder to myself. I’m seeing that I’ve made a lot of crappy decisions that I truly believed were the best I could make at the time. I can look back, with the things I know now, and shake my head and say “you SHOULD have…” but instead I’m just looking back and seeing how I kept moving forward and kept fixing the broke shit with the tools I had. Sometimes I made horrible decisions because I was scared and ended up sacrificing more of myself than I ever thought I’d have to as a consequence. But there’s no shame in that. We all do that. I’m proud of myself for being able to face those decisions and take responsibility for them. Taking responsibility for them helped to set them free. I’m a fallible human being learning new tricks all the time. I don’t float in swamps, my friends. I seek the clean moving water. I seek the streams that lead to creeks that join rivers that rush onwards towards the sea.

I’m terrified of the open ocean even as I’m drawn to it with the pull of the river currents and the moon.

The choice I’ve just made scares me because I don’t know how long this trip is going to be. I don’t know how to pack for it mentally or spiritually. It’s an open-ended adventure. I only know what I’m going to do on Monday.

To all of you who are facing tough situations and having to make tough choices:

Have courage!

Swim for the ocean and let the horizon be your anchor!

I’ll be there too.

*That’s an actual choice people make constantly, to do nothing, to say nothing, to change nothing IS a choice.

 

My Champion is a Hundred Pints

IMG_20141202_193250

This post was updated to reflect that I thought this weekend was February 1st, but I’m a whole week off! So this new adventure doesn’t start until the Monday after this one.

On February 2nd I’m going to pop a new pill. One that will make me vomit if I drink even the tiniest drop of alcohol. I’m fighting the thought that this represents a door being boarded shut forever. Last year I promised myself I would do this if I couldn’t learn to keep my alcohol consumption within healthy bounds. I made a point of not promising anything to anyone else. I didn’t drink for the first three months of 2014. It was pretty easy, except for Fridays, which made me want to rip brick walls down with my teeth.

But when the three months was up I quickly returned to my previous habits.

I have a happy relationship with alcohol. I haven’t got the darkness that comes with black outs, risky behaviors, alcohol-fueled abusiveness, or terrible regret. I rarely experience drunkenness at all because I loathe the feeling.

I’ve said all this before. I’m not sure I need to repeat it. I’m not really talking to anyone but myself. I answer to no one but myself. This is my autonomy as a human being. The human being I am requires that I consider the people I love and care about in all the decisions I make, of course. But what I write here is, ultimately, between me, myself, and I.

One of the truths I keep half buried, always, is that alcohol has made me a better mother. That’s not something anyone is supposed to ever say. Motherhood should be pure and unadulterated. For me, motherhood has been one long conversation with a breaking heart. This has nothing to do with who my son is, because as challenging as he’s been and may continue to be, he’s a beautiful and wonderful person. I experience so much pleasure in knowing him, in having the privilege of rearing him. This has everything to do with how ill-equipped I was to steer a tiny human being through all the awful challenges of childhood. This has everything to do with how I didn’t know that having a child meant reliving every fucking tiny little shitty minute of my own childhood again, but with the added weight of wanting to protect my own baby from everything I know about life that ever made me want to die. Every rejection my son experiences, I experience with a magnified pain, every set back, every rage, every disappointment he experiences is a little death in my own heart.

Those times I haven’t got any comforting answers for his worries, his pains, his sorrow, I feel myself fall apart just a little bit more.

Motherhood has gutted me.

Alcohol has smoothed the road. It’s administered calm, reason, and respite. It has given me constant courage and forced my fences down, again and again. Alcohol has mellowed me, allowed me to function, and to rejoice. It has kept me open to laughter and joy. It has prevented me from reacting with panic and anger when patience and love are required.

But I require more of it all the time to maintain my equilibrium. The price is my health. My alcohol consumption has hurt no one but me and my budget. But I can’t keep paying the price of my health. My body is tired. I’m only 45 but I feel like I’m 80. I guess that’s better than when I was 15 years old and felt like I was 150 years old.

All of this is nobody’s business, but, as usual, I share it because all the relief and non-alcohol-related courage I’ve ever gotten has been from others being honest, telling their stories even when it made them look bad, even when it turned the world against them, just so other people like them could feel less alone.

Not feeling alone is a powerful weapon against a poverty of safety.

I want to live a life in which I can hang out with friends and enjoy drinking a couple of pints of ale or sharing a bottle of wine. I want to live a life in which this is an occasional, even a frequent enjoyment. I would like to live a life in which it’s part of the dinner table, not part of the whole night.

Alcohol tames my insomnia. Though I may never know regular good sleep, alcohol keeps me up later and through its magical chemistry it bypasses my dreadful insomnia so that I can get right to sleep. Yeah, I still wake up several times a night and am still plagued with bad dreams, but at least I have the sensation of being able to nod off easily at first. I take what I can get when it comes to sleep.

Alcohol enables most of my socializing. The only people I genuinely don’t need alcohol to hang out with are my closest and oldest friends. My family (possibly just my mom) thinks I’m a super social creature. I do seem that way, I suppose. Most of my socializing is online, for one thing, and for the rest, I prefer social gatherings where alcohol is a feature. I don’t know how to be comfortable around people without the calming smoothing effects of booze. I don’t know how to socialize without beverages. Without alcohol I’m pretty much limited to socializing over coffee between the hours of 10am and 12pm.

Without alcohol I want to tell everyone how much I hate their hair and their air of casual rapture. Without alcohol I want to ask everyone why they’re so fucking human, as though I’m not, which I am. Without alcohol I struggle hard not to pull people’s hair and stare hard at their camel-toes like a village idiot fixated on a parade of naked clowns.

It’s not that alcohol makes me better at socializing, it just makes me feel better about being the person who asks every couple I’ve just met to reassure me they aren’t about to get divorced.

I don’t know how long I’m going to take Disulfiram. I’m on a journey of reparation with unmapped boundaries, uncharted obstacles.

I’ll tell you this, though, the first person who calls me an alcoholic gets a fucking hemlock milkshake. Maybe I am, but I prefer to keep the stigma-sticker off my back for a while longer.

 

Round Two Starts Now

the insect eating

Round two starts today.

This time the goal isn’t months but pounds. I’m not drinking alcohol again until I’ve lost another 46 pounds.

The first three months of the year I didn’t drink and lost 34 lbs. The last three months I’ve been drinking and gained 6 lbs back and have discovered I am not able to drink moderately still. This may end up being the way it IS for the rest of my life but I’m still not willing to give up my idea that I can get back to being a moderate drinker.

In the mean time I want to lose weight more than I want to drink and if I can’t drink moderately then I have to not drink at all. I’m hoping I can do this by November, but if not, I’ll just have to have the most depressing unfestive holiday season ever since the only thing I like about the holidays is all the booze which is necessary for deflecting all the aggressive “cheer” people throw around like poop in a monkey zoo.

In the first round of sobriety I didn’t do a lot of exercise. This time I will be doing a lot. But first I have to make myself an appointment with the podiatrist to find out what the hell is wrong with my foot that it’s making it hard for me to do much walking. If it’s not something I can fix with orthopedics then I’ll just have to do a lot of bicycling. Bicycling is fine but my favorite exercise is walking.

So I’m going to not drink, exercise a lot, and I’m going to cut down on cheese again. We are now in the best season for produce and I intend to take full advantage of it.

And I will be working on that first book I wrote. The one I keep thinking about. That won’t quit my head. That kind of scares me both because of how personal the theme of the story is to me and what a huge mess I made of it before. I have come back to it again and again hoping to untangle the plot and then I give up. I had a revelation recently that will amaze you – in that you will be amazed a writer has to have a revelation about this:

I can change any details I want to and I don’t have to stick with the first chapter that was the short story that gave me the idea for the whole novel in the first place. I’m the boss. I get to take this story where I want to take it.

So I’ve started sketching out scenes – the ones that haunt me – that will become my outline. I’m doing character analysis’ for all the main characters. I’m thinking about and working on the structure of the book. I’m sorting out the POV and taking my time with it all.

I stopped working on Cricket and Grey because this book two has not been coming together. I got some good writing done but I just keep feeling like it’s not what I’m supposed to be working on. It just hasn’t felt right. So I’m setting it aside for a while. Maybe a long while. I don’t know and I’m not going to plague myself for answers or decisions. Instead I’m going to get the first one fixed and rewritten so it can get out of my head.

So, here I am again.

I’m going outside to cut and string some calendula flower heads for drying.