inspiration

It's weird sometimes to me how fast time flies. Tomorrow night it's a friend's birthday party, and, well, I've come a long way, baby. Been thinking about a lot of things, not all so cheery, but healthy thoughts that show I'm growing up. I'm definitely not that girl I was at that party that seems like ten, not two, years ago. And I'm so grateful for that. I'm not perfect, and I know nobody is, but he's the one who taught me about being a "work in progress," and I have to try to remember that when I want the changes to take place instantly. When I want to snap my fingers and be perfect, impulse-free, as nonchalant as everyone around me is. I've been thinking about the idea of "rock bottom," of how we all deal with that in our own different ways. Of how easy it is to try to rescue someone else from it rather than myself.

From "Living Without Alcohol" in The Merry Recluse by Caroline Knapp:

The hard part, the having-a-life part, has to do with what goes on mentally, with the questions and choices and feelings that present themselves when they're not perpetually blunted and obscured by alcohol. This is the big stuff, the stuff that has you staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. What kind of person am I, really? How do I truly want to spend my time? What knid of a life am I capable of, cut out for? What sustains me, motivates me, satisfies me? These are the sorts of issues of self tha tmost people (at least most thinking people) start addressing in their 20s, and it can be very disconcerting indeed to wake up at the age of 37 and realize you've never really raised the questions, let alone begun to answer them.

I'm learning, with a little help and inspiration from writers like Rebecca Woolf and Anna David and so many others. You wouldn't think a book called Party Girl could spin your head around, but you'd be wrong, dead wrong. I was rereading this brilliant post of Rebecca's and thinking that she is my new Marianne Williamson.

I may have played the part of mother and acted like I cared about the world, wanted to join the peace corps, hold the hair of the puking drunk, love everyone unconditionally. I may have acted like I was selfless, honest, real but I was a good liar. Even I believed me.

I said I love you to everyone who needed to be loved but did I love them? Of course not. I loved saying so. I loved that my love was enough to make a difference, at least until morning. I loved that my words could be an easy fix, could numb the pain. Fix a moment. Fix an hour. Fix a life. I loved that I could be the strong one, even though I was falling apart. I felt like I was worth something. I was alive.

I've probably quoted this before but powerful thoughts are worth repeating, especially right now when sometimes I feel like I just churn out words that don't stick, words that won't ever make someone cry. I have, yes, but I want to find that again. I'm looking for it when I settle my pretty new laptop on my lap, looking underneath the easy surface, and sometimes a moment, an image, a memory hits me, and I get where it goes in the puzzle. There are plenty of other things I don't get, things that make me cry and not in the good way. Sentences that stir up all the old feelings, that make any progress I've made in the last few months pretty much obsolete. I don't want to ignore those feelings but I know I can't live in them. I know that sometimes it's like Mary Lou Lord sang, "sometimes there's not goodbye and no reply and just no point in questioning why." But knowing and believeing are not the same thing.

I still have that "Our deepest fear..." quote up on my cubicle but I often forget to look at it. I forget to believe in myself. I forget it's not all about my drama, I forget that life is not so all or nothing. I had a brilliant time in Austin but there was a point where I went to that lowest, lowest place, and I realized that it's not a drinking or not drinking thing, it's not a point of no return burst of happiness, it's not about being "cured" or "over it" or above it all. Life is one day at a time, whether you have an addictive personality or not. That's a tough one if you want it all to be over and done with in one big dramatic moment.

I'm learning about learning. About learning from people who aren't exactly like me on the outside, but on the inside, where it matters, we are. Which is why we can have those ridiculous bonding moments like at SXSW or I can cry on line at the post office because I see myself in this lost and then found character. And why I want to be the kind of mom I saw in Rebecca and Romi this weekend. But before I even try to take care of anyone else like that, I have to take care of myself.