Saturday, March 16, 2013
Life As A Box
I was talking with a new friend about possibilities the other day. We were talking about life. And how it can be kind of like a box. And how you are the one who decides how big your box is.
I've had several people ask me what the benefits of sobriety are. In other words, why be sober when drinking is so a-) socially acceptable and sobriety makes you a weirdo and b-) so easy and comfy. This is the best way I can explain it. Drinking makes your life box small. My legs are cramping up a little already just from looking at her in there.
It's like, if you drew a box on the floor and put yourself in it, the ways you would stretch when you drink are just arms length. A reach out to the fridge for another bottle. A reach over to turn the alarm off for the fifth time. A reach up to massage your aching head. A reach inside to push yourself around for being hungover again.
When you really quit drinking your life box grows. You can start to push your boundaries. When I first quit I think my life box even got a little smaller at first- I was so scared to do anything. And the only thing I really wanted to do was stay sober. It was all I thought about. Then, suddenly I was walking around a bit. Taking a look around. Peering out the windows. Hell, making some windows. There are trees. And birds. Possibilities.
Because I am sober I can make my life box just what I want it to be. I can add whole rooms if I want to. Growth is feasible because I'm not suffocating from a hangover. I can commit myself to my life. I can make plans. Invite other people in. I can say, "Look! See what I'm doing? Isn't this nice? Aren't you proud of me?" My life is a place other people want to be.
I can give love to other people since I'm feeling love for myself. Sobriety makes my heart bigger. Whereas I used to hide- not answer the phone. Oh, God. NOT the doorbell. (This still takes practice. The phone rang last night, I picked it up, looked at it, didn't answer. Then I called right back. Silly. But I didn't answer the phone before, or call back, ever. I didn't want anyone to know I was drinking. And then I didn't want to have to make up excuses for why I couldn't make plans.) Now the kids can have friends over. I make lunch plans for my days off. Sometimes this even happens two days in a row.
You know how, when a house or building gets built, you use these things called cornerstones? Look at the definition: a stone representing the nominal starting place in the construction of a monumental building, usually carved with the date and laid with appropriate ceremonies. And: something that is essential, indispensable, or basic. Holy crap. That's what happens when you make a sober date. You make a cornerstone. A nominal, indispensable starting place. A strong place to start your new life box.
OK, now, also. It can get a little crazycakes when you start making the box bigger. You might have to go whoa whoa whoa! Hold up. Tooooo many changes. I can't even find the other side of my box now. I need to go back to my cornerstone. Have a seat. Think a minute. And you can do that since you aren't drunk so you know where you put it. Here it is. Ahhhh. Right where I left it.
You also might forget that the box is yours and start trying to make it look like someone else's. You get turned around then too because you don't recognize your surroundings. Head back to the cornerstone. Walk the perimeter. Trust.
Imagine your life as a box. Imagine how booze makes that box jail. Imagine how you can make a cornerstone. Or two. Or as many as you want because this is your box. A box to shape and grow. A box to open. A gift to share.
A life.
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Indispensable Continuing Place
I love the image of steady growth I see in this picture I took on a walk with my oldest last week. It’s part of the fence along the trail, in the middle of Durham, NC. You can hear I-85 humming and then here, here is this. The slow march of lichens and moss.
I have been feeling sad lately, angry, and lonely. This is hard for people who love me, and it is hard for me. As a recovering people pleaser/codependent person it is particularly hard to share my hurting. I bristle at encouraging words, I balk at comfort. Care doesn’t feel good, it feels wrong. It feels like people want me to go ahead and feel better, that my suffering is annoying. I want a piggy friend to be in the mud with me. I also know if I asked for that I would get it, but when you’re the one in this so vulnerable state asking for things like that feels way too advanced. I’m trying.
The other day a friend told me that sometimes they just need to work it out some for themselves before other people get involved. That the safety of inside is actually helpful, not isolating. I think so too. Sometimes my cake is not cooked yet. I am not yet fit for consumption.
I am learning about feeling angry. I lost my anger many years ago, it was something I taught myself to shut down because it made my husband uncomfortable, I thought I was hurting my children with my intensity. I was in that all or nothing frame of mind that made decisions like ok, no anger at all then. No middle, no regulating, no managing of the emotions. No grey areas. All or nothing. Shut it down, shut it down.
My intensity is one of my favorite things about me. Inside, I am an adventure land. The world moves me, affects and effects me. I feel like I was given an incredible gift without an instruction manual and that because of that my gift turned to shit. My feelings are symphonies, and without a conductor they became bad noise. So I turned the volume way down and I lost my magic. Living in monotone.
I started drinking to deal with how much I felt, I kept drinking because it helped me turn it off. Enough to drink and I didn’t feel, more to drink and I didn’t even remember I had a body. I was in so much pain, bleeding out in plain sight in a place where people couldn’t see blood. A place where people didn’t believe in blood.
Feelings became shameful. My life an embarrassment. No way out. I didn’t have the ability to be understood because I couldn’t get past how inconvenient my feelings were. So feeling my own feelings had to stop, feeling other peoples feelings was go.
The idea of both/and is the greatest gift my therapist has given me. That I can be both pissed off and regulated, sad and happy, want company and want to be alone too- that all of that is normal and makes perfect sense takes off so much pressure. Because I am sober I can trust myself enough to have room to move, to feel more things at a time. It’s like I am a juggler, I started with one ball and now I am up to like five. With some fancy tricks thrown in, because that’s what trust does: it makes magic.
Sometimes it feels so slow, eleven years of hard work to get to this place where I am willing to feel. That I’m not afraid of my feelings. It’s like I’ve lived afraid of the boogie man all my life and just discovered that he’s really just a kind person who also feels afraid sometimes. I think I am moss, I am probably a lichen. That kind of slow.
This is also something that I adore about myself, because the things I do stick. They stay. They are persistent, they are hearty. One of the things about my life that is true is I move like evolution- willing to adapt and also see how things work. I take myself seriously, with love and humor, discipline and joy.
My life box, it has grown so much. Sobriety is still the original cornerstone, my recovery is another. The practices I have in place that let me know I matter- my writing, my relationships, my dedication and love for and of my life even when it hurts. I take care of my teeth. I wash my face every night and go to bed on time. I open again and again to what I want to resist because I know that’s where my healing happens. I need this.
So even though today is sad, this week has been hard, and I am tired, I am with that me. It is possible for my insides to be working on healing, and my outsides to be doing life just fine. Both can be true. It might seem strange- because I’m not “happy” in the classic sense, I am happy to be feeling my sad- this quote came to mind:
"And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." ― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
It really is.
I also blog on my website:
This was great - I appreciated the box metaphor and visual! (I feel the same about fear - it limits the size of your life.)