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.

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.)

red stop sign — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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!

Untangling Life

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

-Kate Chopin (1850-1904)

Photo by Fancycrave.com on Pexels.com

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.