Monday, February 19, 2018

Benediction


Benediction

 

            This morning I woke up and lay in the dark and prayed before I even moved.  I said the third step prayer out loud to my empty bedroom so I would hear it with my own ears and so that my higher power would hear it also.  Today I have four years.

 

            I am writing this and I can’t really even wrap my head around that.  Partly because the journey is ongoing and this is just a marker along the path of a lifetime but partly because I never would have guessed four years ago that my life would have looked like this today.  My God am I lucky and my God am I thankful.

 

            This time four years ago I woke up in detox at Caron treatment center in a state of panic and dread.  The depths of the despair I felt then are difficult to describe but they rivalled the feelings I had when Liam died.  The difference was I had brought them on myself and I alone was to blame for the state of affairs and I alone could fix it but I didn’t think I could – or so I thought.

 

            By that point I had no self-worth.  I spoke to myself in a language of hate.  I shouted words at myself inside my head that dripped with disdain, disgust and anger.  I no longer knew who I was and I was trying, through substance abuse and other maladaptive behaviors, to reject my own soul. 

 

I had reached a point where I had relapsed enough that I did not think I would ever make it.  I had reached a point where I thought my children would be better off without me and that Frank and all the other people who cared about me and were trying so hard to make me well would be better off also.  I am not saying that to be dramatic and I had no plan to kill myself, but I had a sincere desire to wish myself out of existence.

 

            Something about the stay at Caron kindled a tiny spark of hope and I started to want to try again.  Then Frank put up some healthy boundaries.  I don’t know where he found the strength to do so, but he did.  At the time I was angry but I am ever so grateful to him now for doing so.  Those boundaries forced me into a recovery house.  That time in the recovery house forced me to look more closely at myself and it is where I found my sponsor and where I started working the steps that transformed my life and changed the way I see myself and the world.

 

            I then wrote a thorough fourth step that re-introduced me to my own soul.  Through that process I was able to see myself from all angles and accept the good along with the bad I had become so familiar with.  I saw myself clearly for the first time and began loving Fiona.

 

            So many things have happened over the course of these four years.  Some wonderful things and some things that have brought deep sadness.  But I am blessed with new perspective and a love for myself and life I never had before.

 

            I get to help people today and not hurt them.  What’s more, I am good at it.  And I no longer think people are better off without me, chief among them are my kids.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

The Sweetest Burn


The Sweetest Burn

 

            I have mentioned before that addiction is the great equalizer.  I can go into a twelve-step meeting and be sitting in a room of people that span all races, creeds, religions, genders, socio-economic strata and sexual preferences…  I walk in as the mainline soccer mom and end up sitting next to a tattooed, Harley-riding, ex-con and I get just as much from what he has to say as I do from what the lawyer across from us does.

            I’ve learned to suspend judgement.  I try not to categorize people anymore because when I do, I lose some of the strength of their message, and everyone has one if you listen carefully enough.  As I get older I realize that most of what I used to think I knew to be true isn’t anymore.  I no longer think that you have to have money to be rich.  I no longer believe that you have to have a formal, higher education to be intelligent and informed.  I no longer think you have to have age to be wise.

            There is a woman in my twelve-step circle who has a light about her.  She is beautiful, inside and out.  She is soft-spoken and sweet, covered in tattoos and full of wisdom.  She is twenty-three.  I love when she comes to my home group because she brings with her a calmness and a quiet grace that makes me feel at home.  We often talk about getting together for coffee and never seem to manage to do so but we text back and forth every so often and I value her friendship.

            Not long ago she and I were checking in with one another via text and she asked me again about getting together and if we could do so at a specific time.  I had to turn her down because I was busy and I listed the many reasons why.  I complained that I had recovery, the kids, a full-time job, a part-time job and grad school and that it never ends.  I ended my text saying that sometimes I manage to sleep.  She texted me back with this simple phrase followed by two smiley face emojis and a heart…  “Awwww I’m sorry God blessed you with so much.”

            …it was the sweetest burn I have ever gotten… and I needed it. 

I need those reminders from time-to-time.  I need people like this woman in my life to remind me that I am right where I need to be and that I have so many reasons to be grateful and so many reasons to get up in the morning and so many reasons to be happy.

            I was off yesterday.  I was off, like many single people I think, because it was Valentine’s Day.  Though I know it is just a day like any other and I know that I am quite happy, I started feeling sorry for myself.  I am happier than I have been in years and I am loving living in my house and living my life with all that it has to richly offer me right now.  I do, however, get tired sometimes being alone.  I do, however, sometimes wish I was coming home at night to someone other than two angry cats.  Does this mean that I am ungrateful or weak?  No.  It means that I am human and it means that I am having normal emotions and that I am allowed to have a momentary pity-party. 

            I had class last night.  It is a class on treating complex trauma and it is hard.  I leave there every Wednesday night feeling drained.  There are weeks I feel like we have just read about my own past and though I am getting a lot out of the class and I know that I will be able to use what I am learning to help others, it exhausts me.  I got in my car and started to cry.  I prayed for about the fourth time that day and got on the phone to my sponsor.  We prayed together and I was talked down from my emotional ledge.  I went home, did some reading in the Big Book and went to bed because sometimes that is the best answer.  When I woke up this morning, the text that my friend sent me weeks ago popped into my mind almost straight away and so I sat down to write this piece.

            No, I am not in a relationship right now.  Yes I am single.  Yes it was Valentine’s Day yesterday.  But guess what?  I am so loved.  I have so many people in my life who care about me.  My kids, for one, are a part of my life and this time almost four years ago I was afraid they might not be.  I have deep friendships that continue to grow and expand and there are a vast array of people literally around the world who care what happens to me today.  So I can have an off day, but I am not going to stay in that space.  I am not going to allow myself to wallow in a place in my mind that doesn’t even paint a realistic picture of what my life actually looks like right now.  As my friend said, God has blessed me with so much.