toolbox of the soul

Every once and a while the thought passes through my mind that I should get started on painting the kitchen. We still have much to do in updating our not-so-new-to-us-anymore house, and we're still trying to take it one room at a time. Anyway, I don't ever start painting, that's what I'm trying to tell you. First of all, I actually quite hate painting, it's far too mind-numbing for me. I abhor endless repetitive sameness, unless we're talking about a daily routine that makes me feel safe, but then again, that gets old, too.

Hellooooo ADD brain!

What was I saying? Okay, so. Painting. You see, the thing is, I can't get started. I know I won't get started unless I ask Ryan to get started for me. And then I have to get out of the way because he's coming up and down the stairs and looking for all the right things and it's best if I mind my own business while he does that. He always, sooner or later, locates all the right tools, newspaper for the floor, brushes and rollers, painter's tape, and pans to pour the paint in for said rollers. Then he even pours the paint in the pan on my behalf and maybe even makes a couple of swipes with a brush around the woodwork and light switches to get me started. Which reminds me, he also has to do the taping.

After I see that these things are on a roll, I'm less overwhelmed, I feel release and relief and I just paint. It's still not something I love, but I feel freed up somehow, able to engage and move my arms and just keep going with all the tools around me. At this point, I don't mind the task as much as I thought I would.

I think this is what God does with the creative spirit. If we get out of the way, we're able to do what we were made to do. If we get out of the way, he's able to come up the stairs with all the tools we need. If we stop thinking about how long it's going to take or all the details involved, he can't inspire. If we're thinking too hard when we're writing for instance, we only come up with contrived words that frustrate us with how terrible they are. But if we trust that the tools are being provided, just like I trust Ryan to give me what I need to start painting, I trust that I have what I need, and I just write.

There's a spiritual thing that happens from this vessel of our souls, a freedom that comes with the belief in provided tools. Then we paint beautifully and love the endless repetitive sameness of the writing task.

I thought about this after I took the boys to the lake yesterday. Because even though I wanted to sit and force myself to write, my head was too full and my frustration level too high. And I knew the lake was what they needed and maybe that is why the experiences of the day ended up being just the tools I needed to write from my heart-gut. Maybe doing something for someone else is often the inspiration that we need.

The water and the sky and the fun my boys were having were all filled with inspiration, climbing into my toolbox soul, for later, when the words poured to the page, prepared in advance for me.

I don't know why this photo rotated itself, but I guess it looks kinda cool,
so I'm leaving it. Sometimes we just have to leave things the very way they come out.

{This post is a part of Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.}

the meaningless-meaningful social media world

How can something be so meaningless and so meaningful at the same time?

facebook.youtube.flickr.whrrl.blogging.twitter.linkedin...

Neither good nor bad in their entirety, but always both good and bad.


My life is here, in flesh and blood, poured out in cups of juice and sealed over with Snoopy band-aids. I am here in whispered prayers and meaningful conversation, many of my words are never put to paper or blog.

I am across the table from a friend of nearly twenty years, watching the way her long brown hair still falls around her face the same way it did when she was 19. We are using the same knife to spin cream through our coffee, and we are pouring out words and laughter that is left unblogged.

I am on the phone with my Aunt and then a friend and then another friend, and then off with my boys to meet my parents for dinner. I am wearing flip-flops almost every day and getting flustered over the dog barking. I am almost entirely forgetting that the world wide interweb exists.

My life is here. I am side-turned to sleep next to a snoring man who I call husband, one who doesn't like how I always always steal the covers. He is the man that forgives me every little and big thing in our ordinary life. He sees it all, the things you cannot see, and he keeps me.

I am here sweeping dog hair and crumbs to dustpan and taking the garbage to the curb. And I might even tell you about it by using a computer. Or wait. I am telling you about it using a computer and a connection in the sky.


Words can be so meaningless, filling space and time by filling space and time with drivel. There is no meaning if words in cyber-spaces are thrown out as a means to an end. For selfish gain. There is no meaning if these words are not inspired but forcefully contrived, simply said to be said to say something, anything, to just have something to say for something to get.

I don't want my words to be a means to an end. Ever. I want pure motives and true connection and to pull parts of my life of here to the pages out there, and then cheesily (yes, that's a word) make a difference. So sometimes I wonder about all of this and feel that tension in my gut. The questions start to flow as I watch all the games that are played in these spaces. And I realize that if I think too hard about all of that, I will go quiet.

I walk the line between striving to stay relevant, to be heard and clicked on so I don't disappear, and a genuine heartfelt desire to create and cause and change and give back. I mostly stay nearer to the latter side of the line, authentic and heart-driven, but I too get pulled by opinions on how to do this thing "right" every once and a while. I never like my words when I cave to that pull.


There is no escaping the reality of life in the year 2010. A good year. Whatever we want, we can find it behind a screen and that is a gift, but only when used with honor and integrity-no veils, no tricks or gimmicks, just me and my heart-gut poured out for the right reasons. I want to always keep it this way, to have this desire and cause and purpose and mission, handed over through a medium that can be so meaningless if void of a sincere and careful and concerted effort to do the right thing. Always.

'They' say you have to have a blog to do this and you have to have a mac to do that. You have to create an account here if you want to succeed with this or with that. You have to tweet to keep your face in people's faces if your business or book or record or articles will ever ever be seen-heard. And the current and future reality is that 'they' are mostly right. People who do not love social media are being forced to make difficult choices, to jump in for fear of others getting ahead because those others are linked in and hooked up and everywhere at all times, and for what? So they have more people who 'like' them on facebook? To show they've done some excellent promoting? How many times do we click 'like' without truly knowing or liking? This is what I mean...so meaningless and meaningful, at the same time. Because despite all the shallow there is so much depth and connection here. Aside from the frivolous extras, of course.

I quite miss the absence of all of this cyber hubbub sometimes. And yet, here I am, at my keyboard, telling you how I feel about all of it. You who I know and don't know, my words falling in your space and taking your time. And then I'm honored and humbled at the thought of that, and I want to do right by you.

I am here and my life is full of people and colors and experiences and sights and sounds that are only mine. I am in my imperfect skin in my imperfect life and I love that you are along for the ride.

The social media world has opened doors for me. Sobriety has opened doors for me. I am moving ahead at the speed of light thanks to a strange thing, a strange word- Blogging.

I don't believe a person will be left behind or go unheard or fail if they steer clear of social media. And even so, somehow, strangely, social media has impacted my life in a positive way. Today I'm thinking out loud and finding that I need to ask myself if my personal success is the only reason I cheer on the meaningless/meaningful social media world?

And now I sit here in this endless world of words and I beg myself to stay right here, in my life, with only a touch of cyber-space as icing.


social media photos courtesy of flickr

because I'm not very conservative and sometimes I'm a big jerk about it

There's someone in my life that I love dearly, but very often, we don't see eye to eye. More like toe to forehead. We're both stubborn and sensitive, so this can be...interesting.

(No, it's not the Ryan. My dear husband and I see eye to eye on most things. Or at least nose to chin, or something close together like that.)

The thing about this other person is that I honestly really like him, even though we want to kick each other in the teeth over our opposite opinions sometimes. I've heard he thinks that I don't like him. But I do. I've always felt a kinship to him, seen the beauty of his heart, and have never, no matter what, been unable to forgive him. He's good, and I respect him and love to laugh with him. That's the truth.

Because of sobriety, and the way it sheds light on what needs working on in one's heart and soul and mind and body (yes, it's beautifully exhausting) I catch myself more now, or I hope too, anyway. I want to be less stubborn and prideful, more at ease and accepting and less sarcastically mouthy.

I want to walk away before I say things like, "Well, you can't base your opinions simply on what you feel about something before you even educate yourself."

This was the opposite of what this particular person needed to hear. It was a slap in the face and I knew it. If you knew him, you would know this was a cruel response. It was a kick in the gut for a number of reasons.

And no, I'm not going to beat myself up over it, I'm simply going to apologize.

This need to be right at all costs runs in my family, and it is so terribly unattractive. I carry it with me, and am nothing but overwhelmed with relief to see it slowly change over the years, for the better, not just in me, but in the people I love.

I want to just let go of it, this screaming and stomping stubborn insistence that I be heard and then told that I am exactly spot on correct, about whatever silly or un-silly thing we're discussing. I want to be done with this belief that I have all the answers and they are the right answers, and your opinions are probably too conservative or too slanted or just plain wrong. I want to be free of the fight in me, the welling of emotion so strong it races my heart and puts me in fight mode. I want to tranquilize the bear that growls and swipes and knocks down, only for a tiny moment of false victory.

The reality is, we're just people, so we're probably both at least partially wrong every single time.

The truth, it stands on its own, no matter what we think. The truth needs no defenders. It doesn't need us to stand head to head, eyes lit up with frustration, while pushing up dirt with our feet. It doesn't need us to see eye to eye. The truth simply is, no matter what we say or do.

I want enough humility to feel that, to really feel it. To not secretly believe that I know best as I fill my mind and heart with more ammo for my side, by reading and listening to all kinds of things that align with my slant, while my chest puffs up with opinions to be spewed. I don't want to be that person. I just don't.

The truth is (at least I hope, and if I'm wrong, the real truth will still stand anyway, so it's totally fine), we're all on the same team. No matter how different we are, we're the same. We would be able to live that in the most beautiful way, if only we could see beyond our differences, accepting each other exactly as we are while accepting anyone else, no matter how different they are from us. And maybe we would even let go of expecting others to morph into some other version of themselves that we expect and want, if only we could keep the bigger picture of truth in mind, instead of distracting ourselves over things that aren't as big as we make them.

That bigger picture? love. sacrifice. service. grace.

Yeah, maybe these thoughts are just Naive Heather Idealistic Impossibilities. Maybe this acceptance and humility thing is ridiculous, a foreign concept from a utopia that could never possibly exist in this world. But I'm still going to hope for it, because that's the kind of stubborn I'd like to be.

And you, the guy I'm talking about, you know who you are...

Brother dude, we make a good team. I'm sorry I acted like a big jerk.

~~~~~

Check out Robin's post about her inner jerk at Life...On Its Own Terms. My favorite part:

"It's a personality flaw that long pre-dates my addiction, but they thrive on each other's company. A response to extreme stress, a false bravado, a swagger designed to camouflage how badly my knees are shaking." - Robin

need

I need willpower. I'm hungry and thirsty and looking for a place to sleep. I know what I need. I can rise up in the morning and tell myself, today I will do the right things, and then I believe I will reap the rewards of self-discipline and self-control. My intentions are so good that I believe I'll do it all (and more) and then maybe I'll feel more peaceful.

As if everything works like checks and balances and tit for tat and punishment and reward.

Do 'A' - Get 'B'

I need to believe in grace because I can't believe A gets B because so often I get a really good B without finishing my A, without following through or doing my good-intended right thing. Grace isn't fair in the best possible way. Grace does not fit in a box, but it remains in all things even though it blows my mind like galaxies do.

I need creativity. I'm hungry and thirsty and looking for a place to sleep. And so I tell myself I will write from my heart-gut and I will read the words of artists and scour the etsy for beauty. I turn up the sound on music that settles my heart and then I believe I'll feel peaceful.

Most of the time, I'm interrupted, unable to do what I set out to do, unable to focus. And somehow, the beauty is always rising up all around, inside and outside the deafening noise and blinding light of home life with small boys. It's in them and on them and in me and beyond us, like galaxies.

When people say "Higher Power" that's what I think. I think of something beyond and in and on and above and below and never needing food or water or rest but always needing to redeem broken things and to love.

I need God. I'm hungry and thirsty and looking for a place to sleep. I try to hear his voice and see truth. But most of the time, my mind and heart don't match. My mind runs and settles down my heart, covering it with the lies of man-made Christian systems that steal the grace and joy that a God-Man brings, twisting it up to fit a box.

I need acceptance. The knowledge that I'm still good when my willpower fails me again. The acceptance of myself, just as I am, right now. The acceptance of life on its own terms, that whatever life is doing, it is not out to get me, because of the under and in and on and beyond.

I need to be accepting in the same way I must accept and forgive myself.
I need to forgive the systems and the people who tell the lies because they cannot help what they do in their fear and confusion that leads them to unacceptance. They need too, and then they grasp.
~~~~~
For so long, I got up day after day, trying to ignore the reality that by late afternoon I would inevitably throw in the towel and reach for wine, hoping it would fill the need, every need. I was hungry and thirsty and needed a place to sleep. And always, always, there was still that spark in me, holding on and hoping for me, being the grace that's under and in and around and beyond.

When I stopped drinking, I did not stop being hungry and thirsty or needing a place to sleep. But when I stopped, I uncovered the always-gasping-in-me spark, to see that beauty was still there, in a mercy flicker that never snuffed because the in and on and beyond never stops.

I can't stop being hungry or thirsty or needing a place to sleep. I need.

I need to stop fighting that I need.

Help, I will say, and then the flicker will reach up, find air, and spread so I can pass it on.

I will be grateful to need because we all do and fire is contagious and I want to give it to you and to her and to him and to them. To help in any small way that I can.

And then I'll feel peaceful.

P.S. I wrote something in response to a "talk" I heard last night that got me a bit riled up. SO. What I wrote is a response to that and it's titled, "The truth is, most Christians think alcoholism is a choice." Check it out if you'd like. Thank you.

magical characters

A good friend called recently and told me that she woke up one morning with characters having a conversation in her head. (No, she's not hallucinating...she's imagining. Which is totally different. Kind of.)

She said that a story just up and started to unfold, right there, without her trying to conjure it up, and that these characters continue their own story every day all on their own. She simply writes down what they're doing and saying after she listens in on them.

Back when we had this conversation, my friend had written over 250 pages. In 3 weeks.

Dude.

She had no dream or intention of writing a book. It just kinda happened to her, and now she's got the bug and she just can't stop thinking about her book and she can't stop writing.

Uh yeah, I'm totally jealous. I'm not gonna lie.

I do want to write a book. I've wanted to write a book for a really long time. Trouble is, whenever I have an idea, it's usually non-fiction and my passion for it quickly wanes. Or maybe my confidence fizzles out. Or maybe both.

In the last few months, I've been fantasizing about writing fiction for the first time in my life.

So. Since talking to my friend, when I wake up each morning, I open one eye and peek around the room, hoping my characters have arrived. They haven't shown up yet. I kind of want to call out for them, but because I haven't met them, I don't know their names. And also, Ryan would think that I've finally totally and completely lost my mind if I was yelling out random names and then he would send me to an institution and even though that sounds kind of nice and a little like a vacation in which I don't cook, I don't want to go.

Anyway, I can't think of anything (besides mothering and wifing, duh) that I'd rather do than to get lost in writing a book. Even if I really don't have any idea how to write a book. I figure I'll take my heart with me on the journey and just spill it out....once Carmen and Lindy show up.

Nope. Those aren't the right names for my characters either, I was just trying them out.

By the way, you don't have to tell me that an idea will come in time and be patient and all that. And you don't have to tell me that I'd be good at writing a book even though I have no "training" and would make an editor want to stick forks in his eyes. You don't have to say anything. Unless it's a killer plot idea. Like maybe magical characters visited you in the wee hours of morning, but you just have no time to write and so you want to pass your brilliant gift of a story on to me. You can totally do that.

Also. About my friend: I'm truly happy for her. What a gift! She is a friend I've had for years, I was her maid of honor on her wedding day, she totally gets me and I her, and I love her.
And guess what? Her main character's name is Miles and yes, he's named after my firstborn. (ahem. royalties.)

Maybe this name fact will be my one and only writing claim to fame after my friend's book hits the big-time. And you know what? That would be enough.

(Did you get that? That was me, shoving away my jealousy and being a gracious friend.)

(But only because she named her miraculous morning visitor character after my boy.)

(That was a joke. Kind of.)

(And yes, Ann. I'm also mad at you for your incredible talent and passion and sudden book-writing.)

(I'll stop with the stupid parentheses now.)

(See? I should NOT write a book.)

(And I call myself a wrogger, which means I'm saying I'm half writer-who do I think I am?)

Releasing

It's been nearly five months since we moved. Five months. This has been the very most surreal five months of my life, I'm pretty sure. I stopped drinking not long after we came here so everything was literally and figuratively new for me, for us.

Today, when Ryan finished building a fence for our backyard, I thought about it all, again. The fence means that our boys can run in and out without so much worry and checking. And it also meant so many other analogous things, and I really liked that it also means that our dog can finally be free of this...

In our previous fenced backyard, our Tia Maria dog had free reign within the parameters of the fence. She was just fine with that. It was as if she knew the fence was there to protect her, to keep her home. Every once and a while she would get out, one of us forgetting the gate, and within minutes of sniffing around the neighbor's yard, she would end up sitting right back in her usual spot on the back steps. The gate would stand open wide for the freeing right next to her and yet every time, she was content to stay in the place she knew best, as if she understood she'd get lost if she left.

And then we moved and we had no fence and so we used the chain and she hated it and we hated it. And so today with the new fence and freedom from chains, I thought about the night I quit drinking, how it had to do with that chain. I thought about how I was too drunk to get it off of her and it was so snowy and slippery and I was bent down trying to release the clasp to let her in and couldn't get up from my knees. It was different than it had been before, I had maintained without being unable to get up before and so I knew I had to quit. I knew I had hit the spiral that alcoholics hit, the one that takes us to insanity. I didn't want to be the stumbly lady in the dark, drinking alone. I quit with that picture of me from that night in my mind.

I hope I never forget it.

Because the night of the chain is the night I was loosed.


Today I thought, We still need a fence, boundaries for safety, but the chain is gone.

When Ryan finished the fence (and practically threw a party for himself, just so you know), he ran for his favorite dog in the whole wide world, the girl he's been so diligently taking for a run every night because she's been so cooped up. He unhooked her chain and he said, GO!

She just stood there. Confused.

You're free, Tia, RUN!

She'd been loosed.

She just didn't know what to do.

Of course, I understood.

She walked over to a place she's been able to reach for nearly five months, ignoring all the new places to adventure, and lay down, close to what she knew, what had become familiar.


And I got it, right then. It made perfect sense to me why new sobriety is so uncomfortable.
It's a releasing from the chain and a new fence in a new home. And so I wondered if Tia was staying still because she was scared or if she didn't quite trust herself yet.

Or maybe she was still because she was just fine, for a little while, not expecting too much, just taking it all in.

We prodded and whistled and said with our high-pitched doggy-talk voices,
C'mon Tia, let's GO!
And she continued to sit still.

Until an idea hit us
and so we went with her
and when she saw us go ahead of her
running with freedom
she hopped up
and she sniffed and she explored
trailing behind a little carefully


She went as far as she could go, safely,
and she finally looked glad to be home.

The chains are gone and this is slow and I am not alone.

Rhinos, Magic Bracelets & Mirages

*written on Sunday*

I'm sitting in a hotel room by myself. Melissa and Kristen had earlier flights today and so they're gone. (sad face)

There's an ad on TV right now for a bracelet you can wear that will solve all your problems. Seriously, I need one. According to the riveting infomercial this bracelet makes you feel happy and sleep soundly and also keeps you from tipping over when someone pulls really hard on your arm.

When I pushed the 'on' button on the television I realized that this is the first time the zone-out box has been on in this room the entire time we were here. And just look at what we've been missing! (sarcasm)

It's really good for me to do things like this. (Not the TV watching, but the attending of the blog conference.) What I mean by that is that it's good to step out of my comfort zone while trying to work through fears and anxieties. This wasn't comfortable for me at all. I would have benefited from a magical bracelet, let's just put it that way.

But I survived. You can tell, because I'm typing this right now. I guess that's because most of the time, that's what ends up happening, no matter what our worst fears, we survive.

Yesterday (Saturday) I spoke in front of people three times. Before that, I traveled alone (until I so happily ran into Lori and Holly at the Denver airport), trying not to worry that I'd miss my flight or mess something up somehow. Or drink. As it turns out, I really honestly had no desire to drink, and for that I'm so grateful. Sure, I thought about alcohol and knew it would momentarily remove some of the butterflies from my stomach, but I also realized it would only exchange my butterflies for stomach rhinos in the end, and who wants that?

The Nervous Tummy Rhinos show up all on their own for most of us anyway, so I had no desire to add more to the group.

Anyway. I would stand there and talk to people at parties or sessions at the conference and I'd see in their eyes that they too were battling their own large pachyderms. I would realize I wasn't alone in my insecurity, it was stomping around everywhere I looked, at whomever I looked in the eye, and I wished we could all put on bracelets to cage those rhinos.

Our insecurities and fears, rhinos that rear their heads at exactly the times we'd prefer to appear our most poised and confident, they were there, in eyes and fidgeting hands, and I didn't like that. I mean, a group of stampeding rhinos is called a crash for a reason. That's what they do, they crash because they can only see 30 feet in front of themselves as they run at about 30mph. But they don't slow down, they just go, a lot like our insecurities, the way they crash us around.

I realize that insecurities and nerves are totally natural in a new situation with many new people, or when meeting someone you know for the first time. But the reason I say that I didn't like seeing the rhinos is because sometimes we bloggers get insecure around each other for the wrong reasons. We believe in this big blogger-small blogger thing, and do I dare say that I disagree with this idea altogether? Do I dare say that no matter who knows who or how many readers someone has, we're all the same? That these ideas we have of blog-fame, well, they are mirages created by misconceptions and flashy ads and bells and whistles and photoshop and insecurity? Yes, I believe what I'm saying here is true, and even if you've met bloggers with large readerships who acted like they didn't have the time for you, a "smaller blogger," like they were somehow more confident and important? Well...please remember that even that behavior is born out of insecurity. A true crash, indeed.

That said, I do realize that I edit my photos and I have ads on this site, and sometimes I just want to strip it down because of this very thing. I want to erase any misconceptions that I am somehow different or better. But then I remember that how I'm perceived is only partially my responsibility. Because I love editing photos and I appreciate the pocket change that comes from ads on a site that gives me a voice. But the reasons for the bells and whistles on my blog end there, truly. I am not trying to be anything that I'm not, and I whole-heartedly hope that what you find when you meet me in person is acceptance and a happiness in talking with you that seems genuine, because it is. I don't care how many readers you have or where you live or what you believe. I will like you. I will most surely like you. Unless you hit me over the head with a hammer and call me names, I will like you.

So please. If you see me at one of these blogging events I've come to love so much, let's make a pact to cage our rhinos. Please know that I don't think much of myself at all (working on that) and I think much of you. Please know that I think we're the same. If you are someone who is known or unknown in the blogging world, I truly don't care. So let's put on our magical bracelets and have a good time.

Don't fake anything with me. Don't believe that you are in any way less than, and please don't act like you are more. Both are crashes, and neither of us need more of those.

Maybe my desire for all of us to see that we're all the same is born of insecurity, I'm not even sure. If so, that's a personal rhino I'd like to keep. Because what I'm saying is that there may be valid reasons for this big blogger-small blogger thing, and maybe some people want to be seen as big, but I am not one of them. I am just me, here with my rhinos like yours, and I just wanted you to know.

Untwisting

You know that rumbly sound of slurping the last of your drink through a straw?

I can't decide if I love or hate that sound.

Maybe I should decide to like it because it's a satisfying sound of finishing, being sure to get every last drop of something tasty. And maybe I should hate it because it's a belchy kind of irritating satisfying sound.

I feel this way about sobriety. Some days I'm absolutely in love with its satisfaction, and other days (ahem, yesterday) I hate the itchy irritation of it. When I was drinking I was trying to take the edge off. What I'm learning is that it wasn't working, not at all. My edges are more rounded now than when I was pouring glass after glass night after night. I'm softer and lighter and different.

The thing is, sober or not, alcoholic or not, life is covered in itchy irritation. So when I'm hating sobriety, it isn't even really sobriety that I'm hating. And therein lies the beauty of remaining alcohol-free. It's just right. It fits, even if a bit tightly at first.

And I see it as a gift. Because I don't know how to answer you when you ask, "but what if I feel like you were feeling and I'm not an alcoholic?"

"What if your journey and your struggle resonate with me and I don't drink? How do I change?"

I've gotten so many emails like that, and I just don't know what to tell you. I really wish I did. Sometimes it feels really selfish to be wading through my issues, taking so much time away, an hour at a time, many days, to work on me, to stay sober. But I have to. I have no choice. So in a way, I wish every one of you, especially the mothers who write to me, could be given that. Time away to remain victorious over it, whatever your it may be.

Here, leave the house, sit and talk and just be. Do it or you will self-destruct. Here are some tools, use them. Here is a list of numbers, dial them when you feel lost or lonely.

I wish every woman, every mother, could be given that permission. To go and seek and learn what it is that makes her tick or keeps her all tied up in her own head. To heal and cry and grow, rounding her edges. To maybe take a good look at her hard truths, the ones we all have, the things that we need to give up, to rid our lives of so that we can breathe. Selfishness, over-eating, booze, vicodin, yelling and screaming, too much TV or Internet time, whatever! Usually we are upset and twisted up inside because we have no time to be honest with ourselves about what needs to go. Resentments? Anger? Habitual lying? Self-deprecation or hatred? Guilt?

You know what it is for you. Maybe only you know. If you could stand in front of the mirror, staring straight into those eyes of yours, refusing to look away until the truth has set you free, you would see that you know. And as painful as whatever that truth can be, looking at it is the only option on a road to freedom.

It will make that slurpy and belchy sound and panic will rise in your chest, but you will start to untwist. And you will look around and say, Oh God, what do I do now and then you will tell someone who loves you dearly and you will say I have to do something about this. And sometimes that means getting help, so you will ask someone to help you get help and then you will do it. Because realizing you are powerless over whatever you are carrying and pushing and pulling and wearing, it just becomes what you have to do, once you stop running from it.

I am sitting in a coffee shop with all the windows open and a breeze is blowing over my sandaled feet and I'm wondering, who am I to say these things? What do I know?

But I wanted to answer your questions, while I hear the slurping sounds of finished drinks from tables around me. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry I can't give you steps to overcoming the way you feel, you who is maybe not an alcoholic but you who still wants to know what's wrong with you.

Friend, those people, other mothers or just any person, who seem so happy and content? Maybe they aren't. Maybe they're just like you and like me. And if they are truly peaceful, even serene? I'm guessing they gave something up. Because if we're telling any kind of good story at all with our lives, we've sacrificed something to win something better, you know? Every good story (as it says in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years) is about wanting something and overcoming a great obstacle to get it.

Not every obstacle is a bold addiction. But maybe it's more of a way of thinking or living or dealing, a way that just doesn't sit right in your heart of hearts. What we're all seeking so much of the time (aside from spiritual things) is balance. Every mother, every person, knows that balance is at times completely impossible because life just won't allow for it. But I want to tell you that I am closer to it than I have ever come and only because I took something out of my life that would make balance impossible, leaving me reeling and twisted.

I'm still twisted up a whole lot of the time, but not in such a shackled way. New days abound in which I start again and feel renewed. When I was drinking, there was no such thing as true renewal.

I am four months sober today, and that's all I know.

(And I hope I don't sound like a big bossy know-it-all jerk. I promise I'm not one in real life.)

The girl who lived on the lake

The last time I drove by
it hurt
to think back on her,
on me
not so long ago
but so long ago

I came that way again
turning my eyes to the lake
to see the changes
the new houses
the remodels
the spaces where
cabins once stood

In came a hundred
memories
of a twenty-something
party girl
who lived on the great wide and
green lake

What would she ask me?
I thought
What would she want to know
about who she would become,
who she would be becoming?

You'll be okay
I'd tell her,
then. now.
but you are taking a terribly
long way
to okay.
It's starting now
and you know
but you don't know

You will have a new life
while you're still both you
and a wife and a mom
and you will feel like both
and carry too much
of the now with you
then

The pit of your stomach
may never forget this
version of yourself,
broken
by yourself,
and not yourself
by he and them
and her and him

But your heart
will start to heal
long from now,
the now
on the lake,
and you will see
somehow
in the blue eyes
of boys that came from you
and him
that you are okay

Even good.
And the pit of your stomach
will make its twinges
a little less
as you drive around the lake
as yourself now,
you
who would not be she
without the girl who lived on the lake.


{freely written as an experiment to see what I would write in five minutes or less after a drive around the lake I lived on for a year many moons ago, a drive filled with emotion. It's quite a rough draft, so thank you for taking the time to attempt making sense of it. Happy Friday.}

This post is a part of Five for Ten at Momalom.

Happiness in a fanny pack

I pretty consistently feel peaceful with a dash of joy and gratitude and maybe even a little serenity these days. But that doesn't mean I'm always happy. I'm often irritable or tired or just plain out of it.

My happiness is fleeting because I believe that's what happiness is. Fleeting like a caffeine high or that little lift in your belly when you're on an elevator, maybe after some good news or an achievement or a hormonally good day.

This is why they say that happiness is a choice. It's sporadic and temporary and we want it so badly we choose to force it in the midst of fatigue and the hard things of life. We chase it like a drug and believe we've failed if we don't feel it all the time.

I used to expect this fleeting feeling to stick, and then I'd grow frustrated with myself for not being able to hold on to it. I'd see these people who always seemed to be so happy all the time, and I'd wonder why I wasn't strong enough to be like them. I thought I must be doing something wrong, when maybe in reality it was just simply time to get off the elevator and continue walking through the work week, tired.

What I've really always wanted was that constant thing, that undercurrent of acceptance of things exactly as they are. And that doesn't always look or feel like happiness.

The thing is, the people who seem happy all the time are perhaps not feeling happiness as much as wearing it, you know. Like a fanny pack, jutting out from the hip, filled with good thoughts and a positive attitude. These people are working very hard, doing the nearly impossible to keep that pack filled, and that's why we admire them. For trying so hard when we feel like we can't, or when our innate personalities just won't let us.

I'm beginning to think that when we just can't, when happiness seems to bounce right off, perhaps we should lighten up and look underneath. Because when we dig a little deeper and find that at the core of who we are, we are overjoyed by the people and gifts in our lives, our fanny packs are filled with just as much trying and overcoming even if they're a bit more hidden, maybe behind our backs.

Maybe this is too obvious to say, but I think that for many of us, the depths of spirit within the melancholy periods of frustration and confusion are required to truly feel their opposite, happiness. I'm working on remembering that all the while, even while I don't often feel the belly butterflies or the buzz of happy, peace and joy do remain, as real as my beating heart. And maybe that is true happiness, not always worn, but always felt, somewhere in the deepest parts.


How are you made? What's your temperament and have you accepted you, the way that you came?

~~~~~~~~~~

This post is a part of Five for Ten at Momalom. Join us (if it'll make you happy!) (I know. Hilarity.)

That's courage

"I didn't want to get well, because if I got well, nobody would come and save me anymore. And I didn't want to get well, because while I could not control my happiness, I could control my misery, and I would rather have had control than live in the tension of what if." -Donald Miller in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
(This post is brought to you by the fact that I finished this book last night and my mind is reeling with good thoughts to think. Thank you (again), Donald Miller.)

_______________

We need breath-taking stories in our lives. We're made for these stories, and too often we don't choose them. We don't write the book or apply for the job or propose or adopt that child or take that trip or dance because we're scared. And then we stay just where we are and wonder why life is boring and we just simply rev our engines and a whole lot of the time that makes us quit trying at everything. We lose faith and we lose courage because we're so easily bored.

Entertain me, something! Please keep me interested, someone!

There is so much trying involved in both reaching for epic stories, and in finding contentment in the mundane and ordinary things. We need both, and satisfaction in having a balanced life of both takes courage. To live both ends of the spectrum with a fierce determination, who does that? To believe either your epic or your ordinary are exactly where you should be? To trust your conscience and your heart-gut to lead you to either the peaks or valleys or the quiet in-between, to simply keep going inside of both? If a person can do that, strive to do that, they have courage.

Happiness in trials, in joys, and in the mundane. Courage.

For me, when life is spinning its days of repetitive sameness with nothing much happening, I have a harder time continuing to choose to do the right thing, every single day. There's no catalyst, and so I stall and go numb and quit caring, quit trying as hard.

When we do that, we often create drama, even subconsciously, providing our own catalysts, building up an inauthentic plot until we've made a huge mess. Or we get depressed or try to fill ourselves up with the wrong things until we are addicted to those wrong things.

What am I trying to say? I'm rambling my way to my own thoughts again. Here's what I'm saying is the balance: Contentment when there's no catalyst for change, allowing the change to be slow while setting up the pins and knocking them down, day after day. And then saying yes when life is asking for a bigger commitment or adventure that you know is right for you. The ability to listen to yourself in both the times of bigger things that bring fast change, and the quieter times of repetitive sameness, this is what we seek, I think. Being content either way, because both the big and small are inevitable. This is balance. This is courage. Continuing to move forward, to do the right thing, either way. Exciting or not. New or not. Mundane or not.

Isn't this what makes sobriety, motherhood, employment and marriage so very hard? We embark on these adventures believing we've found it, whatever new excitement we've been looking for. We celebrate with feasts and toasts and we truly feel and believe. We're living a grand story. But then we find out how much everyday in and out work is involved in these beautiful big things and sometimes we just don't want to keep going, we want to back up to the joy or even feel the sorrow of loss so that we can have that feeling of starting again, or being rescued. Unless, of course, we're choosing courage. The courage of contentment.

The really exciting and dramatic times are good, even if they're painful for a time. They shape us. But right now I think that the most excitement and joy ends up happening in the ordinary, but only if we're choosing to live our every day stories out loud, no matter how boring they may be perceived by the world. We are the ones that will feel the fulfillment and awe even within what may seem like a cookie-cutter existence, if we live from our heart-guts, obey our God-given instincts in both the big and small things, and just keep going.

That's courage.

And I want it.

_______________

"The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given--it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral....If I have hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you. -Donald Miller


This post is a part of Five for Ten at Momalom. Click on the button below to check out this beautiful community of women, telling our stories together on topics important to us all, and join in if you'd like.

The whole

I finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller on Friday. Then on Saturday I went to pick up his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. As Anne Lamott says, "I love Donald Miller. He's a man after my own heart."

I'm going to have to paraphrase a line from Blue Like Jazz because I've already given my copy of the book to a friend.

There is no more powerful drug than the addiction to self. (Sorry, Don. I probably butchered that. That line I'm remembering was probably more poetic and profound and probably hilarious, because that's just you.)

Anyway. Of course I thought of this line on Saturday when there I was, with myself taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror for myself's profile pictures on the world wide web.

Ouch.

The thing is, I wasn't taking those pictures because I think I'm hot. Actually, it's more that I think I'm not. So if I can try for the right lighting and then delete all the photos that show the two furrowed brow creases and the bags under my eyes, I'll try. Because then maybe I'll somehow get just the right picture for my Twitter profile and for Facebook. But mostly I just end up thinking I don't measure up, and that's why I was taking so many pictures. And now I'm only sharing this handful of the eleventy-gillion I took because these particular ones don't make me look like I have 3 chins like the deleted ones. And still I was looking at the ones I kept and thinking ugh. And I was thinking that I look almost 35 because I'm almost 35 and also that I need a haircut. So then I edited the pictures a lot on Picnik. So this isn't even actually what I look like.

It's only fair that I admit that, right?





As my wise and lovely friend Maggie said more eloquently recently, trying to walk through recovery from addiction while blogging is tricky, and I've been struggling with that too. When I read that line in Blue Like Jazz I realized that we are all walking that fine line. Yes, it may be a little more clumsy for those of us recovering from an addiction to substances, but I think all of us are here trying not to appear narcissistic.

But one of the hardest things to admit and then change is the fact that we are.

If we're not grandiose, thinking we're smarter or better in some way than other people, then we're self-deprecating and insecure and trying to act like we're not. Either way, we're dealing with a twisted form of pride, a self-focus that leaves little room for truly caring about other people because it's so exhausting. I don't mean just bloggers and I don't exactly know how to fix it, but I really want to try.

I've come to learn that I'm powerless over alcohol and I have to think that or speak that every day as a reminder. But what really makes recovery hard is the very thing we're all dealing with. Learning to accept that we have to do the very same thing with our very selves. I'm slowly learning that this is what will get me through, this is what will help me recover: Admitting that I'm addicted to myself and then praying for that addiction to be lifted and replaced with humility that isn't defined by insecurity, because that's not true humility anyway.

These are things that I knew, but I really didn't. I don't know that any of us can truly grasp just how focused on ourselves and our lives we really are, soul deep. Mentally, physically, spiritually...all parts of us pointing toward ourselves and our lives. It causes us so much pain and gets us all tied up in messes of our own making. I think this is why I'm a Christian. I believe in this God-Man who sat with whores and cheaters and drunks and saw through, soul deep, and He just wanted to listen and love that person and tell them true things about that love. They could stop thinking so much of themselves or so little of themselves because they were seeing in His eyes that they were free because of Him, somehow. Being next to Him makes it hard to stay self-addicted because He wasn't and isn't and that is powerful and contagious.

I'm a Christian because I love being next to Him, to Grace, to Love. And so often I forget to sit down next to Him because I'm just so busy thinking about myself.

And now I feel insecure and funny about sharing these photos and more thoughts about my faith. Because I don't want to be seen as narcissistic or the stereotype of a Christian because I'm not. And then again I am, I guess. But only in parts. I'm glad that the whole of me is greater than the sum of its parts, and that the God-Man I believe in sees me as the whole and that He has no problem sharing His perfect humility. I need to go sit by Him and ask for it, because without doing that, I'm powerless over my self addiction.



COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. (I always love what you have to say, but today is just simply a 'closed comments' sort of day.)

P.S. I will be thinking about Blue Like Jazz for a very long time. I'm certain it will be added to my list of favorite books ever. So I want to say thank you to Donald Miller because his words hit my heart at just the right time. His "nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality" put words to so much of what's in my heart and I'm so grateful. And he made me laugh out loud a thousand times, and I love that.

(And no, I'm not being compensated in any way to say that.)

(I get nervous about writing about my faith here and this is why.)

(The End.)

Peanuts

He is not a kid on a table or a boy looking up at his Mommy for a hug.
He is Snoopy and he's on his dog house and he can't wait to fly a plane with a cape.
He is pawing at Charlie Brown, begging for a treat.
I'm Charlie Brown.

This is fitting because I have a really hard time figuring out how to grow up.
I trust Lucy over and over and end up flat on my back while she laughs.

I have the imagination of a child and sometimes, when I should sit up and learn something,
it's like my teacher is going 'wa wa wa wa wa waaaa.'
My brain is too busy to take these lessons to heart.

I'm always thinking, just like that boy of mine, never taking things at face value,
always digging deeper. And at the end of the day, we're both terribly exhausted, the world finally dimming down, hiding at the loss of light, taking cover in the shadows.
The 'wa wa wa' becomes a slow and soft whiiir but never stops.

We rest fitfully, clenching and grinding and tossing and turning, vivid pictures dancing through our dreams, and then we're up again to a world that's blindingly bright because we take it all in, every detail, the slightest twitch of face easily read-she's sad, the softest of sounds too loud, echoing.

We feel it all in the deepest parts of who we are until we're too full to feel anything at all.
We are overstimulated emotion addicts gone dry.

I am so busy taking it all in and processing every part. He is so busy taking it all in and processing every part. He is perched on his red roof in the sun with eyes always wide open, not remembering to squint, and I am running and running and then kicking at a ball that isn't there, up and over I go with a thud while the thoughts continue to swirl.

We are Snoopy and Charlie Brown.

"...and for you and myself I will pray, let our weakness become our strength." - A lot like me by Sara Groves on her album Station Wagon-songs for parents

Nothing

I was in church, for Easter, and I felt nothing. I have been feeling guilty for my lack of feeling in church my entire life. It isn't that I don't like church, at least not most of the time. It's something else.

My emotions over the things of faith aren't triggered in a place of worship often.

But as an aside, you should know that they are triggered here...

Easter2, originally uploaded by Heather of the EO.

In the changing landscape of a Midwestern spring. In the face of a boy I was once worried I may not keep. My soul wells up with hallelujahs on a daily basis, in the ordinary things of life. I carry those praises along in my heart and when we go to church, something happens to them. They go quiet. Sure, sometimes I have a moment, a certain song or words said at just the right time to bring a lump to my throat or to cause me to grab a pen and scribble down an aha moment. But for the most part...nothing....(continued)

If you'd like to read more of my thoughts on faith and church- including why I think my hallelujas "go quiet"-head on over to If Life is a Highway. (No pressure. If church-talk isn't your thing, I understand. But please know, I'm very honest about my struggle over there, so if you'd like to think with me, click on over.)

COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. (but they are open on the Highway blog.)

The insecure blogger and her train of thought

The posts that write themselves, in a flourish of creativity where fingers pound the keyboard like they have a mind of their own, are the best. I'm often confident about them in a way that escapes me most of the time.

On the other hand, if I'm driving or taking a shower or making lunch for my boys and an idea strikes me, it rattles around in my mind and heart for too long. So when I sit down to reign it in, I'm lost, often pulling thoughts from a hundred light bulb moments that don't add up. I'm editing and editing and second-guessing and insecure. I work and work here and there, and still feel I come up short.

There needs to be a freedom in this, a gut level honesty of the moment, a kind of escape. That's when the words reach out to other hearts and shake hands in agreement.

It's rarely a reality, that a person (sorry guys, but especially a mother) has the time for the kind of writing that they dream of, the kind that demands hours. If I finish one more thing, answer to three more demands and succumb to the volume of my home, all while trying not to let the aha thoughts slip away, something is lost.

Is it strange that this makes me sad?

I long for blocks of time to visit spaces, books and posts that bring me inspiration and then allow my reactions and feelings and thoughts to flow across the keyboard. But that time is not now and sometimes I grieve that. I then resent what is holding me back and then of course I feel guilty for the resentment. I think of Charrette's tag line, my children are not obstacles in my path, they ARE my path. And so often they ARE the inspiration for my heart's words, while they unintentionally create a dam to them.

The second part of that tag line is - Oh, but then there are all those other delightful paths.

This is why so many mothers often waffle between near constant attention to writing and reading (we bloggers, anyway) and then guilty angst that leaves us thinking of quitting completely, at least until...someday.

Then we feel like a hateful martyr and we kick ourselves for wanting anything other than this gift of time with our children. We also know time away is healthy, but it's also terribly unreachable almost always. We steal ten minutes here, thirty seconds there and sometimes even two full hours in a coffee shop. But it doesn't feel like enough, and so begin the thoughts - the fantasizing of time off, whether we work at home or not, and we once again come up against walls, no options for the kind of help we need, no money for the kind of help we need. So our time, like a line of books with no bookends leans and falls flat. Again.

That's me anyway. The irony is that I'm secretly relieved when I realize it won't work out. There will be no large blocks of time that beg me to give my all, to set down my insecurities and truly write. No pressure. I love no pressure. So I throw out what I can here and there, into the universe, and watch it float for a while, sometimes gobbled and praised and sometimes misunderstood and simply gazed. Either way, what I have to give always disappears into the archives with a shhhhh. That's how it seems to me, in my ruminating mind, my always questioning and comparing, hesitant to confidence, mind.

I did a little Twitter poll on the subject of blogging zen. Do you have it, I asked. Do you hit publish and feel nothing but good about what you wrote? Even before that first comment comes in that assures you that you were understood?

Almost everyone said no. And if they said yes, they followed that with rarely.

We humans are such an insecure bunch, aren't we? At our core, we're always wondering...Does my voice count? Here is my heart in words, now don't stomp on it, please. And since many a blogger wants to write beyond blogging, that can be hard. People pleasing rears it's ugly head nearly every time.

--------

The last part of Charrette's tag line says - Fortunately - eventually - all roads lead to Home.

I find comfort in that. I'll certainly have more time in my future, and I hope that time is met with more confidence in both my mothering and my writing.

Perhaps the writing time I long for now is elusive and slippery because I'm not ready for it.

I can't imagine a better place for stretching and warming up than here in my home with these boys, and here in this space, with you.

----------

Just so you know, I just did exactly what my very own tag line says - I wrote to find out what I'm thinking. I answered the following questions of myself- Why the blogging angst? Why am I not confident in my writing? And I found out I'm practicing, and somehow, that makes me care less about people pleasing in this space and in my life. Seems so obvious, but sometimes a girl's gotta blog to find out what she already knows.

How Rachael Ray's tongue changed my thinking

You can end up liking pretty much anyone,
if you set aside your self-righteousness for a bit.

I said that (or rather, I typed it) on Twitter the other day. Usually I tweet riveting stuff like I want tacos, so it felt a little strange to randomly say such a thing. I wasn't trying to be profound or intense or philosophical or anything. Or maybe I was, but I didn't think it would be taken that way. And then it was. It was re-tweeted over and over and I was a bit stunned.

Little did anyone who read that tweet know that I said it because of Rachael Ray.

It's not that I dislike her, I obviously don't know her personally, but I was disliking watching her that day. I was home alone, eating lunch, and I turned the TV on and there she was, constantly sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth while interviewing someone I wanted to learn more about. I almost started counting the number of times that little tongue flicked out. It was distracting, at least to an overly observant person like me, so I put on my judgy hat and fumed, stop sticking your tongue out, while eating my salad followed by a dilly bar.

Then a thought struck me, one that I needed. Her seemingly constant licking of her lips was annoying me, yes, but I wondered how annoying it is to watch ME pick at my lip. Yes, I pick at the skin on my lip. So much so, that I do it without thinking, like nail biting or lip chewing. I'd probably even do it on TV (if I happened to have my own show because of being an excellent cook or something that I'm not).

So I shook my head at me and continued to watch the interview.

Thinking about myself and what I do that's annoying instantly made me like Rachael Ray more. An immediate acceptance of her lip-licking ways hit me and I had to think about all the bigger things I naturally judge before looking at me. How I do the exact same thing that's bothering me in one way or another. About how damaging that is and how it sucks the life out of relationships.

I shut off the TV and started vacuuming and thinking of things that have bothered me or even hurt me, things I have blamed or judged people for, big or small. I realized that pretty much everything dulls in comparison with what I do in the same or a slightly different way. Self-righteousness is such an ugly thing. I've known that, but it's good to know it more.

I love that a shift in thinking, a change of heart, can occur in and because of the most simple and mundane things. Like daytime television and vacuuming. Even those things. We just have to be open to them. The strange and beautiful lessons are there, every day.

So there you have it. My "profound" tweet had people saying AMEN! and WHOA! and it was triggered by Rachael Ray's tongue.

You just never know.

I want to stop erasing

Ellie said something recently about addiction and motherhood that I'd like to share because it helped me so much:

"I look at it this way, now: I didn't know how to love that fiercely. It made me so afraid ... afraid I would screw it up, afraid something would happen to them, afraid I could never measure up enough for these two beautiful souls. And for so long, what did I do when I was afraid? I drank. So I was hiding from the fear. I heard, over and over, when I was first getting sober: How could you do that? Don't you love your kids enough to NOT do that? The answer was that I loved them so much I didn't know what to do.

I thought, perversely, I was doing them a favor by erasing myself from the picture a little at a time.

Only in sobriety can I accept myself and all my flaws, and know that the only perfect Mom for them is me. Some days I remember that easily, some days not so much." But at least I know it, now.
~Ellie - One Crafty Mother

~~~~~~~

That same day, I tried reading Ellie's comment to a friend over the phone, as we talked about our own sobriety. I couldn't stop the crying. That's what happens when something you're trying to say is the truth.

When you are doing something so damaging to yourself and your family, when you are trying to erase yourself from the picture, you are so alone and so scared. I was, anyway.

Recently, someone in recovery said I don't know how this is my life. I don't know why I'm at this meeting. I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm just so confused.

Yeah, I get that. But I guess confused is better than numb...or erased.

For me, the beauty of sobriety lies in the fact that I'm seeing through the fog and toward myself now. I'm not numbing the confusion anymore, and although that can be terribly overwhelming and there is so much work to be done, I'm not wandering aimlessly. I'm no longer blinded and hurting in the way that I was because of drinking, so focused on the drink and missing what mattered.

When you quit, the fog doesn't lift up and away easily, but it does settle. So the murky things are still there, around your feet, all the isms of alcoholism. But they are settled. In the quitting it is done. That is not to say there is no work, that would just be a ridiculous thing to say. But the fog, it is below, waiting to be trampled by your very own feet because of the clearing, the ability to see where you're headed.

This settling of my spirit is almost too much for me. Foreign. It's as if the letting go of alcohol flipped a mercy switch, chains and chains and layers and layers poof! gone, just in the quitting itself. Truth! Freedom! Even if I have no idea what I'm doing. Even if right now, I feel like a dry drunk so much of the time.

I can surrender now. I could never truly surrender before.

I have uncomfortable realizations around every corner, every hour. These are the thoughts I used to push away, erasing them frantically glass by glass...

I don't know who I am. Really. I've been 16 different people, depending on who I'm around. Are they all me? Which one is most of me? I don't know....I even do it in the blog world, I'm a part of so many circles. I like to think this is because I truly love all kinds of people and I know that's true, but it's also because I'm a chameleon. Who am I?A people-pleaser at the core so I don't even know what my favorite color is. It's probably my best friend's favorite color. I want to find my own favorite color...

I had an alcoholic personality before I ever even took a drink-fear of intimacy, trust issues... keep it all easy, give it to me now now now, angry, oh so angry, keep everyone happy, go numb...

I was erasing myself a little at a time because of all of those things, the way they were stored at the back of my heart and mind, pressed back, put away. That's why I could only really begin to see them after I quit erasing myself. And you know what? Those things are not that horrible, that impossible, or that painful after all. I was fighting them back with alcohol. And now I see that facing my deeply rooted issues is definitely not as painful as erasing myself from my own family.

Ellie is right. What my boys need and want is me. Even with all of my disheartening realizations, I am their perfect mother, just as I am, sober.

Oh, the grace.

Courage me

Courage me.

I say that like I'm at the bar, beer me!

What is it, this courage? Maybe if it's been given to me, I should know. But I don't. Am I called courageous because I quit drinking?

Let me be honest. I don't feel very courageous. I feel foreign, like I'm learning the customs of a new culture.

I'm swinging up here in the corner of the room, watching myself walk around in a fog, not drinking. I said that in an email to someone still stuck in her web of addiction and feeling so ashamed in comparison to those of us who have quit. I told her that I've only gotten as far from the middle as to dangle from my corner perch, watching myself, this strange person who can't figure out how to be. That's where I am, just hanging there like a spider needing her prey, wanting it, poised and ready to feed her need.

So please don't think I have more courage than you do, friend.

Sure, I'm not stuck in that middle anymore, trapped. I did quit. But I'm still here in this web of me, good ol' addicted me. It's like a friend said, he may have removed the alcohol from his alcoholism, but he's still got a whole lot of the ism to deal with. Me too.

So yes, I'm holding on to my addiction even while abstaining. I'm holding on to it at least by a thread, not finding myself able to fully let go. After all, the addiction web is sticky and I've been in it for a very long time. If I do let go, I'm terrified this last string I'm connected to will break and send me crashing to the rock bottom I've narrowly avoided by quitting. So I'm allowing myself to miss the booze, to grieve it even. To think about it way too much just like I used to, until my mind and body are a little stronger and can figure out what else to do. I'm hanging here until I'm more prepared to say goodbye, and more able to see the good things in me. The good things that aren't of my ism. The things that are waiting to be lived out more fully and have been there all along.

The dictionary describes courage like this: the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.

quality of mind or spirit

without fear

That kind of courage takes a long time to find, to learn. I don't have it yet. This whole sobriety thing demands it, but it's not there at first, at least not for me. To refrain from drinking is hard, yes. But once I voiced my need for help it was as if the option was taken away. No choice. Frozen. Stuck. Foreign.

Now what?

I was thinking about this on the way home from an AA meeting yesterday. About all of it, and I started to feel the mind and soul numbing exhaustion of this experience. I came through the door and kicked off my shoes. There was my family, on the couch, content and shiny beautiful to me. I watched Miles carefully oh so carefully construct his latest Lego creation. It amazes me, the time that boy can spend on these elaborate buildings and airplanes and ships, not following any kind of pattern or picture, just creating to the beat of his own drum. The patience he has for it and the work he's willing to put forth are simply astounding. The effort of his tiny fingers on tiny plastic pieces, matching colors, undoing and redoing until he's satisfied and content, until his masterpiece is just as it should be as he sees it. That's what he was doing, yet again, when I took off my coat and looked up, my heart hurting and my head pounding.

Daddy asked him, Oh are you rebuilding that?

He said, I'm not just rebuilding it, I'm renewing it.

And I thought, me too.

That is being done for me too, not by me. With even more careful care and determination than that of a child, and with a fierce love for a masterpiece creation. That's what I have to believe. That is what is being done here. Not just rebuilding, but renewing. And that will happen even if I'm still and cold like a small piece of plastic. And it will happen even if I'm just watching from the corner of the room, because that's all I can do right now. It will happen in this slow surrender.

The road from here is the place that I'll need that elusive courage from the dictionary. It is in the trip down from the web even after the drinking is done. Right now I can't muster the strength for that kind of courage. So I beg for it, courage me, and I know it will come. I will finish the descent from this web and join in, with time.

Riding the wind

Seven days ago, these glasses meant only one thing.

Wine.

Today they still mean wine.

But they also simply look like really cool empty glasses.
Shapes and colors.

These small shifts happen, they say, with time. Sooner or later these glasses will not trigger a craving. With time. One day at a time.

My feelings are shifting like wind, moment by moment some days, hour by hour other days.

I've never been good with waiting. I like to skip ahead, pass up the hard part, let's move along now. Stop feeling stop feeling stop feeling...

That just can't be the case this time. This is just too big.

So looking at those glasses today gave me hope, the way they were so kindly showing me that they look a little like something other than wine, even though they still mean wine, for now.

And strangely, yesterday's blustery wind also came bringing me hope. It was a completely nasty day, the kind of Minnesota day that causes most of us to duck indoors and stay there, looking out the window and muttering things like, why do I live here and, would you believe that wind....uff da.

The wind got me thinking about seven days ago, how I woke up in the night, sobbing. Because it was like a blustery wind coming in. I reached for my husband and spoke my secrets like gusts, catching his breath and mine. I did it like I had no control over it because I didn't, in that very moment, for no definable reason, I didn't.

It just happened and I felt like I was floating on the wind and watching, helpless.

I am so helpless right now, riding that wind. That's why I know I haven't done even one part of this whole quitting thing on my own. (Step 2, anyone? Step 2?)

The dark of winter was blasting through with that wind that night seven days ago, with those words spoken in the dark. It was pushing us toward Spring. It was there, with such a strength we couldn't help but be pushed toward light.

An email I got yesterday said, shame is like mold, it grows in the dark, but withers in the light.

That's what we were doing, we were moving the mold to the light.

I didn't plan it. I didn't even want it, but Spring came anyway. Before it could bring its light though, I had needed to feel that wind, to duck inside a while, shifting in the dark, tossing and turning and crying out.

We Minnesotans know full well we have no control over the weather, the shifting of seasons. We wait and we watch, we're surprised and we're not. We long for Spring. And it comes, it always comes, even when we least expect it.

Even when we don't reach out and ask for it or choose it. It comes.

Even when we've become comfortable in our misery, hunched over, backs aching and tight in the cold and the dark.

Even then, Spring always comes. And it leaves no other choice but to surrender to its beauty.

And then we begin to till the soil, and friends, that's hard work. Good, but hard.