Walking the Walk

“Walking the Walk”

 

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

 

            I haven’t written a post in a while, mostly because I haven’t had the time.  I am coming to the end of the summer semester of grad school, and, as I learned last summer, the accelerated summer semester is rather brutal.  I have ten weeks of classes when I would normally have thirteen and those thirteen are a little more spread out so there is time to work on papers and projects.  In addition to a Tuesday night class that went from 6:00pm to 9:45pm, I took a Saturday class that met for five Saturdays and ran from 9:00am to 5:00pm.  There was little time to breathe and though I have two more weeks of the one class, I am essentially finished with little left to turn in and complete.  There are others things on my schedule besides my full-time job, I won’t go into all of it, and though Frank and his parents do the lion-share of the time with the kids while I am plodding my way through this program, I still do spend time with them.  Suffice it to say that I am busy.

            So you would think that now that the semester is winding down and I know I will have time to relax for six weeks before the next semester starts and the madness begins again, this time with an internship which will ramp things up a notch, that I would be relieved.  Well, yes, and no.  Yes I have been looking forward to a break, but as it approaches I find myself starting to feel an old sense of mild panic at the thought of too much time on my hands.  Let me explain.

            I discovered once I stopped drinking, that the booze was, “but a symptom” as it says in the Big Book.  I drank because I did not like being inside my own head.  Being alone with my own thoughts was a terrifying state in which to be.  Being bored and alone was a perfect storm and it still can be.  Now don’t get me wrong, my mind can be a wonderfully, creative and entertaining playground, but it can also contain horrors and nightmares, the likes of which I would not wish on my worst enemy.

            When I came out of the recovery house in June of 2014 and got an apartment, I was alone a lot.  I became accustomed to it.  At the time I was working my fourth step which required a lot of self-reflection and a lot of writing.  That was the period of time when I had started this blog as well and so I wrote a lot and more consistently.  I spent a lot of time alone and a lot of time in self-examination.  It was my own Walden Pond period.  I had an apartment and the only things I hung on the walls were a picture of each of the three kids.  It was a nice little apartment but I kept it stark I think for a reason.  I didn’t want to be too comfortable there.  I didn’t want it to feel too much like home because I didn’t want to stay.  I was either going to be going home to Frank and the kids or I wasn’t and I was trying to figure that all out.

            Fast forward four years and I have a house and a very different life.  I know what I want and where I am going and what I am worth.  I think I pack my days because I don’t want to miss out on opportunities.  It is as if I am making up for lost time, the time I lost from addiction.  If I examine this creeping sense of discomfort I feel at the idea of having time alone in my head, then I know I need to take stock.  This is a warning sign.  Maybe I am going at this pace because I want to learn and to help others but maybe I also like not having that time alone in my head.  Maybe I should recognize that and see it for what it is and make some adjustments to balance my mind so when I have time to myself I don’t feel uncomfortable.

            I spoke to a close friend in recovery about this panic I feel the other day and he pointed out that perhaps I need to walk the walk.  He asked me what I would tell a sponsee in the same situation.  I answered, that I would have told them they need to sit in the discomfort and spend time alone, doing nothing, and re-acquaint themselves with themselves.  So I guess I have to do what I would tell others to do and hang out with me for a bit.  I have to do something shocking, like read a book for pleasure (and preferably not one about treating others with PTSD).  I have gotten so used to running at 100 miles an hour that I have forgotten what it is like on my own private Walden Pond.  So you can expect more blog pieces over the coming weeks, because when I visit Walden Pond in my head, I generally have a lot to write about.