So it’s been 75 days since my last drink and nearly 4 months since I began this odyssey — to sober up, wake up to my life, start a daily spiritual practice something like worshiping a higher power, something like trying to be a more loving person.
As slowly the cravings, mental and physical subside, replaced by new rituals and people and habits, hope increases. Hope that there is more that I can give, more to experience, and a greater sense of gratitude folded into the dailyness of things.
I used to think that a cracked up wit, saucy attitude, and brain full of literature were the tools I’d need to combat the challenges of motherhood and life over age 25. Turns out it’s all so much more prosaic than that. Soft heart, courage, determination, and humility seem far more important to the task these days.
All is not perfect happiness by any stretch, but broken down into 24 hours segments, I can say I haven’t felt this hopeful and resourceful for years and years.
V & I on a quiet snowy afternoon — just one of life’s joys I would have missed before…
Meanwhile, more at Imperfect Parent.
First Christmas play, 6th birthday, 60 day coin. It’s been a wonderful week in Redsy-land. Nana is visiting for 3 weeks and the girls are loving her extra attention and special goodnight kisses. Despite the challenges of the past months, I’m reassured that my daughters are loved and adored by grandparents, parents, caregivers, and teachers.
They are angels. They deserve it.
And slowly, slowly, each of us in our family is looking inward and finding the strength to ask for what we want, need, and deserve. Whatever happens, this is what we’ve learned this year…
Hard to believe there are any edges left around here. What with the new sobriety, the daily attempt at spiritual practice (some days merely trying not to swear every other sentence or hate on slow drivers), I feel like a worn out old flannel shirt, dirty and tossed way down under the wet rags and muddy socks of life. Edges, those things that keep my vanity and pride humming along, can serve a purpose –a toughness in defense of precious littles, a determination and will to go on stepping, even through the concrete confusion of grimly long days. But it’s the softness that catches me by surprise.
Attending meetings daily opens my eyes to the beauty of softness. The edges all gone as people admit their foibles, their struggles, their deep dark shame. And I can see and love them for the brokenness and openness and humility without farce or false poise. They help me get over all the fighting words and fake courage of hip parenting, huge vocabulary-ed striving (well, almost).
And something else.
Softer is happier. Softer is relaxed and rested (and also admittedly weepy). Softer can be me and can be, sometimes for a flicker, okay.
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Is there a link between clinging to our pre-parent selves and alcohol abuse?
And on a lighter note, seems the people can’t get enough of the push presents..
What riches what riches and how many hearts have been given me for safekeeping. I am not sufficient to the task, but with help and as a conduit, I can be enough.
Welcome Morning
There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.
All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.
The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,
dies young.
-Anne Sexton
#56
