Writing through hard times isn’t easy. Writing through times like this (recovery) is nearly paralyzing… What makes it particularly so (aside from the usual list of who occasionally reads this, what they’ll think of me), is that by putting it down on this screen, I’m admitting it publicly to an extent that prevents going back. To the hidden way… the other darker (but let’s face it, muuuuuch easier) way of being. And since I’m very early in this journey, I’ll happily admit that the other way? Of blocking things out, shutting bad things away for consideration at another time, is much more fun than sitting in a quiet room, shaking, facing up to the way things are right now. Here and now.

I’ve found a place to go every day to talk about my problem with drinking. To listen to others talk about their struggles and fears and recovery. And it is a complete and total miracle. If I’d known how great these meetings would be, I honestly would have stopped all this wine nonsense a long time ago.

But of course I wouldn’t really. Because outside of those wonderful comforting loving meetings, life is once again scary as hell. And this time I’m standing there without my favored weapon. Facing an army of tigers with a pea shooter and one bean, which is how we’re supposed to feel at the beginning (I’m told).

And I feel like the outside layer of my skin (the adult, fake-put-together part) has been taken away and I’m this sea creature –shell-less and shaky–lolling around waiting for sunlight to reach all the long way down to the ocean floor.

At the same time, the grace and gratitude I’m experiencing through motherhood, honestly would have made me roll my eyes and scoff a short 12 months ago. Who knew that cooking dinner for them each night was going to become such a valued ritual that I cling to it and watch the clock just waiting until I can start to prepare their food…

What is here and now for me is this:

• I’m 39
• I have three beautiful daughters
• It is a gorgeous Fall late afternoon in a small town in NW Washington State
• I feel hopeful
• I feel terrified

If I could be any character in fiction or poem, I’d be a woman featured in one of Pablo Neruda’s love poems…

Until that happens, Emily Dickinson will have to do:

I HIDE myself within my flower,

That wearing on your breast,

You, unsuspecting, wear me too

And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,

That, fading from your vase,

You, unsuspecting, feel for me

Almost a loneliness.