Nov
24
This Thanksgiving is going to be different from what I have done for years BUT with the loss of the enjoyable aspects of this tradition I am also losing the anxiety. On Wednesday evening I’m taking the boys plus Riley’s sweet girlfriend out to a fancy dinner, and on Thanksgiving day I’ll be fussing over frozen rolls as usual and bringing those over to my hospice-fam-turned-real-fam’s house. I’ll be sharing the holiday with some folks who have become very dear to me, I could never have imagined it a year ago and isn’t that kind of wonderful? Among all the change, some new connections that truly fill my cup.
I am feeling that holiday sense of time hurtling along faster than usual, but fewer of the pressures. Like everything else it is a mixed gift of remembering what was while adjusting to what’s now. I ordered photo cards! I feel very proud of myself for that, it seemed way too overwhelming at first and then I just barreled my way through it and now it’s done and hopefully they are cute and a good memento of a very *wipes brow* memorable year.
I bought an adorable reindeer-shaped decoration made of fake greenery and attached it to my house and that in and of itself felt like such an achievement. Thank you TJ Maxx for being so awesome even though you are a no-shit sensory nightmare! I also got some pretty holiday throw pillows which will have to be my stand-in for a tree this year, perhaps Billy the chaos kitten will be compatible with precarious decor in the future but that time is definitely not now.
One thing that is cheering among the difficulty of different: I have always put out some sweet ramshackle ornaments and whatnots that have more family meaning than aesthetics and this time around I can have a more minimal and stylish holiday setup, the sort I have often admired but thought, well, not for me. So that is nice, you know? It is hard for sure, but there is a part of it that is honestly a delight. Now I have had both experiences. More, not less.
The entire divorce kit and caboodle is very: you can have this, but it means that. I keep writing that, I know. But it just keeps being the biggest thing, how this is so good and so bad at the exact same time! A whole lot of loss, and yet so many expected and also utterly surprising gains.
I will say that one silver lining of the bummer parts that have unfolded is that I have no uncertainties whatsoever about the decision to separate. It is good and healing to feel it in my bones that it was the right thing to do.
In the ongoing balance of good and bad, it truly is a net positive. The holidays won’t be like they were — and what a joyful thing it is to make new traditions and experience different energies. I feel so lucky to have such great kids and a new life that’s being rebuilt around my own preferences and choices. I’m so happy to do cheery intentional shopping only, with some new fun-to-buy-for recipients in mind. I feel like I can take big full breaths now throughout December, knowing all that I do will be with and for those who truly care for me in all that I am.
Nov
18
I was talking to a friend, a woman who also has several years of sobriety from alcohol, about how I feel about drinking these days — how, even though it feels a little jinxy to say it out loud, I feel more resolve than ever. Even though I am living in precarious times, wading through a lot of murk with no one around to hide the booze breath from.
There’s this part in Anne Lammot’s Operating Instructions where she talks about imagining relapsing, going to the liquor store, but playing out the scene by putting her new baby boy on the counter where you pay, because that’s what it would take from her. I have thought about that so many times over the years and that’s exactly how it feels now, except it would be my life, my future, everything I might hope for in this new season. If I picked up one drink, it would all be taken from me.
But not immediately, and that’s the most chilling part. There’s a recovery saying about your addiction doing pushups in the parking lot, like it’s always just getting stronger regardless of what you’re doing to stay sober. I have never really identified with the higher power part of 12 step programs but I do know I am no match for drinking. I will never be stronger than that motherfucker in the sense of being able to control it, the only way to win is not to play.
If I had a drink now, it would bring on a world of shit that would ruin everything I care about before it brought me to some bitter end — death, jail, or institituion as they say. Now that I live alone? It would be so dark. It would be a ruinous path of terrible choices. It would turn me into someone else. It would drag my character into the dirt, it would destroy my relationships, it would scar my children, it would make me so sick and sad and trapped. I would not be able to take a single free breath, it would erode my soul.
And I imagine it would happen pretty fast but not fast enough. It would take me down hard, all those pushups, but not so quickly as to be merciful. I would undo everything I have worked on to feel okay and capable and hopeful with every swallow and the worst part is that I would probably think, at least for a while, that I was having a pretty good time.
I don’t count days but I have not had a drink since May of 2013. That’s long enough to feel some real separation from it, in a careful sort of way that does not live in cockiness. I’m never like, I BEAT YOU HAHA NEENER NEENER. I will never be anything other than grateful that I was able to put a stop to it and that the time keeps adding up.
My past sobriety journey has been rocky as some of you know and I am not fully what the 12 steppers would call living life on life’s terms. In full transparency THC is part of my life, the expensive legal bougie-branded kind, and I’m OK with people knowing that. I stick to night time edibles, it’s not full sobriety but it is for me a very different beast than alcohol. I’ll probably never be completely zen about avoiding not-the-most-healthy escapism whether that’s a gummy or an entire pint of salted caramel core ice cream or doomscrolling or The Golden Bachelor.
But I don’t drink any more and that is something. That is a gift and I am so thankful for it. I am so thankful that I don’t have to be scared of myself right now. I am so thankful my kids don’t have to worry about me. I am so thankful for those 12 years and counting, for the fact that I get to really live in these new hard/beautiful days, for everything the future brings that I don’t have to hand over along with everything I love.
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