It's been raining for what seems like years. It's colder than usual, everything is water logged and gross. The vibrant green of new spring life is darkened by the gray, stormy sky.. The timeless good vs. evil, scary vs. safe.
I'm feeling good sober and I'm not having any cravings to drink. I am grumpy though... I'm pretty sure it's PMS because I want to eat all of the things.
I'm also really sad about my friend and his family he has left behind. It's hard to resign to the senseless and relent your control, but it's the only thing you can do.
Looking forward to those pink clouds in my coffee.
Day 23, over and out.
Problems bother me only to the degree I permit them to.
I now better understand my problems and do not permit problems to overwhelm me.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Heartbreak and Hope
My friend died yesterday. He got some bad coke and died. He was an artist, brilliant, a husband, a brother, a son, a friend. He was a bright light and he was shiny.
He's gone now because we think feeling good means feeling nothing or something other than presence.
He was my friend and he is very loved. Now he's gone.
I'm so grateful to be sober and this gratitude is all I can think about.
He's gone now because we think feeling good means feeling nothing or something other than presence.
He was my friend and he is very loved. Now he's gone.
I'm so grateful to be sober and this gratitude is all I can think about.
"If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."
Saturday, May 6, 2017
Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness
Today is Day 20 and I'm having a bad day. My recovery and my sobriety are for me, but it's evident that though I'm in a marriage, I am alone.
I'm not making any big decisions because it's not in my program. I'm just realizing the immense loneliness I feel and have felt over the past 13 years. If my marriage makes it through my sobriety, I will be surprised.
I think I'm going to go back to bed.
Day 20... I'm looking forward to pink clouds... Maybe? Someday?
I'm not making any big decisions because it's not in my program. I'm just realizing the immense loneliness I feel and have felt over the past 13 years. If my marriage makes it through my sobriety, I will be surprised.
I think I'm going to go back to bed.
Day 20... I'm looking forward to pink clouds... Maybe? Someday?
Friday, May 5, 2017
Day 19
I'm still sober and grateful! I've been to a meeting every day since Monday and am making new, sober friends.
That being said, the weather is poopy and my leg muscles are super sore and achey still, so I don't really have a lot to say.
I'm meditating on "going to any length" to stay sober. Sobriety has been my first priority and has to remain so. However, I still need to find some balance for everything else.
That being said, the weather is poopy and my leg muscles are super sore and achey still, so I don't really have a lot to say.
I'm meditating on "going to any length" to stay sober. Sobriety has been my first priority and has to remain so. However, I still need to find some balance for everything else.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Zelda Fitzgerald Shouldn't Be Your Role Model
Today I met someone who said Zelda Fitzgerald was their role model. Instead of debating the merits of ZF being a role model, I just smiled and nodded.
ZF suffered from Bi-Polar Disorder and Manic Depression. She self medicated with a lot of alcohol. She was married to a man who was simultaneously threatened and enamored by her and because of this confusing dichotomy, he ended up shitting all over her before he died of alcoholism.
She died seven years later in a fire in the sanitarium where she lived, locked in a room awaiting her electric shock treatments.
It's really fucking sad.... Her life in its entirety wasn't sad, but shit, it wasn't something to aspire to. The only thing enviable is that she came from money and privilege and was famous..... If I had to live her life or the life of a hermit who lived in a shack, but was truly happy, I'd choose the hermit.
Humans are weird.
Why do we glamorize young, beautiful addicts? Seriously, no wonder so many of us are fucked up.
The fundamental object of life is emotional and spiritual growth.
Daily I put my life into a proper order, knowing which are the priorities.
ZF suffered from Bi-Polar Disorder and Manic Depression. She self medicated with a lot of alcohol. She was married to a man who was simultaneously threatened and enamored by her and because of this confusing dichotomy, he ended up shitting all over her before he died of alcoholism.
She died seven years later in a fire in the sanitarium where she lived, locked in a room awaiting her electric shock treatments.
It's really fucking sad.... Her life in its entirety wasn't sad, but shit, it wasn't something to aspire to. The only thing enviable is that she came from money and privilege and was famous..... If I had to live her life or the life of a hermit who lived in a shack, but was truly happy, I'd choose the hermit.
Humans are weird.
Why do we glamorize young, beautiful addicts? Seriously, no wonder so many of us are fucked up.
The fundamental object of life is emotional and spiritual growth.
Daily I put my life into a proper order, knowing which are the priorities.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Oogie Boogie Ghosts of Bad Times Past
I was reading about Children of Emotional Neglect and of course there was a quiz, and of course if you answered "yes" to three or more questions, you suffered "emotional neglect" as a child. It's kind of a hard quiz to take, emotionally, because I vividly remember being chastised for crying too much, being too happy or goofy and feeling like the attention I craved as a small child was a burden to everyone around me. Those are pretty painful emotional pinches that leave marks on the psyche of he four year old.
But, at the same time I was wincing at the memories this quiz was bringing to the surface, I was simultaneously rolling my eyes and thinking "Toughen the fuck up, ding dongs."
I'm in the tail of end of Generation X, being born in the late 1970's. My parents were raised by "the Greatest Generation", a generation that was born during the first Great War, saw Prohibition and the rise of organized crime, suffered through the Great Depression and sacrificed stoically during the rise and fall of Fascism, Genocide and WW2. The "GG" was the last American Generation to really, truly know group suffering on an intimate level and in the face of that great suffering, they persevered, never to speak of it again.
And you know what? They really, really needed to fucking talk about it. Just because they gave better, more prosperous lives to the Baby Boomers, there was a lot of underlying emotional damage they were silently dealing with and unknowingly passing on to their children. Their children, in return, wanted to break free of the misery shackles, but, at the same time, wanted the same comforts of tradition their parents bestowed on them. So they liberated themselves, while shackling themselves in tandem, leading to my Generation and the Age of Divorce and latchkey kids.
We were taught there were better things to cry about. There were, logically, to an adult. But, shit man.... You can't say that to toddlers. We were told that we were too loud, or that it wasn't the time to be silly, and to sit up straight, and, even though wool felt like shit against your skin and made you want to scream, you were lucky to be warm... oh, and kids were starving in China, so you should eat the gross, gray blob on your plate.
Sure, it's not abusive and it's not neglectful on an malicious level.... BUT, those sayings are also needless and totally contrary to human emotion. Fuck that. Cry if you want to cry, and laugh too loud at inappropriate times. There is going to be enough personal misery to come in a human being's lifetime that an adult who shits on the natural being of child, just needs to stop.
So, I'm stopping it. I didn't do it to my kids and I'm going to stop doing it to myself.
The past is gone forever.
No longer will I be victimized by the past. I am a new person.
But, at the same time I was wincing at the memories this quiz was bringing to the surface, I was simultaneously rolling my eyes and thinking "Toughen the fuck up, ding dongs."
I'm in the tail of end of Generation X, being born in the late 1970's. My parents were raised by "the Greatest Generation", a generation that was born during the first Great War, saw Prohibition and the rise of organized crime, suffered through the Great Depression and sacrificed stoically during the rise and fall of Fascism, Genocide and WW2. The "GG" was the last American Generation to really, truly know group suffering on an intimate level and in the face of that great suffering, they persevered, never to speak of it again.
And you know what? They really, really needed to fucking talk about it. Just because they gave better, more prosperous lives to the Baby Boomers, there was a lot of underlying emotional damage they were silently dealing with and unknowingly passing on to their children. Their children, in return, wanted to break free of the misery shackles, but, at the same time, wanted the same comforts of tradition their parents bestowed on them. So they liberated themselves, while shackling themselves in tandem, leading to my Generation and the Age of Divorce and latchkey kids.
We were taught there were better things to cry about. There were, logically, to an adult. But, shit man.... You can't say that to toddlers. We were told that we were too loud, or that it wasn't the time to be silly, and to sit up straight, and, even though wool felt like shit against your skin and made you want to scream, you were lucky to be warm... oh, and kids were starving in China, so you should eat the gross, gray blob on your plate.
Sure, it's not abusive and it's not neglectful on an malicious level.... BUT, those sayings are also needless and totally contrary to human emotion. Fuck that. Cry if you want to cry, and laugh too loud at inappropriate times. There is going to be enough personal misery to come in a human being's lifetime that an adult who shits on the natural being of child, just needs to stop.
So, I'm stopping it. I didn't do it to my kids and I'm going to stop doing it to myself.
The past is gone forever.
No longer will I be victimized by the past. I am a new person.
Monday, May 1, 2017
Day 15: Meditation: Transformation
This weekend was really hard. I have to remember to be mindful of my cycle because my pre and post-menstrual times are seriously choppy and emotional times and I am a person who is not comfortable with being emotionally uncomfortable.
I think this has everything to do with being the oldest daughter, middle child and child of an alcoholic, dysfunctional family. I was always the strong child. My older brother and younger sister fell apart so many times growing up, my parents, though divorced, were constantly putting back them back together. I felt I had to be strong, independent and together, not only to benefit my parents, but to feel superior to my siblings. NICE!
My dad went to rehab when I was in second grade. I never knew he had a drinking problem, mostly, because he was never home. I don't have any recollections of him being messy, or passing out... the only thing I can surmise now is that weekend mornings he liked to make greasy egg and mayo sandwiches to ease his hangovers. They were gross and thinking about them now makes me want to hurl.
The day he left for rehab, we told my Nanny he was going to Paris for business, which made sense because he had just gotten back from a month in China. Later that night, my Mom gathered us for dinner and told us that Dad was not only NOT in Paris, but in Riverside hospital, 30 miles away. We were not to tell anyone, especially our grandparents. This had zero affect on me, and I took my plate into the living room to watch television because Three's Company was on reruns and we had gotten to the Terri years. Terri was my favorite blonde.
We would go to family days at Rehab where we would sit though super long meetings with the adults, eat chicken salad croissants for lunch in the cafeteria, and then do child-centric art classes with weird old ladies who really wanted us to be sad. I loved chicken salad croissants, and was so relieved to be able to do some art, that when I got to "sad-sandwich art class", I was usually pretty chipper. I soon realized that if I wanted to get these grief vultures off of my back, I needed to make sad family finger painted portraits and then fake cry so I wouldn't have to talk. This satiated these women, and awarded me time to myself in the corner.
On the way home, we were allowed to rent whatever video we wanted from the video store AND we got to have TV dinners for supper. It was awesome. The Weird Science and Swanson years.
Soon after my dad got sober, he decided he was too selfish to be a full time father, so he moved out. Not having him around was normal, so I really didn't realize how terribly this affected me until I was in my 20s and had developed crippling anxiety, depression and panic attacks.
Today I am mediating about transformation and what it takes. I need to delve into these terrible, very bad things that happened when I was a child in order to put together the puzzle that lead me to hate myself. It's not fun, but transformation rarely is.
The Phoenix has to burn and char before it can rise from the ashes and regain its life.
Pass the matches, please.
I think this has everything to do with being the oldest daughter, middle child and child of an alcoholic, dysfunctional family. I was always the strong child. My older brother and younger sister fell apart so many times growing up, my parents, though divorced, were constantly putting back them back together. I felt I had to be strong, independent and together, not only to benefit my parents, but to feel superior to my siblings. NICE!
My dad went to rehab when I was in second grade. I never knew he had a drinking problem, mostly, because he was never home. I don't have any recollections of him being messy, or passing out... the only thing I can surmise now is that weekend mornings he liked to make greasy egg and mayo sandwiches to ease his hangovers. They were gross and thinking about them now makes me want to hurl.
The day he left for rehab, we told my Nanny he was going to Paris for business, which made sense because he had just gotten back from a month in China. Later that night, my Mom gathered us for dinner and told us that Dad was not only NOT in Paris, but in Riverside hospital, 30 miles away. We were not to tell anyone, especially our grandparents. This had zero affect on me, and I took my plate into the living room to watch television because Three's Company was on reruns and we had gotten to the Terri years. Terri was my favorite blonde.
We would go to family days at Rehab where we would sit though super long meetings with the adults, eat chicken salad croissants for lunch in the cafeteria, and then do child-centric art classes with weird old ladies who really wanted us to be sad. I loved chicken salad croissants, and was so relieved to be able to do some art, that when I got to "sad-sandwich art class", I was usually pretty chipper. I soon realized that if I wanted to get these grief vultures off of my back, I needed to make sad family finger painted portraits and then fake cry so I wouldn't have to talk. This satiated these women, and awarded me time to myself in the corner.
On the way home, we were allowed to rent whatever video we wanted from the video store AND we got to have TV dinners for supper. It was awesome. The Weird Science and Swanson years.
Soon after my dad got sober, he decided he was too selfish to be a full time father, so he moved out. Not having him around was normal, so I really didn't realize how terribly this affected me until I was in my 20s and had developed crippling anxiety, depression and panic attacks.
Today I am mediating about transformation and what it takes. I need to delve into these terrible, very bad things that happened when I was a child in order to put together the puzzle that lead me to hate myself. It's not fun, but transformation rarely is.
The Phoenix has to burn and char before it can rise from the ashes and regain its life.
Pass the matches, please.
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