April 25

Hi,

Tomorrow is my sober bday party. 9 years. I have such mixed feelings about this 9th year and have so many different and big emotions that I am a little, or maybe a lot, scared. I have this bad habit of narrating my own life events before they happen and then deciding exactly how I want it to be. I want to look pretty and grateful and humble and together. I want other sober people to think that they too, if they keep staying sober, will also be able to get my particular brand of pretty, grateful, humble, and, well, great. Deep down I know though that this year has sucked beyond compare. Has hurt too much. Has made me cry too much. Has made me behave badly too much. Yell, at my husband, yell at my kids, yell at my Mom...ok maybe not yell but a video would surely reveal moments of pain, strain, stress, not me at my best self or even close. Petty, tired, confused, bored, disappointed, agitated, self absorbed, lonely.

This was my 9th year sober.

It was not the years past. Grateful. Sober. It was not the first year where I glowed. Or the second where I glowed more. Or the third, engaged. Or the fourth, a baby! Or the fifth, a house and almost another baby. Or the the sixth, so tired. Or the seventh, a new state to live in, Or the eight, feeling more at home in said new state. No, the ninth was heart break. The ninth was loss.

I earned it. I am proud of myself but I am also scared. Scared of the reality and depth of my feelings. Scared of scaring other people. Scared I will disappoint myself and others with my lack of grace, or just brokenness. I still see it though, that maybe this 9th year was the year that defined my sobriety. The year I hung on. The year I was carried. The year that almost, but not quite, took me down and then didn't. Happy Sober Bday to myself. I admit it, I made me proud--even if my nose was running the entire time. xxK

April 10

Hi All,

A few things. I just realized that it was April 10 (my husbands bday) that was the day I had my last drink. My first sober day was April 11 and so this April 11 it will make 9, years since I last I had a glass or two or three or four or...of wine. Anyway, today it is almost April 10 and that makes me feel strange. Every year it makes me feel a little strange in early April how the air feels, how the light is, how things are. I guess because I remember still fairly vividly how I was back then.

I wish I could sum it all up perfectly and say something motivational about sobriety, about life, health, hope. I feel strongly that many people have helped me save and then change my own life. Really, I just did what other people told me to do for a really long time and even when I was not sure they were right. I stopped doing things my way and started being open to doing things different. It took so long though and for so many hours and days I felt sad and broken and alone. I had so many moments of wanting to go get a drink or light a cigarette or smoke a joint. So many little infinite minutes of not doing what I had done so many times before. I think in those not doing moments, in that resistance to my own habit, I found something...or found someone, myself. My brain it seems had gotten stuck doing and had stopped being able to give me good advice. Learning that I could resist an impulse, a desire, a thought was uncomfortable and painful and humbling. It took time. Then more time.

Only recently have I come to really understand what the last 9 years has been about. Growing up. Taking responsibility for myself and then taking responsibility for my thoughts and actions. Holding myself more accountable and then being gentle with myself too. Learning that I can be happy and sad, strong and fragile, loud, soft and everything in between and that I can be sober thru all of it. This last few months has taught me so much about my own pain, about how I can either make it work for me or allow it to destroy me. I will leave you tonite with this sort of funny cooking metaphor that I came up with. Maybe life is like making gravy. Right before that chicken burns to a crisp there is this moment, deep, dark colored, and so close to being over the line. If you add the liquid then and it is hot and you scrape and work quickly what you end up with is amazing gravy. It is learning how to use the almost burned that it takes time and skill to realize. It is not being afraid of burning anything. It is patience, skill, and faith rolled together.

So this pain is like my dark bits for my gravy. I let it stick, hang around, develop--I dont freak out or move too quick. I know that at the right time I am going to add the broth, which in this case is love, and I am going to use this pain, this dark stuff, to make my love darker, richer, more complex.

I look back to nine years ago tonite...I was in my last blackout. I did not know that then. I thought that I was just having my life. Making my bad choices. Having fun. I had no idea that my life was about to change in a profound and startling way the very next morning. The hows and whys of that night and the following day are complicated but simple. I finally got it. I finally let myself feel the fear, pain, shame, and remorse without pretending it away. And that pain that I had been denying for so long, roared up, and moved me right out of my own way. xxK

Happy Birthday Dad

Dear Dad,

Happy 75th Birthday. I miss you. I think about you a lot and more often lately I am able to think about you not your death--which is good. It hit me last night that you are gone and it was hard. I want to feel that you are still with me which I do sometimes more recently. I know you are. My own brain can be my worst liability. If I shut my thinking off then I am ok and my heart is open and you are with me. I will try to stay with that today with just being with you. It is hard bc you are not here but I am strong, or can be strong. I am sorry for how hard things were at the end of your life between us. I wish I could go back and do it over but I cant. Am stuck here knowing that I made mistakes, have regrets, and need to accept that. I know deep down that you forgive me or are working on it. I forgive you too and I am glad you are at peace finally.

I love you.
xxx
Karen Anne

Hi All,

Today is Wednesday, April 3rd.  I've been writing about my Dad's death so much lately that sometimes I forget how this all started. So, that said, I am going on a walk down memory lane tonite. My walk one week from today exactly nine years ago. That would take us to April 10, 2004. In 2004  was 30 years old. I am not going to blog about my romantic life at that point except to say that I was with a man who I did not deserve, and really did not fully appreciate until a few years ago. (I will also add that the only reason I am not going to write about that part of this story is that it is not fully mine and I dont think it is fair to share other people's lives in the same crazy way that I share my own without getting permission and since we are no longer in touch this would be impossible.) Anyway, in 2004 I was working very hard not to be a daily  drinker. I was doing this thing I guess you could call my attempt at controlled drinking. If you dont have an alcohol problem this may not make any sense but if you do then you can appreciate the special hell that this project creates.

So there I was dating this nice man who was willing and able to give me the life that I said I wanted and yet it seemed something was missing. I was living alone with my dog and down the street from the very same house that I had moved to in my previous relationship. When I had moved into that house, I thought I would live there, with that man, for a long time. Imagined I'd have children there or around there. Thought things would turn out different. When I found myself alone, in an apt, up the street from where I had imagined my future I became scared, confused, and desperate.

I had moved on so quickly and with such velocity that I dont think I even really knew then how I felt and what I wanted. I was drinking much less in an effort to prove something to myself about my maturity or my life or myself but when I did drink, well, it was not pretty, not controlled, and I was not ok. April 9 I found myself in NYC visiting my old roomate and looking to begin drinking at 3pm. I began at a bar in the East Village that was in a basement and very dark. At 9pm I vaguely recall being in the bathroom with a man I didnt know. By 10p I remember looking in the mirror and feeling totally disconnected to the person who was looking back--after that it is all sort of black and brown spots. What it was mostly, was terrifying and, in retrospect, life changing.

That black out and my realization after it that my drinking was not working, had not been working for a long time, and basically had never really worked was life changing for me. It all happened in April. So April is a strange month for me. I remember the weather and how sad and scared and lonely I was in the beginning of the month. Remember just how desperate I was at one point to get my old drinking partner back and how confused I was, even at 30, about what love was--what it felt like to be loved and to love. I had pain, need, desperation wrapped around and in between it all. It's painful and sad to remember those times not just because of my regrets about the people that I hurt but also because of how much I hurt myself and how vividly I still remember that pain.

But that pain did do something for me. It moved me from a place of victimhood, desperation, and addiction towards a new and very different place. It did not happen overnite but it did happen pretty quickly. Once I stopped fighting the pain and just felt it...it moved me. And once the pain got inside me and I allowed myself to feel it and not anestheisize it then I was changed. The pain forced me to be honest. It forced me to get help. It forced me to show up for myself and stop hiding behind bad relationships and drama. And when the alcohol, weed, and men that loved them both more than me were all gone...what was left...was me. Stripped down and without any bells or  whistles I began anew. Began to peel away the lies that I told myself until what was left was real. Over the last 9 years I have peeled, stripped, and peeled and stripped and then built it all back up and up and up until I was solid, strong, real. In the last 4 months my new self has been shaken, pushed, prodded, and knocked down. At times I've wondered if maybe I was wrong to think I was strong at all. Have questioned my life, my choices, my sanity. Have reached out and then shut down. Have opened up and then closed again. Have pushed, pulled, and tantrumed and thru it all, despite it all, I've remained...myself. And that is something that