Sober MAMAAAAAAAAAAAA

Hi All,

Today is Monday and I am home with my sick daughter. I admit to being relieved to just get a break from the work grind and her fever is down a little so I can say that without too much mom guilt. This morning I got thinking about the unique challenges that face sober Moms. Last weekend I hit a kid's birthday party where the beverage du jour for the Moms was a giant box of wine or some vodka spiked strawberry lemonade. All of the parents in the kitchen (who seemed to be drinking) appeared to be having so much fun. I admit to a pang of not jealousy but something--envy? I thought quickly about driving my kids home with a buzz (not so cool) and then thought even more about how (for me) there was never a moderate buzz so it would be more like driving them home with a buzz, stopping at the store for a six pack, heading home--drinking the rest of the six pack and feeding my kids peantut butter and jelly--if they were lucky.  Because I have not drank since before they were born I dont know what kind of drinking Mom I would be. I pretty much assume I'd be the same alcoholic freak only with kids to haul into my drama tornado this time. Not a pretty picture.

The challenge here is being a parent without the end of the day glass of wine to take the edge off that other parents utilize--seemingly without major problems. It means that I have to find healthy ways to de-stress and/or find ways to not get that stressed in the first place. I think that line about an ounce of prevention is applicable here. Preventing stress or managing it is way easier than attempting to peel myself off the ceiling once I am already there. I have found for me that when I think about drinking is when I allow my life to get unmanageable--if I can keep things mostly together (or as together as 2 kids, a cat, a dog, a full time job, and a marriage allows) then things are a little easier.

One of the ways that I have been really working on to keep myself more sane and my life more manageable is to get organized. I realized that I spend a lot of time being frantic and frazzled because I cant find what I need. While I am looking for whatever it is (small plastic container to kids bento box) I start telling myself nice thigns like: you really need to get your act together loser. Or even my favorite just repeating to myself: wtf? wtf? wtf? over and over. This does not make for a positive or serene beginning of day.

So today I actually organized all of my plastic wear. It may sound like a small thing to all but to me this represents one small step into a more manageable morning. Skills like organization and time management dont always come easy to me. I think somewhere along the line I decided that organized people were annoying and so I discounted just how important being organized can be. Now, I see the error of myways and I am ready to humble myself before my type A counterparts to seek their advice and tips. Look out. Super K is on her way...xxK

38 going on 9

Hi All,

Today is Thursday. All here is going ok. It is not easy this business of being an adult, and being responsible, and being sober, and enjoying it. I can say that I am trying. I am trying hard to be the person that I want to be and to keep myself focused not on what I want, but on who I want to be. I memorized the Third Step Prayer which I will attempt to link to if I can figure out how to. This is not to get all AA crazy on anyone but just to show where I am at. I am working really hard on the spiritual principle of turning my will over to a power that is greater than me. My higher power. God. Or, in my case, some sort of hybrid of the God of my childhood and the Higher Power of my adulthood. I used to think that I could not mesh those two but I have come full circle with this and realized it is my God I am talking about--so it is just fine if it only makes sense to me.

I got thinking about this picture that I remember of my First Holy Communion. I was wearing this white dress and veil. I love this picture because I actually remember being really happy on that day. I remember feeling spiritually connected and special. I actually thought maybe I want to be a nun someday...no, I am not kidding. I was young but I got something on that day. I felt a taste of something divine within myself. As I grew up, I grew further away from that girl. It is funny that at 38 I find myself more like her than I was at 28 or even 18. I think maybe that girl is who I want to be again. The girl who was curious, spiritual, smart, wordy, and interested in everyone's story. That was Karen Anne and getting back to her was the distance that I have traveled in 30 years. All the way to Hong Kong I have traveled looking for someone else, something else, seeking.

Years of my life spent looking at other people. Studying their face, their personalities, their style, their intelligence, their family, their everything that was not me. Years spent contrasting and comparing. Years drinking and thinking about just who it was going to take, what special person I could find, that would make my life special, make me happy, excited, and ok. Was it this boyfriend? That boyfriend? Someone I hadnt met yet or might. Someone I let get away? Someone I could never really get? Somewhere I just knew that he was the answer. If I could just think harder, see things more clearly, talk to him a little longer I might just be able to figure this all out.
I wonder now when I look back why I was always so sure that everyone else had something that I didnt. What made them special and me--not? Maybe the wisdom is that we are each as special as we think we are. Or maybe we are all the same amount of special and it takes us all our own journey to figure this out. Some of us think we're less special, some think they are more, and eventually we all get to our right size--right along with everyone else.

I dont know where I am going with this really. Somewhere corny? Spiritual? All I know is that I am beginning to hear that girl that I thought I had lost. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of her in my daughter but more often I hear her...right here, with me. She is not a stranger. She's been right here with me this whole time. It turns out that my true self...is not an alcoholic, not selfish, not mean, or sarcastic, or melodramatic.

Dont get worried. I am not doing any strange denial thing. I accept my alcoholism as part of me forever. I accept that I need to treat it and that I cant underestiamate its power to bring me down. To twist me up. I see so clearly today how much power it had in my life. How much power I gave it. I never got that part before--that I gave it all away. I never got that I always had something to give. I heard the other day an old familiar phrase: there are no victims, only volunteers. Amen to that. xxK

http://silkworth.net/aa/3rd.html

Growing Geraniums and other first times

Hi All. Here I am. Back from my own abyss of overthinking and into accepting my life for all of its joy and pain. I have recently embarked on a new hobby. Gardening! I love it. I feel like I have finally found what I have been looking for in a hobby. I like it, I like how I feel doing it, and it makes my life more beautiful. Gardening has it all. I feel like a kid in a candy shop.

I am lucky to have moved into a home that had a nice garden already so all I really needed to do was clean it up and add what I want. I havent done that much yet but I did get some Geraniums and have replanted them and they seem to be...yes, growing. I come home and check on them. My kids water them. It has only been a few days but so far they seem to be surviving my uprooting them from my friend's really beautiful garden and bringing them here. I think what sold me on them was the smell of the leaves so peppery and basil like and a little floral and just right. I love real scents.

I love real hobbies. I love doing things that bring me closer to the earth, closer to who I want to be. Writing about old friends or (more accurately} old boyfriends is just not for me. Not for the me that I want to be. That is the old me. Obsessed with drama, chaos, and too used to it to really notice it.

I notice it now though. I see it in my last two blogs. The over thinking, the ruminating, the inability to really see the big picture. It is hard to see the big picture when you are so used to only thinking of yourself. It is also quite simply a bad habit to think that I can just have any kind of relationship that I want with anyone I want and expect others to understand exactly why this works for me. I cant tell you how many hours I really obsessed on this, thought about it, felt self righteous anger over this. And then it happened...I realized I was wrong.

This is how long it took for me to realize this. About fifteen seconds. It took someone else (to protect the innocent I will just say someone very important to me)saying something to me about this and about fifteen seconds from when they said it for me to realize that not only was I wrong, I was also playing with my own very special brand of fire. I write this here because it is tied so tightly to my drinking, wound up around it, and in between all of the spaces. My own blind spots. The things about myself that I justify, the defects in character that I explain, the truths I manipulate for my own benefit.

These are familar skills for me. Skills I developed while slurping down my third cocktail and explaining how the glasses were small, or tomorrow was a slow day, or today was a good day, a bad day, I was too sad, I was too happy, I was alone, I was in love, my boyfriend was too something, my life was not quite something enough, it was something for sure to do with someone else, or something else--if I could just explain to you how hard, easy, sad, happy, or anything in between that I was then you would understand. The message was always the same. I deserve this drink. Let me tell you that true to my advertising roots I was always on message.

When I drank, I stayed on message about why I needed to or deserved to. I learned how to twist the truth around to suit my needs. I learned this without even knowing it. Unlearning it takes some serious fucking work. It takes being willing to make sacrifices for the people that you love. It means life, people, relationships dont always turn out just the way that I want. It means I need to accept what the Universe gives me and what it takes away too.
b
For today, I have my little garden. It makes me happy to grow things instead of destroy them. It makes me happy to know that I am just a little bit closer to who I want to be today then I was yesterday. Hope you are too. xx

more on love, trust, and doing something different...

Hi All. I have been thinking about my last post since I wrote it. I almost deleted it actually because it is not only not good writing but I am not even sure it is good material. I wanted to write about it because it is bugging me, because the situation is under my skin and I think reflects my very real character defects more than it really reflects anything about anyone else at all.
The defects I see are as follows 1) self centeredness, 2) impulsivity, 3) not being able to feel grateful for what I have and instead focusing on what I dont have. The self centereded stuff is obvious. When you care about a person (or claim to) than it should not be hard to do what is right for them (right?). Impulsivity. I just want what I want and then I want it now. I want to email with my friend now. I want this and I dont want to think about what is best or be a good person or be a good friend. I just want things back the way they were before--before I had to take responsibility for not just myself but for other people too. I want it easy and (I guess) all about me. Lastly, the not being able to see what I have and instead focusing on what I dont. I could cry. So ridiculous is this particular defect. I should be happy and grateful that I am happy, healthy and doing well, that my family is, that my husband and kids are. I should not be wasting my time or energy on this. And yet I am. All I can think is that deep down I just am selfish. Selfish and immature.
In my defense, because this is my blog, I will say that my real sadness comes from my recent realization that not emailing with my friend is actually--really and truly--then end of our friendship. When you dont talk to a person on the phone, dont see them in person, then all that is left is email and when that is gone we are talking about a friendship where you dont communicate which really--is not a friendship at all.
I could go on and on about what I think about asking someone I love to end a friendship but I wont because it is 1) selfish and 2) stupid since it doesnt matter. In theory, I would never do this...probably because of my own pride and my own sort of maybe twisted view of trust and independence.
On some level, I do want to protect my friend, want to defend his choice, his relationship. I do think that you should not engage knowingly in behavior that hurts your partner. I do think we often need to prioritize our time and relationships and, I guess I need to admit, that the reality is not always as pretty as the theory. Sometimes we all feel scared, threatened, or unsure. Sometimes we all need reassurance and we need our partners to do what they can to help us. I'd like to think I am the kind of wife who respect my husband enough to end a friendship that made my husband uncomfortable, but I laugh writing this since I know that the odds of him feeling this way are slim to none. I dont know how I feel tonite as I write this. I guess I am back to just sad. The connection that I shared with my friend was real to me, not romantic, definitively platonic, but perhaps intimate--if that is the right word? I dont think that is the word I'd pick, maybe natural or just plain old someone I've known a pretty long time now so there is history, context--something I value and love in friends. Time. I miss that. I never really considered I'd lose it. Maybe that is my real regret. I was arrogant. I thought that I would always have a small piece of something, a small piece of a part of my life, a small piece of me as I used to be. I was wrong and that...that being wrong...it hurts. It hurst to lose a person unexpectedly. I am glad he is healthy and happy and he is not gone from the world but it is bittersweet that he is gone for me. XxK

Trust, Love, and Honesty

Hi All,
Strange and new topic for me tonite. So, here it is. A good friend of mine (who just happens to have once been a boyfriend too) just told me recently that he is choosing to not email with me anymore. The reason is because his fiance has been hurt by our friendship and thus continuing to email with me is continuing to hurt her. Not good. Not good at all. I felt so bad about all of this and still do. Not just because someone's feelings got hurt and that always sucks but because I have been in her shoes too. Not once but a few different times. I have been the person who had their feelings hurt and each time my then boyfriend never, not once, offered to stop communicating with the said offender. Me, being me, I never wanted to say what I wanted (ie stop talking to her) and so I sat and got hurt, and felt jealous, and built resentments and insecurities one after the other.
I know deep down that I absoluely must adhere to my friends request and yet I feel...sad. I feel the loss of a friendship that I very selfishly do not want to give up. I will give it up. I will do the right thing bc that is what sober and mature people do. Also, I really want my frend to be happy and I want his relationship to be strong and healthy. I do not for one second what to be part of anything bad or complicated bc that is not how my fe works anymore. What used to be always complicated has gotten much simpler. Do the next right thing. Right action equals Right thinking. So, I will blog and move on. We all need to grow up sometime I guess. Xx