I’m not sure at what point my day, and my mind, asploded. I worked hard in the home and on an art project, much to my satisfaction. I had a tense discussion this morning with my husband, but that seemed to resolve okay. (Other peoples’) kids came and went through my house and we fed one or two and kicked another one out to have a meal, just the four of us. Friends were over, another friend canceled a dinner date with us. I helped at a Recovery function and paid for a couple plates of spaghetti and salad for those who might not have the suggested donation.
I met a few new people today too, including a man who reminded me of my father so much it hit me like a physical blow, he had the same earring and trained into electronics in the military, in Vietnam, and I listened to him talk and stared and thought of my father, too tired to even feel the sting of missing him. I met a few new people today, including a man who cried talking about the people who surrounded and loved him and got him help when he needed it most, this was over ten years ago and he still had tears in evidence. I met a few new people today, including a nice young man recently released from incarceration and (more shockingly to my provincial mind) who related his experiences divorcing from in-house White Power groups (I talked to him a bit later, as he’s newly a mechanic of a type I could use).
At some point I guess I started to feel some kind of intense spiritual or emotional or mental fatigue, although I didn’t recognize it until later during volunteer work. Maybe my brain went *click* into exhaustion hearing the fourth young person say, “I’m _________, heroin addict,” and so on. Or maybe it was investing myself in yet another story filled with more hate and sorrow and abuse and neglect, stories so incredibly personal yet now stunningly familiar, and yes there’s triumph and courage and tremendous love and affection and salvation and gratitude, but still I have the visceral image of a young man left to cry himself to sleep night after night in the back of a car while his parents went into the bar to drink, a boy then a teen then a man who learned to never let those feelings show for many many years but now they’re coming up. More tears.
Even surrounded by all sorts of this kind of stuff I can’t entirely say I’m depressed or brought down. Humbled is a better word. I used to feel separate from these concerns or maybe I had no idea how much suffering there was, right where I could reach out and touch it, or maybe I would have considered some people “really sick” or thinking I was, essentially, better, or better off at least, than they. But today there is nothing that separates me at all from all of this, and I feel floored as if an ant with a large boot to crush me to Nothing, because in fact we have all the same affliction, and at the risk of starting controversy it doesn’t have much to do with the use or non-use of chemicals and if you can’t see it you’re just not seeing what I’m seeing.
Tangentially I have also discovered all the aspects of my best alcoholic behaviors, well I have them today in sobriety and they are some of the qualities that make me a rather terrific parent. Example: we have $11 in the bank and out of nowhere this afternoon I tell the kids, “Let’s get a tree!” and of course I mean one supporting our locals at the Market, not the cheapest tree at all. And when we get there they are just closing up but a nice older man lets us tree-shop and we find a brilliant noble fir, I’d never noticed how pretty they are. And the nice fellow helping us out, I see he’s also a Santa-for-hire (there’s a flyer) and I say, “Oh you’re Santa,” then after he tells me a bit I laugh, “We’re a no Santa household,” and he says, “Well okay!” Ralph “ropes” the tree to the top of my car and in the parking lot we see a lone purple ornament rolling around and we pick it up to hang on our tree.
And the kids are One Hundred Thousand Percent so happy to see Ralph bring in the fragrant greenery. “That is a beautiful tree, mom. Good job!” my oldest tells me. The kids get to decorating it and I’m happy to see the tree develop in the way it was in my family of origin, not an Avon-perfect or shopping mall tree but the ornaments handmade, many of them gifts from others, handstitched and glued and pasted and lovely, and the kids and the cats are simply delighted. The children go about their painting and drawing and reading and when they ask for my attention I turn and give it to them as best I can,
as fierce I can.
I come home and bathe and wrap myself in a blanket and sit quietly by the family, who likely have no idea how much it hurts sometimes. My daughter told me she stared at me today, and she says “because you’re so beautiful”. And I think I know what she means and today, that’s pretty good.
Part of this makes me want to come to your house for a delicious dinner and some good laughs! Part of it makes me want to hide at the possibility of so many people being in my house. I am feeling like an introverted little snail. I am thoroughly impressed with your hosting abilities. It reminds me of The Odyssey and the whole Greek tradition of always feeding and providing hospitality for guests….as rosy fingered dawn made her appearance, I think the Greek pantheon is smiling down upon you. At the very least, that hot little warrior Athena and her badass owl. 😉
I have a hard time with listening these stories…though I know that it is a huge gift to hold a space and be present for people to share these experiences. It helps with the shame, the guilt, the feeling of non-normalness that hides in the unspoken/unknown darkness of these events that doesn’t belong to us but we seem so willing to take credit for, so willing to find another reason to despise ourselves and justify that we have deserved being treated that way. It’s quite a conundrum to serve as a listener/witness, as the need to nurture others so easily overrides the need to nurture the self, but I think that’s why mamas and papas tend to do so well at it – many of them have already learned that you can’t care for others without caring for the self…though I have to say, this self-care in the face of nurturing others is still a huge part of the work I am doing.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful series of events! It was an awesome read.
@BexG
I swear I was a more active housewife/hostess before sobriety. I am literally In Recovery and I’m less competent and functional than before! I hate to talk so much about my healing stuff (and my sickness) but it’s pretty relevant to every aspect of my life.
“It’s quite a conundrum to serve as a listener/witness, as the need to nurture others so easily overrides the need to nurture the self, but I think that’s why mamas and papas tend to do so well at it – many of them have already learned that you can’t care for others without caring for the self…”
This is quite a concept and I’m pondering it. I do know it’s not every parent/carer’s story, but many people I know have found a depth of other-care and self-reflection since taking on the job of caring for an entirely vulnerable human being. It’s quite a responsibility and quite a journey, for many. Sadly, many seem deadened in some way.
Thank you for your lovely images of Greek god/goddess tradition. I love the idea of bringing more concepts and traditions into our home.
I love that you talk about your healing stuff.
Not that this is the case with you (and preface: I have spent most of my time in this way working with heroin and meth addicts, not so much with people who are working with alcohol), but I think that some of this idea of functionality, sometimes, has to do with perception. For example, one of the mamas I worked with was clean for three months (she did such an awesome job on that!) and was working so hard to get some custody rights for her 2 year old daughter back…and was actually getting to spend some supervised time with her daughter. She would tell me things like how she used to be a better mother before she quit, but when we would talk more about it, it never seemed to add up because she got custody taken away for the behavior that she perceived as being more functional than her current behaviors, which were leading to regaining some custody. It was a little heavier, a little slower, a little more reality to work against when she was clean and so she perceived that she wasn’t functioning as well. Pain also plays a huge role, and in that same example, she also had an incredible amount of physical and emotional pain that she had to deal with when she was clean (but which she could push aside with the drugs) and in talking with her, that pain seemed to feel like such a heavy burden to carry while trying to function that again, the perception of the functioning, which I saw as AMAZING for her situation and place in the process, was to her, not so good.
Anyway…forgive me if that is completely off base, it’s just a bit of what I experienced when working downtown. I know that each substance seems to have it’s own character (or spirit, as one of my anthroposophical teachers called it) and each relationship between substance and user has it’s own character and reasoning that cannot be known fully to others. I certainly think you are amazing, in all that you do, for the years that you have done it. I have learned so much from you and again, I thank you.
@Bex
Actually, I relate quite a bit to what you describe. “It was a little heavier, a little slower, a little more reality to work against when she was clean and so she perceived that she wasn’t functioning as well”. Absolutely.
The acupuncturist I went to last week, when we talked about my energy and my Recovery, she called it a “false energy” I’d been operating with. I just about clapped my hands in delight as that seemed very accurate to me. I’m relearning my body, mind, and spirit all over again.
Re: False Energy
When I was struggling with continual insomnia and other sleep disturbances for most of a year, I would still be totally “up” during the day for the most part. Completely unable to relax, even during acupuncture. After checking my pulses Oriental Medicine style, the practitioner concluded that stress was the only thing keeping my blood going as all of the internal fuel signs were low. Now that I have changed so much regarding self-care and awareness, I sleep pretty well but feel tired during the day in a way that I never did before. Seems to be a common phenomena in reclaiming a connection to the self.
@luckychrm
“Now that I have changed so much regarding self-care and awareness, I sleep pretty well but feel tired during the day in a way that I never did before. Seems to be a common phenomena in reclaiming a connection to the self.”
I am hearing many people say things like this. It’s kind of a shocker for me! I wonder what all those months or years of living off stress/process/chemicals really did to that Self you’re talking about, too… nothing much good, I suspect.
Thank you for your perspective!