The Dawning...
I read stories in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (referred to as the Big Book) and there are many stories about spiritual awakenings. Many talk about a flash, or a sudden realization, a quick and overwhelming sense of the spirit and an understanding that there is something higher and greater than the sick, selfish alcoholic self. These stories are amazing and attractive and provide hope to many sufferers. They can also cause frustration for the multitudes of people for whom this does not happen in the same way.
I have always been attracted to these flash-bang stories. I wanted a spiritual awakening and I wanted one quickly. I am such a text book alcoholic. I, like many addicts, want things right now. I want what I want when I want it as they say. I had gastric bypass surgery because I wanted to lose weight and fast without the effort of exercise and diet. That didn't work out well did it? I became an alcoholic shortly thereafter AND began to regain some of the weight I lost.
It is easy now for me to see my flawed thinking and easy now for me to see that flawed thinking in others who may seek my counsel. I worry that my clarity will not last so I look myself fully in the eye every day now by practicing the tenth step. The tenth step is all about reviewing your actions and looking for flaws and when finding them rectifying them immediately. I worry about how I will hold a mirror up to another for them to see themselves clearly. Looking in the mirror is critical and until someone is willing to pick up the mirror and look, then I must hold it up for them but do so firmly with love and understanding. It is a precarious balancing act.
In my home group we say that people who have gone through the steps have reached the other side. To some that may sound arrogant, but it isn't meant to be elitist at all. It is an acknowledgment of the self examining work that has been done. It is almost like that saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side"... Well, it occurs to me that it is greener but not because the grass is different on the other side, but because I have better vision. I would argue that most of the people who enter the rooms of AA want the greener grass, but unless they actually do the steps, they will never see it.
It took me some months of working and writing and following the directions of my sponsor before I started to recognize a few things. I was starting to feel better. I was starting to like myself. I was starting to stand taller, care more about my appearance, look people in the eye, emerge from my hole of self-pity. I was starting to smile and laugh and become sure-footed. My problems were not gone and my life was chaotic, but I was not. I was steadily plodding along doing the next right thing with a growing awareness that I was not alone. I was seeing the benefits of my new clarity all around me and I was having epiphanies right, left and center. I was becoming the person that I have always wanted to be and what an amazing realization that was.
So I did not have a flash-bang spiritual awakening, I would describe it differently. It was as though I got up early in the morning while it was still dark. I began my day and went about doing the things I needed to do and began slowly to feel warmth, so I lifted my head and saw the slow beautiful dawning of the sun.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Though She Be But Little...
Though She Be But Little...
"Though she be but little, she is fierce." A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
I think of this line when I look at Wren. She is a tiny package of confidence and tenacity. She sees things in a way I do not, she knows herself, she knows what she wants and she does not see obstacles, she sees challenges. When she gets an answer wrong while doing her homework, she does not give up, she gets determined and really wants to figure it out. You can see the wheels turning as she pushes herself to work it out because she will not be defeated. I have seen her go toe-to-toe with her father and grandfather on something she thinks is unfair, standing dwarfed by them with her hands on her hips, not backing down.
I love all these things about her and so many more, but I am perplexed by my own reaction to her at times. With this confidence and tenacity comes sassiness and bossiness that rubs me the wrong way and I am not entirely sure why. I have found myself over the past few months admonishing her to stop being bossy, and telling her to "be sweet."
It wasn't until Frank pointed out that he struggles with how to deal with that as well when approaching Wren that I started to question my discomfort and my reactions. I used never to question things and grew tired of Frank's constant questioning of things, but now I see it as essential to my growth and happiness, no matter how tiring it might be.
So why does it bother me when she is sassy and bossy? Certainly it is not always comfortable to deal with and you can argue that it is not terribly attractive, but is it different coming from a boy? I would argue that it is. I would argue that we would see such action from a boy as being assertive and would see these traits as leadership skills. I think of the working world and know that women who are in charge and assertive are often labeled as "bitch". Do I want Wren to grow up and be afraid of letting the world know who she is and what she thinks? I do not.
If I think back to my own childhood I think I had that spark as well. I don't think it was as strong as Wren's but I remember it was there. I grew up in a different time, a different family and a different culture and I listened when I was told to "be sweet". I took it to heart and stopped sharing my observations, voicing my opinions and being fierce. I thought that being demure on weighty matters was what I was supposed to do when inside I actually had a lot to say. "Being sweet" did not serve me well, it snuffed out my confidence and made me question my own worth.
So now I am trying to saying, "be respectful" to Wren. I don't want her spark to fade, her fierceness to diminish, her sweetness to snuff out who she really is. I will say this to Dermot as well. He has far less confidence in himself than his sister and I worry equally about him as I do about her just for many different reasons.
"From a tiny spark may burst a mighty flame." Dante Alighieri
"Though she be but little, she is fierce." A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
I think of this line when I look at Wren. She is a tiny package of confidence and tenacity. She sees things in a way I do not, she knows herself, she knows what she wants and she does not see obstacles, she sees challenges. When she gets an answer wrong while doing her homework, she does not give up, she gets determined and really wants to figure it out. You can see the wheels turning as she pushes herself to work it out because she will not be defeated. I have seen her go toe-to-toe with her father and grandfather on something she thinks is unfair, standing dwarfed by them with her hands on her hips, not backing down.
I love all these things about her and so many more, but I am perplexed by my own reaction to her at times. With this confidence and tenacity comes sassiness and bossiness that rubs me the wrong way and I am not entirely sure why. I have found myself over the past few months admonishing her to stop being bossy, and telling her to "be sweet."
It wasn't until Frank pointed out that he struggles with how to deal with that as well when approaching Wren that I started to question my discomfort and my reactions. I used never to question things and grew tired of Frank's constant questioning of things, but now I see it as essential to my growth and happiness, no matter how tiring it might be.
So why does it bother me when she is sassy and bossy? Certainly it is not always comfortable to deal with and you can argue that it is not terribly attractive, but is it different coming from a boy? I would argue that it is. I would argue that we would see such action from a boy as being assertive and would see these traits as leadership skills. I think of the working world and know that women who are in charge and assertive are often labeled as "bitch". Do I want Wren to grow up and be afraid of letting the world know who she is and what she thinks? I do not.
If I think back to my own childhood I think I had that spark as well. I don't think it was as strong as Wren's but I remember it was there. I grew up in a different time, a different family and a different culture and I listened when I was told to "be sweet". I took it to heart and stopped sharing my observations, voicing my opinions and being fierce. I thought that being demure on weighty matters was what I was supposed to do when inside I actually had a lot to say. "Being sweet" did not serve me well, it snuffed out my confidence and made me question my own worth.
So now I am trying to saying, "be respectful" to Wren. I don't want her spark to fade, her fierceness to diminish, her sweetness to snuff out who she really is. I will say this to Dermot as well. He has far less confidence in himself than his sister and I worry equally about him as I do about her just for many different reasons.
"From a tiny spark may burst a mighty flame." Dante Alighieri
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
So I Chew...
So I Chew...
Marriage is hard. It just is. It is impossible to live with another person who has their own thoughts, memories, feelings, hopes and ways of doing things and get along all the time. The notion that you fall in love at first site, join in matrimony and live your life sighing dreamily at one another while slowly slurping the same piece of spaghetti till you kiss over a romantic moonlit dinner every day for eternity is, well, simply not true. Loving someone you would like to spend your life with does not come easy. These notions are the stuff of Sweet Valley High novels and Disney movies and I was brought up on a steady diet of these and believed them hook, line and sinker.
Marriage can also be wonderful, full of adventure, passion, care and mutual respect. The problem remains that those things rarely can be retained without work and lots of it. I think I always felt deep down that if you had to work at it then it wasn't meant to be or something else as utterly naive. Well now Frank and I are working and working hard. There is damage to repair and a future to map and disagreements to negotiate. There are hopes and dreams to protect and children to raise and budgets to discuss and date nights to plan and it. is. exhausting.
Back when we were first married, Frank's grandfather, Wally, was still alive and in a nursing home nearby. My mother-in-law, a dogged protector and nurturer of her family, had had him living at home for a long time until our wedding when he went to the nursing home just for the weekend while she was away. While there he got very ill and ended up remaining as his medical needs were greater. Joan went every day to feed him dinner and when that became inhibitive to her sanity, we all started taking turns visiting him an feeding him dinner. We would often set up up at the nurses station where there were other people and more activity; where the action was.
I remember a little old lady who used to hang out at the nurses station every day named Molly. She was chatty and clearly lonely and I came to love talking to her. One day she patted me on the knee and asked me how long Frank and I had been married. I told her we had been married less than a year and she smiled knowingly and said, "That's ok honey, the first five years are hell, but then it gets better." I remember laughing, but you know what? Truer words... Except we are on year 14 now!
Granted, we have had some extraordinary obstacles with the death of Liam, Frank's cancer and my alcoholism, but everyone has something don't they? All I know is that on the days when I feel like giving up I don't. Everytime Frank looks like he has had enough, he doesn't give up either. I have to believe that this tenacity that we share will carry us farther.
I have recently had some bumps that all seemed to coincide at the same time. I got tired and I stopped trying as hard. I didn't get up early like I normally do, I didn't journal, I didn't write on the blog, I didn't read the daily literature I need to, I didn't make as many meetings and I began to rest on my laurels. I told myself it was no big deal, I told myself that I deserved a break from it all and guess what? I felt it. I don't mean that I started wanting to drink, but I didn't feel as good about myself, I didn't treat others as well as I would like to, I started thinking negative thoughts, I wasn't able to see Frank's point of view in some of our discussions and it all suffered because of it. In reality, though there were some negative things happening, there were some wonderful things as well, in fact multitude of them. What happened to my own advice that there is freedom in discipline? What happened to gratitude?
I have put myself back in the saddle and another gem from Molly comes to mind. I noticed that every night after dinner she went to her room to get a chocolate covered marshmallow from a box and ate one. She always had a box of these and always ate just one. I asked her what they were and she said they were available only at Passover and she bought enough to eat one every day for the whole year because she loved them so much. I said to her, "but Molly, don't they get stale?" Her very simple answer was to shrug and say, "So I chew!"
Some times life is that simple. Sometimes in order to have something that you love you have to protect what you've got, discipline yourself and deal with the staleness. So as I said, I am back in the saddle of the things that make me the better me I want to be and when things get tough, I plan to simply chew.
Marriage is hard. It just is. It is impossible to live with another person who has their own thoughts, memories, feelings, hopes and ways of doing things and get along all the time. The notion that you fall in love at first site, join in matrimony and live your life sighing dreamily at one another while slowly slurping the same piece of spaghetti till you kiss over a romantic moonlit dinner every day for eternity is, well, simply not true. Loving someone you would like to spend your life with does not come easy. These notions are the stuff of Sweet Valley High novels and Disney movies and I was brought up on a steady diet of these and believed them hook, line and sinker.
Marriage can also be wonderful, full of adventure, passion, care and mutual respect. The problem remains that those things rarely can be retained without work and lots of it. I think I always felt deep down that if you had to work at it then it wasn't meant to be or something else as utterly naive. Well now Frank and I are working and working hard. There is damage to repair and a future to map and disagreements to negotiate. There are hopes and dreams to protect and children to raise and budgets to discuss and date nights to plan and it. is. exhausting.
Back when we were first married, Frank's grandfather, Wally, was still alive and in a nursing home nearby. My mother-in-law, a dogged protector and nurturer of her family, had had him living at home for a long time until our wedding when he went to the nursing home just for the weekend while she was away. While there he got very ill and ended up remaining as his medical needs were greater. Joan went every day to feed him dinner and when that became inhibitive to her sanity, we all started taking turns visiting him an feeding him dinner. We would often set up up at the nurses station where there were other people and more activity; where the action was.
I remember a little old lady who used to hang out at the nurses station every day named Molly. She was chatty and clearly lonely and I came to love talking to her. One day she patted me on the knee and asked me how long Frank and I had been married. I told her we had been married less than a year and she smiled knowingly and said, "That's ok honey, the first five years are hell, but then it gets better." I remember laughing, but you know what? Truer words... Except we are on year 14 now!
Granted, we have had some extraordinary obstacles with the death of Liam, Frank's cancer and my alcoholism, but everyone has something don't they? All I know is that on the days when I feel like giving up I don't. Everytime Frank looks like he has had enough, he doesn't give up either. I have to believe that this tenacity that we share will carry us farther.
I have recently had some bumps that all seemed to coincide at the same time. I got tired and I stopped trying as hard. I didn't get up early like I normally do, I didn't journal, I didn't write on the blog, I didn't read the daily literature I need to, I didn't make as many meetings and I began to rest on my laurels. I told myself it was no big deal, I told myself that I deserved a break from it all and guess what? I felt it. I don't mean that I started wanting to drink, but I didn't feel as good about myself, I didn't treat others as well as I would like to, I started thinking negative thoughts, I wasn't able to see Frank's point of view in some of our discussions and it all suffered because of it. In reality, though there were some negative things happening, there were some wonderful things as well, in fact multitude of them. What happened to my own advice that there is freedom in discipline? What happened to gratitude?
I have put myself back in the saddle and another gem from Molly comes to mind. I noticed that every night after dinner she went to her room to get a chocolate covered marshmallow from a box and ate one. She always had a box of these and always ate just one. I asked her what they were and she said they were available only at Passover and she bought enough to eat one every day for the whole year because she loved them so much. I said to her, "but Molly, don't they get stale?" Her very simple answer was to shrug and say, "So I chew!"
Some times life is that simple. Sometimes in order to have something that you love you have to protect what you've got, discipline yourself and deal with the staleness. So as I said, I am back in the saddle of the things that make me the better me I want to be and when things get tough, I plan to simply chew.
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