Quote of the week.

"...and you realize in the midst of your failure,
you were slowly building the life that you wanted anyway."

-Alice Sebold, "The Lovely Bones"

How to be imperfect.

I always thought that perfect was tres desirable. That candles and four star dinners were par for the course. Music, lighting, ambience, all of it for a night of being with friends. I find that I need to package my life. I look for the ideal and strive to make it even more desirable. Noone comes into my life without a theme night or a reason that I could have easily conjured from a hallmark card. And don't even get me started on Hallmark cards.

I have almost been to the point of perfection obsession. I pour over cookbooks. I place magazines strategically in the living room. Wine Spectator? Come on, I am a recovering alcoholic with the latest issue prominently displayed in my library. I spray annoying room spray that secretly drives me crazy. I have Girls Night In with all the trimmings. If I actually used tupperware, I am sure I would host the party myself. Martha Stewart? Rachel Ray? Nothing on me. I can command a perfect evening even when I am about ready to fall over with exhaustion. I rarely even stop to taste what I am cooking. Rarely do I engage in conversation with my guests. Rather, I try to make everyone as comfortable and happy as possible, even if it means sacrificing my own need. I have actually become despondent instead of throwing in my own two cents at a debating dinner party. And if you knew me, I have a voice that could debate for hours.

And for what reason? What is it that makes me go to great lengths of perfection? With some thought and self-psychoanalysis, I find I am looking for some reassurance that I am "normal". I am afraid of what is inside me. Will people accept me if I am not the perfect host? The perfect girlfriend? The perfect woman with an imperfect past? I am unsure of myself as a sober woman. I am hiding among the issues of Vogue, a diary of all of my shortcomings. I count them daily and then quickly proceed to disguise them with fondue. Or room spray. Or a matching set of dishes straight out of Pottery Barn. I can conjure up all the reasons that I am not perfect and squash them with a good house cleaning and serious redecoration. I am learning the ins and outs of my life. The ins and outs of my personality. Limitations. Boundaries. Qualities that make me fabulous. Qualities that make me human. Things that I need to improve and things I do not. And in the process, I am trying to learn that I will be accepted by some and rejected by others.

Would anyone still love me if they knew that I have smelly feet? Or that I can't stand to shower with my expensive soap that comes neatly packaged in a bottle? That I cry at the drop of a hat or I listen to the sappy music? That I seldom do my dishes and I eat in bed with numerous books at my side? Would I still be viewed as a woman with passion and creativity coming out of my ears? Would I spend the rest of my life alone if anyone knew that I sometimes skip running and watch infomercials on TV for hours on end?

Fast foward to epiphany #1241. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch with my man beside me. I didn't wake up when he went to bed. I couldn't move a muscle. I wouldn't be able to scratch his back and make sure he was sleeping soundly. I stayed there, unconscious, happy, fed and full from a long and wonderful day. It didn't matter that we'd had a spat that day. We had already made up. Sleeping on the couch didn't signify anything other than a moment when I decided I was just too damn tired to move. No issues. No alterior motives. It just simply was what it was.

And I woke up this morning, and he was still there...undeniable grateful, I am sure, that he had the bed to himself, but there nonetheless. In my moment of self induced imperfection, he stayed. He didn't leave. He didn't decide that I was strange or weird because I had curled up with the blanket instead of him.

So, this morning, I left a house full of dishes. Those are for him to do. I didn't have time to make coffee or Eggs Benedict. My curly hair, being naturally imperfect, was askew. My shirt,a stain on it that I may not have hidden so well with the trenchcoat. I kissed him goodbye, grabbed some easter chocolate and headed out the door at 7am. All in all, I have simply decided that perfection is not my forte. I am far from it. But learning who I am, imperfections and all, is the package deal I may have been looking for all along.

I wish Sober was another word: A Rant.

There are many times in the last three years that I find myself trying to define the word sober. Sober. Sobriety. Not drinking. Recovery. Change in life.

The dictionary defines sober:

* Habitually abstemious in the use of alcoholic liquors or drugs; temperate.
* Not intoxicated or affected by the use of drugs.
* Plain or subdued: sober attire.
* Devoid of frivolity, excess, exaggeration, or speculative imagination; straightforward: gave a sober assessment of the situation.
* Marked by seriousness, gravity, or solemnity of conduct or character. See Synonyms at serious.
* Marked by circumspection and self-restraint.

Self restraint? Devoid of excess or speculative imagination? The question arises in my own head....have I become boring and morose in my sober life? Have I become plagued with seriousness because I have chosen this path?

In the last three years, I have also found myself having to defend and define my sober life. "Why don't you drink?" "What happened to make you stop?" "Are you WEIRD?" "YOU DON'T GO OUT?" "Have you no fun in your life?"

Well, I think to myself tirelessly, life is just different.

What happened to make me cease drinking habitually for the majority of my young adult life? Well, I guess things were just not working the way I wanted. Nothing significant happened, per se. Yes, I hit bottom, but not in any spectacular fashion. I just got sober. I simply took out an element of my life that caused me pain. And now, I find that people have a difficult time grasping the concept.

And when did I become so concerned about what people think? Years ago, I could get drunk, stand on a bar and proclaim my love for Jimmy Buffett in song without skipping a beat. I could fall down the stairs at a restaurant and simply smile and say, "oopsie". But, we live in a world surrounded by alcoholic intentions. It's part of our society and part of the way we chose to socialize. Not a day goes by that does not include a reference to alcohol. And I accept that with the grace of a woman who has made a choice. But, damn it, it's still frustrating as hell.

I actually watch people watch me at parties. I see them double glancing at my martini glass making sure that there is nothing stronger than Diet Coke in my glass. And these people never knew me BEFORE! If they had, the would know that I rarely drank martinis. I play the part with little fanfare. I participate in the charade of the drinking world with my own sober theatrics. And when I arrive home to my bed, I collapse with the exhaustive sigh of someone in recovery. I have worked to make everyone feel comfortable for the choices I have made...and for a moment, I wish I could replace the word sober with some amazing adjective that would wipe away the stigma of my decisions. The stigma of all my past mistakes. . And yes, I wish I could replace sober with just about any other word in the English language.

And in all of these quandries, I sometimes find myself questioning my motives. Why am I really doing this? Meeting people that I never knew existed. Constantly searching for my own soapbox to stand on. My purpose. My MO. When before I was simply a woman with a drinking problem. I did not publicize my life on such a vehement scale. I was never a hippie, cause- related type of woman. I drank. I got drunk. I caused some drama and then went home to pass out.

Now, things are different. I have made a choice that has changed my life. I will not change the fact that I am sober, so sober it is.

So, I have taken the liberty in redefining the word sober in my own glorified dicitonary.

sober (adj.): respect for one's own self. Self assured, self-aware and unconcerned with those people who just don't get the reasons for this journey.

And for those of you who drink, life on the other side is not bleak and weary. Blisters do not appear when in the presence of someone sober.

Buzzword: Focus

I thought when I became sober over three years ago that I was a focused woman. I focused so hard on getting sober. I focused on my recovery. And somehow, with all my focusing, I lost sight of all the other aspects of my life.

Now my new mantra is focusing on the moment. When I am at the corporate job, I focus on work. When I am ripping up carpet at home, I am focused on home improvement. It becomes a matter of staying in the moment and realizing what's important and necessary to each aspect of life.

So, instead of driving while thinking of all the things that are going wrong in the world, my bills, my love life, the fact that the floors are STILL not done in my house, my childhood, my future and what I may have for lunch ALL before I turn out of the driveway, I have decided to focus simply on the road ahead.

It makes life a bit simpler.

Early Days of Sobriety

In the earliest days of my sobriety, life was black and white. When I did not drink, I was happy. Pounds of emotional weight came off my shoulders. Everything was evident, in clear view of my happiness. I knew that not drinking, that being sober, was the door I had opened.

I had yet, early on, to look down the hallway of my life. I was so focused on closing the door on my drinking life that I never realized that other doors existed. I look back and see my reflection from my first anniversary of being sober. I was just so happy to be a sober woman. That was my identity. When I did not drink, I was happy.

Other doors stood waiting to be opened. Others were waiting to be closed. No longer was I able to see things from a distance, I was now forced to walk inside. I suddenly needed to examine the voids and discrepancies that made up all the years before my sobriety. I had to learn to appreciate where I had been. Who made up this sober woman? I had to let go of everything I knew and plunge into all that is unknown. I had to learn about the woman beneath the skin. What inspired me? What hurt? Who was I?

And this scared me. I panicked quite frequently. I had angst over my decisions, my thoughts, and my emotion. Things were no longer complacent in the simplicity of black and white. The gray was beginning to reveal itself in my life and I was trying to learn not to slam the door upon its entrance. I was learning my own boundaries. Adding more and more shades of gray to my own emotional palette. Every choice and decision I made was purely based on the sense that I was trying to make of life. My life then. My life now. Lives that I could no longer separate. So many times, it was a screaming match between my old and new life. My heart, the mediator.

For a time, I wandered aimlessly down the hallway, missing the doors in front of me. The unsettling feeling of choosing between my old and new life came and went. Comfort in sobriety could ground me for brief moments in time. And many of the keys to my doors seemed to lie in the very essence of the choice I made some time ago.

Here I am, suddenly, my second year. I won the battle of becoming sober. Yet now, I relinquish the battle between black and white. I have neither won nor lost. I have simply taken a step back and choose to fight for the beliefs I have in my heart. I have chosen to let the battle go on without my heart on the front line. I've let go of the need for answers to every question within my soul. Some of the doors in my life will continue to remain closed. New ones will open. But, what has become the most important lesson is that I hold the key. Every door I choose is because my heart feels it is right. Every door I leave shut is my heart letting go. My heart, my sobriety is the key. And I carry it with me down the hallway of life

Greetings From the Bottom

My entire life has been a cycle of wanting to live with vengeance and needing to numb the constant pain I feel. Pain that I found unbearable. Numbing entailed irresponsibility. Denial. Aloofness. Any way to keep myself from feeling fledging terror and anger has been my modus operandi. The hurt. The pain. All these things exist in depression. So, I began the arduous task of researching the label for this pain I have been feeling since I can remember:

Adversity, anguish, calamity, cross, crux, difficulty, disease, disorder, distress, grief, hardship, illness, infirmity, misery, misfortune, ordeal, pain, plague, plight, scourge, sickness, sorrow, suffering, torment, trial, tribulation, trouble, woe

It’s astounding that all of the aforementioned synonyms can be applied to an emotional process. Some of you think of it as drama. I think of it as my daily existence. I cannot distinguish between what is truly detrimental and what simply exists as life. I cannot express my anger and rage towards the people who cause it. Instead, I have turned inward. What you see when you are hurt is what I see each hour of my day. The sense of impending doom hinders my ability to live in a moment. I retreat. I create fantasies to ease my sense of reality.

And in doing this, my life illustratively becomes vast acreage. A pliable bit of earth in which I call home. I live on my expansive piece of proverbial property and see the many holes I have dug over the last thirty years. The holes I bury my emotions. The holes I bury the hatred and anger that I am afraid to set free. The hole I must dig to feel protected from my own enraging heart.

The holes in which I dig aren’t unique. They are the same holes you may dig when you feel panic. Or grief. In your world, these are small concaves. The difference is that I live in these holes. I rarely find myself on the outside looking in. Instead, I am constantly on the inside looking out. Watching lives being led with true zeal for happiness. While I sit underneath life, enveloped in angst.

Three weeks ago I dug one of my holes so deep, I thought I might not make it out intact. I was in such conflicting darkness that my eyes could barely distinguish any light. When I dove in, I forgot to bring my tools. My flashlight. My shovel. I simply dug and dug with raw, aching fingers. And this is where I remained. Time passed so slowly, I was unable to calculate just how long I had been underground. Nothing sustained like the darkness I felt. I withdrew from reality and sat in a quiet numbness that only one suffering this affliction can feel. I mourned. I grieved. I panicked. Yet these feelings seemed to pass in front of me in those shadows. I was unable to feel anything but my own self-pity. My emotions so raw that I worried that I may bleed to death. I was a product of my own rigorous self-deprecation. Constantly berating myself for feeling so deeply.

My hand reached out. My raw, tormented fingers barely reached out of the hole. I found a sliver of light that was able to help me regain some awareness. Suddenly the darkness became scarier than the life that was waiting for me. I reached and reached. I was waiting for someone to grab my hand. And, someone did. He inadvertently put his hand out and I grabbed it. I used it to hoist me from deep within the confines of my misery. A tiny move upward saved me from burying myself completely. I was given the opportunity to start the climb back up from the bottom.

And this climb entails a considerable amount of recognition. Recognizing that this darkness is a disease within itself. That the feelings I possess are not simply figments of my overactive imagination. They are real and validated. What you feel is different than those feelings I have. I walk along life scared. Scared to feel. Scared to be hurt and rejected. I tread heavily on my property, searching the parameters for a way out. A path. An exit. You may or nay not live near me. You may have holes, but they are not similar to the deep depressions in life.

So, I say: Greetings from the bottom. Where I have begun to unearth those emotions that have been buried so long. I am no longer digging downward. I have begun the laborious task of filling in the holes that are no longer part of my present. I move dirt to make way for acknowledgement. I find that I am throwing seeds over to begin the new growth. I am extending my hand to those who will take it. I am the caretaker of my property.

copyright, 2005

Journeys

Over two and a half years ago, I started my journey into a new life.

The beginning was the easiest leg of my journey. Results were tangible. Everyday I didn't drink, I was one step ahead of my life for the previous fifteen years. I went through physical changes; losing weight, my body detoxing, and patterns in my sleep changed significantly. The first few months I was able to see that my choice was a good one. Not drinking was the ONLY road I traveled on at that point.

After a few months, drinking was no longer the focus of my journey. The reality of my journey began to set in. I started walking through the weeds and bumbles of my life. I felt uprooted. Pieces of my past sprouted up along the way. I had to hack at them with all my strength to continue walking down the path I wanted to create. I was learning how to be sober.

Being sober entails a bit more than not drinking. It means changing all things that are comfortable. It means leaving people who are harmful. Leaving old behaviours for new ones. Being sober means that you have left one life and began a new one. And at times, this decision that I had made weighed heavily on my heart. Did I really want this life? Did I really want the stigma I thought was attached to being sober? I wrestled with my decisions every day of my life. Every step I made in one direction meant I was leaving a familiar place.

And the grieving began. I mourned the loss of my old life. I was waving goodbye to all those esoteric things that I had known for so long. Visions of my life before flooded my dreams. I was anxious. Guilty. Angry. But I muddled through this tulmultous part of the journey. I missed my old self. Missed the drama and dysfunction that I had deeply rooted myself in. But, somehow, I just kept moving forward until my pathway was free of past weeds. Suddenly, after a long period of mourning, I was walking with a lighter step.

After my first year, I started the next leg of my journey. Sobriety was easier. Not drinking was no longer an issue. Finding out who I was became the task. In doing this, I have walked down several paths. I have tested some directions that were unsucessful. I used my art to help my find out what needed working on. I wrote and wrote until I was blue in the face. I read every book I could get my hands on. I diligently went to therapy. I asked questions. I was introspective. I looked for my spirituality. I posted. I chatted. All these things to find out who that person I had hidden away really was.

And for some reason, I hit a major roadblock. No longer was sobriety the focus on my life. I was just Kim. And that scared me so much, I almost faltered. I thought about sabatoging the work that I had done so I wouldn't find out who I was. I was petrified to peel the layers of my life. I had dreams that I was drinking again. I had thoughts of drinking all day and night. Anything, ANYTHING to keep myself from really knowing who I was. I did not believe I deserved the life I was living. It was a very painful leg of my journey. But, in the end, some strength inside of me took over. I never stepped off the path. I kept going in spite of the immense fear I felt.

And that brings me to now. Today, it's a slightly different story. I am on the journey to discover myself in the most pure and real form. I look forward to who I am and where I am meant to be. I live life with so much passion, I am exhausted at the end of the day. I kiss my nieces and nephews. I smile at the Gas Station guy. I no longer feel the need to escape myself and the choices I have made. Every choice I make is grounded in my new life. Believe me, I struggle still. But, it's such a real struggle that it feels so good when it's resolved with a clear mind and spirit. I am on the path to reformulating those things that are most important to me. I am walking towards the life I want. And my sneakers bear the brand of sobriety.

So, my journey may or may not be like yours. You maybe on Day one or Day one thousand. Everyday, it's a new path. New steps. And it's amazing to be able to say that we are able to see the changes and growth. We are fully aware, at every stage of this journey.

The Last Glass.

I started with twenty-four. Twenty-four Waterford wine glasses. It was weeks before my wedding to the man I so arduously loved. Some were gifts from my family. Many were gifts from our friends. The blue boxes with white ribbon poured in like the wine collection I so astutely built. I took each one out of the box, unwrapping their delicate tissue. The chardonnay glasses with their spindled stems- as if ready to be caressed by the sophisticated hand. Waiting for the candlelight to pour through, reflecting romantic evenings. The cabernet glasses with their wide mouths waiting for a supple reward. I could tilt the glass back to meet the succulence in my lips. Finally, my most cherished eight..the Bordeaux glasses. They were the generals in my army. The glasses were heavier in weight yet far more elegant than the rest. I sat waiting for the right vintage to begin my revolution.

I whimpered when I broke the first six. Three months after my nuptials to the man I thought I loved. The expensive vintage collection began to dwindle. In its place came the bottles that I found at a local winery. Not a bottle from Georges Duboeuf, but some fine wine. A large soiree, friends mingling around the fire. Forbidden fruit poured endlessly by the gracious host, who was subsequently in the Garden of Eden herself. Words began to unfold and emotions began to erupt. First went the chardonnays. Thrown with such vigilance. Aimed right at my beloveds head. There went two hundred dollars towards the refrigerator door. Tearfully, I swept up the shards of glass. But, alas there were eighteen more. I still had the reds. In my battle, I had lost a troupe but still had soldiers.

I cried when I broke the next four. In the early light of spring, I reached for a glass. My coordination stifled by my constant imbibing. I poured a bottle of inexpensive cabernet into my tall glass. I no longer took trips to the winery anymore. I had been there far too often; my face was beginning to be recognized by the patrons. I searched for replacements and conjured up my imaginary wineries in Southern France. I could pretend. I could pretend that my wine rack was not empty. I could pretend that I was not alone. I was drinking away the grief that his silence caused. The grace of the Waterford could not still my shaking hands. I dropped them. Four of my best friends dropped in one evening. With such ferocity, I tried to save them. I had my own personal drunken funeral for my glasses. Tossed into the trash compactor.

I sobbed when he took the next eight. Fall had come. He left with the decanter. The wonderful Waterford decanter. With it etchings so meticulously set in the glass. He lovingly wrapped up the reds and left me with six. He continued the romance, the love affair with elegance and sonnets. Only, my glasses were now empty on the shelf. No life seeped into them. No reflection from candles would burn again. Dust began to choke my thirst. And the flames had been extinguished. Candlelight would no longer pour through the same glass. The wine bottles taken to a new place. To begin a new life. Without me.

I panicked when I broke the next five. One more left. I no longer looked at the glasses with a fervent eye. I used them for anything that could numb the pain. Vineyards had stopped producing the fruit of my garden. In its place found the weeds of alcohols existence. I could only bring myself to lift the glass if it contained venom. I had begun to despise the glasses for the life that used to be contained in them. Glamour had ceased to exist. The clanging of glasses was not in toast but in concerted effort to forget celebration. If the glass was not full, I panicked. Pouring into the loneliest, endless black hole. But not even the last of the glasses could sustain the ache. I threw them in angst. Threw them into the floor as if I could demolish my past. As if I could break this state of destruction. Angry rants begot sophisticated conversation. The stems became daggers into my own heart. One final glass remained.

I rejoiced when the last one broke. It stood on the shelf. An icon to my former life. I worshipped the last glass as if it was on a pedestal. Like a far removed screen star. I looked lovingly at the shining reflection every evening. Yet, I hadnt touched it in months. Hadnt caressed its sleek, smooth body. A friend from my old life came. She let it go. It slipped out of her hand. I watched it. I saw its demise. Falling, falling, it shattered into tiny pieces. The stem no longer recognizable. The body marred. Suddenly in one moment, the pieces were gone in the trash. I had scraped them up and thrown them into the past. I looked up. My heart lifted. The war was over. The Waterford was gone. The whites, the reds gone from my life. The wine defeated. Swept up into a pile and discarded into the past. I smiled.

My glass was empty. My life was full.