Sometimes lately I feel like I’ve been taken over by dancers from “Up with People!” or put on the psychic Hallmark wavelength, or placed in a John Denver song (“Sunshine… on my shoulder… makes me happppy..”)
It could be that next month I’ll have completed one-year of sobriety. Â It could be any number of things indescribably joyous that seem to have little relation to anything but a feeling that life is grand and that things are funny again, not just these things, but gallows humor kinds of things…Â
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But right now, nothing seems as lovely as watching Tina Fey impersonate Sarah Palin:
I’m in beautiful fresh-air San Francisco this week with a gajillion other women for BlogHer. I was somewhat nervous about coming to such a potentially alcohol-centric event again, but it has been completely lovely.
Kid-free vacations are so relaxing.. which is perhaps obvious to most thinking people but hasn’t always been so obvious to me.
I just returned from the Frida Kahlo Exhibit at the SF Museum of Modern Art and was blown away by the beautiful lengths many of us go to kill ourselves off for love. Here is a woman who suffered, transformed physically and emotionally and transformed her suffering into art. But her sorrow in many of the paintings is palpable. It jumped out and grabbed me by the throat until I had to swallow and breathe.
I turn 40 this week. It is something I’ve dreaded for over a year now. 40 seems so auspicious, so significant. At 30, I was newly divorced and childless, sad but carefree. At 40 life is so much complicated, more rich, more varied than I ever imagined. So this is it. The gateway to another decade.
What will happen?
That question used to have this answer: something better will happen. Something someone somewhere better than this will happen.
And now, for the first time, I feel down to my bones that the real answer is this: I don’t know. I never ever did know really… but a combination of wishful thinking and a very rich internal life kept me imagining other scenarios.. grander vistas than just this moment.
One year ago today I was still drinking more than ever, miserably unhappy in my marriage and with my life. I’d just ended an affair and felt like giving up, like all my life was good for was raising the kids and trying not to die. It was a grim and terrible secret.
Sobriety has given me my life back, has opened up new possibilities for work, family, love, that I honestly could never have imagined, but that is all so trite compared to this simple fact: I am happy now. Not always, not forever, but in this moment.
I do not drink anymore, one day at a time. I have a place to go every day, a fellowship of people who are also trying not to drink so that they can be better stronger more loving people. In their brokenness and hope, I see something majestic and lovely.
This week I am 40. This week I have 9 months of sobriety.
I am grateful beyond words…
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On more life happens notes:
1. The book is tooling along – 1/2 the manuscript is due this Friday… Thank you to everyone willing to slog through this first draft.
2. My parents are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary tomorrow – congratulations folks!
3. Looking forward to attending BlogHer next week sober… I’m sure it will be an entirely different experience this year
Next week, I’ll have 8 months sober. As a good friend reminded me recently, once you’ve put in significant time working on something, it would be a mistake to toss it all away over an old pattern, or person, no matter how alluring.
The thing about paying attention and trying to live more honestly, is that you have more accountability to yourself. It’s a good thing, but it often interferes with that old fun of “following one’s heart” (translation: doing whatever the hell you want if it makes you happy).
I’ll not claim anything even close to improvement or clarity or life is perfect, but I will say that sobriety and following a spiritual program is something I cherish now… sometimes even more than having fun, or following my natural inclinations and instincts.
When we were in high school, my older brother and I shared a 1972 bright blue Ford Pinto. It had ferns growing in the backseat, and you could see the road through the rusted out holes in the passenger side floor.
My brother was extremely popular… One girl fanted when he graduated (I kid you not) and other girls pretended to befriend me just to be near him “Hi Rachael. I want to come over and hang out. Is your brother there?” His powerful beauty and charisma spilled over to the Blue Pinto so this car became cool by association.
I was a band-nerd who didn’t talk to boys until I was 19 unless it was about God, and unfortunately hanging out with my beloved (if at times indifferent) older brother did not have the same cool-by-association effect on me.
But the Pinto was different. It was an automatic and it could go zero to 35mph in under 30 minutes. It was a love machine.
I have a warm place in my heart for junkie cars that you can pay for with cash. I was raised in a series of beaters each given names like “The Blue Bomber,” “Mystic Sea,” and “Gloria.” These were cars you could really connect with… The kind you could talk to when they failed to roll their windows down properly. The kind even 12 year old younger brothers were allowed to drive around neighborhood parking lots.
The days of driving cars with more character than safety are long-gone… but the love lives on…
I’ve just received some wonderful news. I’ve got an official book contract with a small publisher from San Francisco. I’ll be writing a book about parenting in early recovery and it will come out next Spring.
To get paid to do something I love is an honor I cannot completely fathom.
Thanks to all for the ongoing love and support.
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In other wonderful news, my beloved younger brother Mark and his beautiful wife Rebecca have a brand new healthy gorgeous baby boy! Welcome little angel!
Who knew joking about (snarking on) Mother’s Day was such a controversial move?
This Babble post on 5 Mother’s Day Do’s and Dont’s was intended as a jokey gift-guide anti-Precious Moments commentary. But the smoke is coming out of their ears, people!!
Clearly, mothers should be glad of any gift they’re given and just be quiet already.
