Letting go and embracing

I have struggled with sleep-or NOT sleep for a long time now. Years. Over a decade really. Part of my journey that seems to have endless paths, entrances and exits, is to address this sleep thing. This. Sleep. Thing. Not MY sleep thing I do not want this to be a part of my life any longer. It is not MY sleep thing, MY alcohol thing, MY anxiety thing. It is just a thing. A thing I am going to be turning a focus on with daring truth.

girl sleeping on bed — Photo by Sam K on Pexels.com

When I was pregnant with my son, I went through the WORST insomnia. I ended up half crazed and pouring my heart and mind out to a priest who had also been the doctor who delivered my first child. We drove over 100 miles to see him. I sat across from him twisting a Kleenex, bloodshot eyes that were darting about like a wild animal by that point in the insomnia I am sure.

He said to me two things. 1) Take the Ambien you new doctor prescribed. 2) Just say thank you for what is in your life. Simply thank you.

I was so confused! Thank you for what? For modern medicine? I most certainly was and am! Thank you for the child who has grown into an incredible young man? That is an easy one! I did not get it. I pushed him for more.

Be thankful for even the hard part…the insomnia, the unknown, the scariness of it all and the love of people all around you. In my mad state of mind, I got it. I was in it. I was grateful. Maybe it was because those were words breathed from a holy man’s lips, but they felt solid and real when my world was melting around me. I had a moment where I felt grateful for the vulnerable exposure my sleepless nights had led me to. I could finally let lose my grip on perfection and just slip into release.

Beloved wrapped his coat around me, drove me to a pharmacy, fill my script and took me home. I laid in his arms as I finally fell into a deep, drugged sleep.

That was over a decade ago. Now, I do catch glimpses of being grateful for even those experiences that hurt or require me to expose my trembling self. Perhaps alcohol, insomnia and anxiety are all lesson it themselves. Perhaps they are MY lessons. Perhaps these really are MY things. And for them, I am grateful.

I did not know…

That I could dance sober and still kill it! Who knew? I was totally NOT interested in going out and listening to this great band because I would have to be doing it without social lubricant. Nada. Nothing. Okay-fries and a Coke. I told Beloved on the way there that I was NOT going to dance. Period. End of story. I can only handle so much. The cravings were going to be beast enough to keep in check.

woman in white sleeveless shirt gold brown leaf in front of her face — Photo by Mariana on Pexels.com

I sat like a flower at our table for the first 30 minutes feeling the flush in my cheeks of everyone staring at me as they had a good time. How that is possible, I am not sure-but in the newly sober mind, it is reality. I was just watching and absorbing what it is like to have 100 people on a tiny dance floor all at various stages of inebriation. Giggling 21s with a beer in hand boogeying like they own the place to the guy with bloodshot eyes and a tipped hat nodding along at the edge of the linoleum, barely keeping beat but at least on the dance floor. Unlike me. But watching him gaze into nothing when such a swirl of life was about him cured my cravings.

Then a slow song came on. Beloved looked at me with puppy dog eyes..he is one of those rare breeds that loves to dance. I couldn’t say no. Off we went, swaying like a couple of sweaty palmed 8th graders in a gym decorated with construction paper and helium balloons. There was a tiny moment of bliss.

Next song was a fast one-a new classic. Uptown Funk You Up! Damn-and it did! My groove thing came back and I blossomed from wall flower to owning my own little spot on the dance floor. I am thinking all my drunken nights of gyrating on dance floors in college bars, honkey tonks and legit dance clubs has created muscle memory! I just let myself go and danced. Let me be me! We danced the band to closing!

Cold fries and a warm Coke never tasted better.

Twiddling. Thumbs.

Here I am at an out-of-town conference. It is 6:00 pm after a grueling day of PowerPoint blatherings. I am in a posh hotel surrounded by tons and tons of awesome bars, pubs, eateries and entertainments. A month ago, I would have made some quick friends and joined in the revelry that abounds just outside my hotel door. Laughter, cackles and “Wait for me!” float down the hall. Wait. For. Me.

person woman hotel laptop — Photo by Stokpic on Pexels.com

I am waiting. Waiting for myself to find myself. I am waiting. I am waiting for me to become more me. I am waiting. Waiting for something that I am not really sure even exists to show herself to me. I am waiting. For. Me.

I am going to flip on some crap TV (Oh-blessed me! We do not have a TV in our home-so this is a treat!) eat the fourth cookie I smuggled out of the conference (I am giving myself until Halloween and then-that is the next area of focus. Food!) and then I am going to fall asleep. No drunken silliness with new found friends taking in all the city has to offer. No wild tales to tell in my old age (I think I may have accrued enough of those actually-see, when you drink too much it turns out you have to have WAY MORE tales because you can only remember 1% of them. Good thing I drank so much? Wait, I could have just….duh!)

BEST PART? No crawling into bed and crawling back out at 6:00 am and no eyes scrunched shut and grimaced face in the morning when I try to piece together exactly what the night had all entailed and get that wave of “Oh God” when the images flicker back into reality.

Nope. Just me, a big TV and a big cookie. Oh-and an amazing shower WITHOUT any children knocking on the door!

Good night.

PS That is NOT me in the picture. There are not nearly enough cookie crumbs for that to be me…

Shutting My Mind Up

So, today was a pretty great day by most people’s standards. I worked hard giving a presentation about the brain to a lot of teachers. 99% went GREAT! 1% did not-nothing big, just not great. Nothing that anyone else probably even took note off, just my own little internal dialog that frankly sounds like my grandmothers-neither one of which was a terribly kind or compassionate person. (Sorry Grandmas, but I am going to assume you are both in much more enlightened places now and would agree with great compassion for yourselves that this is true.)

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After my presentation, I noticed my tricky mind at play. 1) Totally thought about (HARD!) drink(s) with dinner to celebrate the success! An absolute craving. I told my husband. The Itch slunk away with its tail between its legs and stared at me the rest of dinner from across the room. “I can’t believe you really told him OUR secret…” Yep-I did and look at you stupid craving-you are all by yourself in the corner. 2) The focus in my mind is that 1-freaking %!!! Now I need some strategies to get that part of my mind to cool it. I can’t be perfect. Why do I feel such a NEED to be perfect? What is it that I am lacking? What is it that I am trying to change? This is painful. This has been life long. This, I did not deal with when I was drinking. This has got to go. This nagging voice has got to shut up in my mind. STOP!

Turns out some things don’t change…

I know I could not have possibly thought that quitting drinking would magically make all my problems disappear, but I guess I would thinking I would feel less overwhelmed by life. I have so much on plate and such a tiny fork to dig in with…

Wait, just typing those words helped release something. Yes, I have a TON to do today. Yes, it all MUST be done today. Yes, my husband is going out of town for a few days, which certainly increases the amount on my plate. BUT, I am going to be doing ALL of it with a clear head. A clear head. No swirls, no distractions.

Holy crud-I just had a thought. Maybe one of the reasons that I had been drinking WAY too much is that I secretly believe that if I do not succeed at something (like this pile of life in front of me), that I always have an excuse that I really was not trying my hardest. That I could have done more/been more if I had tried harder, but since I was drunk-well-I obviously was not trying my hardest. And therefore, if I failed it was not a real reflection of the real me.

Strange how this blogging stuff really opens my eyes at times. It is also a really good thing that I thought about this as I just signed a CONTRACT with the person I thought I had blown it with in the email weeks ago. I know for a fact I will have to be present and putting out my best to fulfill this contract. I AM SO SCARED! What if I fail?

What if I fail? What if I fail? What if I fail?

Eeck…will have to think on that one some more.

Untangling Life

“But the beginning of things…is necessarily vague, tangled and chaotic…”

-Kate Chopin (1850-1904)

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I have no idea where to begin undoing the knot that is my life and am even sure how it even came to be. I pull one part, and other parts of the knot tighten…breathing becomes shallow and my palms sweat. I start awakening at in the middle of the night with the dreaded 3:00 am thoughts. Obvious that whatever I pulled was the wrong thread to tug on…

I try to shove my knot aside. Pretend all those mangled, wildly colored threads all screwed up together are really a perfectly ordered life- a gorgeous knitted, oatmeal cream sweater bought in a raining little village in Ireland. Look at me, I have it TOGETHER! (or rather PLEASE DON’T!) My life in the moment is not the truth. I know it is not. I know it is knot.

Four days ago was Beloved’s birthday. Gorgeous friends, gorgeous meal, gorgeous children beaming at their dad, gorgeous moment. Oatmeal sweater from Ireland gorgeous. Except, it wasn’t. I stole the whiskey I gave him as a gift. Stole it right from the cheery, glaring “It’s Your Day!” birthday bag and sucked it down in the pantry. I only stole the whiskey because I had already drank all my vodka while furiously cleaning the house, barking at my children and slamming together a “neverfail” meal that always seems so much more than it is.

Whiskey down the throat. Hiding in the pantry. A wife, a mother, a woman with a secret inhiding. I. Have. So. Many. Secrets. Secrets and truths and stories that run through my head, my life. What a tangled web I weave…

But no more. Daring Truth. I am daring myself to tell myself my truth. I am done pulling the little threads of my knot. It is time to get the scissors out, the pliers out (hell-the chainsaw and blowtorch out!) and really get to detangling these truths, half truths and no-where-near the truths that have all been woven together into this thing I am not even sure is my life.