Then & Now: Refining It
Eleven years later, still figuring it out
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Predicting the Future
I woke up way too early trying to finagle the future again. I wish there were some way to figure out the answer right now. To know the very best choice. To maybe have someone who tells me what to do and then they are always right and I live in bliss for eternity. But a real person. Who might look a lot like Yoda. And sound like Maggie Smith.
When I was drinking, my life just kind of scooched along. It was sort of boring really. The only thing I really really worried about was my drinking. It encompassed everything. It affected everything. It took up all the space in my head. It was big. And solo. A one man band.
Now, holy shit. There is a carnival going on up there. Look over here! Here's this! And that! And this! There are so many options I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed. But in a good way, mostly. The hard part is not knowing how it ends. Not knowing what really is the best choice. Where is Dionne Warwick when I need her? Psychic friends? Hello?
The hardest part of early sobriety for me right now is reigning it all in. I feel like I want to pack all the missed possibilities in. Like right now. Is it possible to be too excited about life? I don't want to go off all willy nilly and end up with handfuls of fits and starts and no results.
And then I think about all the years I spent drinking and wishing for sobriety. And now here it is. Wish come true. Whoa. I mean really. WHOA.
So does that mean that maybe my other wishes can come true, too?
My life is really big right now. It's like I've been speeding around on a windy day in a convertible. Everything's sort of blown all around. I might need some smoothing. Some refining. Perhaps a pretty scarf to keep things together.
I need to remember that I don't need to predict the future because I can trust it. Me. At the carnival. In my pretty scarf.
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Trusting the Future
I remember what it was like that March eleven years (!) ago, when it felt like my life had woken up from a decades long deep sleep and I was groggy and so excited to be alive. I felt like I had been buried in cotton forever and also in a coma, but then I woke up and like when the Wizard of Oz turns to color life became vibrant, real. There were so many options!
This March I am in one of those slower places, business is slower right now, life feels like it is on a water break. This is nice and it creates anxiety. It also gives me a great chance to practice trust, which is a practice.
It’s funny, I think about and learn about trust a LOT. It’s what drives me right now, trying to trust myself and also life and the universe/God/nature. I know that will never end, trust is a creation that gets built and rebuilt over and over, forever, it feels extra in focus at the moment.
I’m in a place where finagling the future- that idea almost doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I remember when I would try to work out the best thing in my mind, creating scenario after scenario so I knew what to do next, but I wasn’t at next yet and it would usuallly turn out that even with the dozens of things I’d predicted or planned for it didn’t go that way or I couldn’t remember what to do. It was massive work with little payoff. I still felt uncertain and unsure.
Trust and I have a good relationship now. That is nice to see, nice to deliberately realize. I have learned that outsourcing to learn to trust myself is like teaching someone else how to ride a bike, and then hopping on one and being shocked that you can’t ride it yourself.
I am still in awe of the realization I had earlier this week that when I want to bail on a thing I really want it’s an opportunity to encourage and believe in myself instead. This is huge, and a huge self trust builder. It also makes me like myself a lot more, when I’m not stuck in here with the person who consistently lets me down. I have noticed a big shift in my self talk from this seemingly small realization. Yesterday when I did not want to go for a walk because it was rainy I encouraged myself instead of giving up on myself. It looked like this:
“It’s raining. I don’t want to go. I want to not go. I don’t have to. It would make sense to not go- it’s raining.”
“Well, it’s actually drizzling a little, and you have a nice bright coral colored raincoat.”
“Whatever, that ranicoat is hot and I think I should just stay home.”
“You like that raincoat, and it has big pockets for your keys and your phone, it will keep them and you nice and dry. Remember when you would run for hours in the rain? You ran a marathon in the November rain! I think you can handle it.”
“That’s true, I used to love running in the rain because it made me feel like such a badass.”
“What if you just go? Then you keep your word to yourself, you get to keep trusting your word, and you build the habit of not letting yourself down too.”
“Yes, right. Okay, let’s go. I still don’t really want to.”
“I hear you, and I’m glad you’ll go anyway.”
This inner dialogue took about 5 seconds. It is a new way of thinking: the reward is not giving up, giving in- the reward is doing what I’ve said I want to do. It is going a long way towards me believing in me. It’s building my self worth (I am worthy of putting in the hard work of doing things I don’t want to do in the moment) and also creating this sweet we are a team like atmosphere in my psyche.
Little things like this, they might seem basic, but they are new ideas to me. They help me trust the future, because I have me. I don’t need to predict what will happen because I will be there when it does. It’s wild how much that deepens my appreciation for myself, creates curiosity instead of fear. It doesn’t matter if I mess up, or get it wrong- because I will be there to try something else, to do something new.
A lot of my relationship with myself seems to boil down to: I was wrong about you, and I’m sorry. How can I repair this? How can I see myself for who I am? How can I love this person as deeply as possible so they feel supported, loved, and valued? And then, giving that person to myself and to the world.
