Lillian. I’ve always loved that name; growing up, I would name my dolls that. Playing The Sims, I always named my Sims Lillian. I’ve always wanted the name Lillian, and to be called Lily for short. But, Lillian to me is also a blonde-haired girl with green eyes and possibly tan skin. I am the opposite. I have long black hair, super blue eyes, and fairer skin. Putting some more thought into it, I would love a more free-spirited name; for example, my daughter’s name is “Willow,” and to me, it represents her free spirit. She is artistic and such a free soul; she absolutely doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. She is a feet-in-the-grass type of gal, and I would like to think it’s because of me and how I am raising her, and how my nana raised me. I love the name Sage
Hair Dye & New Eyeliner.
Its Friday. I woke up in a different mood today; last night when I got home from work, I did some much-needed self-care, re-dyed my hair, applied my self-tanner, and purchased some new eyeliner. Three small things can boost my confidence that much more. Except I have another pounding headache; I feel as though I have had one all week. I just took some Excedrin. I’m not sure what’s going on. I have caffeine. I was really feeling myself this morning on my way into work, and I always play things over in my head—different conversations I might have, different scenarios—then it’s like I get here and everything comes to a slow screeching halt. Maybe its a stress headache? Its borderline migraine.
I’ve been thinking about walking a lot. It’s a weird thing to say, “Thinking about walking?” but, I mean walking when I get home from work. I think it could be a good stress reliever for me, and healthy at that. Something that I did months ago when I worked out was try and fuel my anger and emotions into my diet and workout; that’s how people cope. Help my sobriety and use that instead. Angry? Take a run. Stressed? Take a run. I think I need to run. Work is really bothering me, I am grateful for my job; there are people out there struggling to find employment, struggling to find employment that can help them even remotely survive. I just need to find my place at work and start showing off my skills, and I’ve encountered roadblocks not by my lack of capability if worded correctly. The more I sit here, type this out and think about things, I need to run. I listen to nature sounds when I write my blogs, it centers myself. It brings me to my happy place.
I waited to post this until I got some breakfast in my system. It helped, same as yesterday. I’m ready to get home, start cleaning my house, and kick off my weekend. I’ll figure out what I need at work and really start that to-do list that I talked about. I know what I’m doing now isn’t working for me. This post is all over the place, 100% representing my thought process today. It’s Friday, the weather is decent; if you take anything from this post—if it’s nothing drastic—do something small to make yourself feel better, something as small as new hair dye and new eyeliner. Give yourself a touch-up, go for a run. Clear your mental fog. Make a to-do list. Do a weekend reset. Let’s start off next week with a clear slate?
Tuesday & Commitment issues.
Its been a weird few days for me. I’m trying not to spiral and be all over the place. I need to make a serious to-do list today, for my life. All aspects. I have so many things going on, and I just need to reel it all in and get my shit together: work, kids, finances. The kids have 8 days of school left, and it’s nothing but field trips, money for this, sign this, papers to read, and so forth. Work is a shit show, and I’m trying to find my place in it. I’m good at what I do, and I love what I do. Normally, when you grow up, you don’t think to yourself, “I want to work in a service department.” But I’ve grown up in this atmosphere; I’m good at managing the department, I’m a great multitasker, and I can work well under pressure. I just need to be able to do “what I do.”
I have commitment issues. I started a Keto diet months ago, lost 30 pounds, looked great, felt great, quit doing it, and now I’ve gained it back; why couldn’t I just stick to my Keto and working out every night? I used to be heavy into my spiritualness, meditating and reading my tarot cards for others. It saved me in so many ways; my awakening was an experience I can never put into words, and I’ve always wished everyone could experience it. Why couldn’t I stick to it? I was sober for a year, and the day of my one year, I took a drink; why couldn’t I just remain sober? Why didn’t I finish my schooling all the way? If I could go back and do what I have a passion for, it would be neuropsychiatrist. Why do I quit everything I start and am passionate about? Why do I care how it affects the ones I love the most, but not enough to change, not even for myself? There is a lot to unwrap there. I want to change so bad; where do I begin?
One of the worst things to be as a working individual is “Woke,” as they say. Some days are worse than others; I enjoy working, don’t get me wrong, and that’s a great attribute to have. I sit in this office and stare out the big glass windows that are placed all in the front of my building and ponder the fact that everything is just made up. I waste my day by day working, making this money to buy things, to survive in a world where my 60K a year hardly gets me by, and I still cannot afford to buy a house on my own. I envy the people with no kids who just pack up, live in a van, and travel the world; that is truly living. But then I get brought back down to earth and realize I create my own reality. I can still do all of these things (besides living in a van; it’s a little too late for that) and create the life I want. I don’t have to stare out of these big glass windows and imagine a world that doesn’t exist; I can create them. I just need to commit myself to these changes and stick with them, but with all of this change comes the legwork of sticking with it. What part of my past allows me to disregard any hurt or trauma and continue to quit everything that I start?
I’m going to make a to-do list. I need to hold myself accountable. I need to do some soul searching.
Coping & Grief.
Its Thursday, I slept through all of Michael’s alarms, which is rare and also an indicator that I must have been sleeping soundly because he has an alarm that starts at 5:10 and he will snooze it every five minutes until damn near 6. I push, poke, and whine every time. Just set the fucking alarm at 5:30. It makes zero sense; he just wakes up to snooze the alarm every 5 minutes. I’ve tried to explain that psychologically he is making himself more tired than if he would just get up. It’s a fight I will never win.
I lay there awake in bed, then roll over to pick up my phone, pausing to stare at my end table. It’s full again, full of empty Gatorade bottles, wrappers, opened mail, and a bunch of other shit, another telltale sign that I’m falling behind mentally, which is true. Lately, I feel so out of control of things, and I hate it. Yesterday was an annoying day at work, and to top it all off, I started my period. My fuse is short, and I apologized to my kids in advance. It’s never an excuse, but I did forewarn them that the next few days I will be on a shorter fuse than normal, and that I’m sorry and I don’t mean it and that I’m going to try my absolute hardest; I’m always transparent with my kids. I tell them everything that I can to a certain extent; they are my entire world, so yes, my son knows, “Mom’s on her period, let’s try and pick up my Pop-Tart wrapper, or let’s just take out the garbage on my own this week.”
Yesterday on my way home, I thought about drinking; I didn’t think about stopping at that “same old gas station.” I drove in silence and thought about if I stopped, and how it would completely reset me to day one. I wouldn’t feel any better; I would feel worse. I didn’t even have the urge to drink, not even as irritated as I was after leaving work; I did not feel like drinking. I just wanted silence. I was completely wrapped up in my own thoughts, and I found that asking myself questions and having a discussion with my internal dialogue was actually helping. I love to talk about the situation when I’m stressed; some take it as complaining, and my poor Michael probably gets so sick of it more than he will ever admit, but it’s the only way I will ever feel in control of something I can’t control is by talking about it, releasing that stress, and just venting. If I have a looming anxiety about something with an unknown outcome, I absolutely want to talk about every possible outcome. Did I misinterpret something? Do you think this is what they are thinking? Did my boss reply “OK” because they are upset? Or because they really are just saying “OK,” sounds good that you aren’t going to be in today? I am an extreme overthinker; maybe that goes hand in hand with my drinking. I don’t live in anxiety every day; I just overthink every scenario. It’s some symptom of anxiety.
I make my way down the hall and into the kitchen; Willow’s alarm was going off for her to wake up. I opened the living room curtains, let the cats outside, and made my way to the coffee pot. Every once in a while, she has a little cup of coffee to feel like she’s an adult, and I let her. It’s something my Nana always let me do, and every time Willow pours her own cup of coffee and creamer, it brings me right back to my Nana’s 70s-styled kitchen and me pouring my own cup of “Java” and putting as much milk and sugar in it as I pleased. My Nana and grandpa raised me and were my solid foundation when my home life was falling apart. I lost her in 2016 to pancreatic cancer a few months after I lost my grandpa, and it was one of the darkest times of my life. The depression that I entered, I fear reaching that depth again. I feel the lump in my throat forming as I type about it. My Nana was an alcoholic and struggled with addiction to prescription medication. Even if she never came out and told anyone else, I knew. She told me everything; I miss her dearly. She was a free-spirited hippie who never wore a bra and who smoked pot. I wish my kids could have gotten to know her. I wasn’t there when she passed; I was the only sibling. She passed in North Carolina, surrounded by my family who drove down. I didn’t have a car at the time, and if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to drive. I’m an epileptic, and I didn’t have my license then. I wasn’t there. My sisters were; my mom was. I wasn’t. The person with whom I was the closest, and who raised me, passed away, and I never got to say goodbye.
Starting this blog, I have hopes of healing my inner self: my trauma. The in-depth legwork I never truly did the first time around.
Shitty Wages & Creepy Bosses.
Today was back to school. I mean, back to work. Same concept. “But Mom, I don’t want to go to school!” I got that from a previous coworker of mine; we would always joke about it when we worked Saturdays together at the parts counter. One thing I miss about my old job is the relationships I created. When you spend 8 hours, 6 days a week with people, you become family almost. It’s a shame that the company started to go to shit and stretched everyone thin. I had to get out of there. I had been looking for a new job since November, and I started my new job in April to put that into perspective.
The general manager there, well “previous general manager” now “Director of Service” whatever the fuck that means, was always a creep. If only his wife knew. He kept somehow going up the ladder, while the rest of us stayed drowning in the pool doing all of the legwork for him. Then he would go and hire somebody for a management position, pass up someone qualified who had done everything above and beyond for someone who had ZERO experience, and we would all suffer and have to train them while the department failed. Then they would get fired and the cycle would repeat itself, except this last time he hired in-house. That’s when everything went downhill, and after months of being talked down to, and being talked at, being pulled aside and told I wasn’t doing my job, or I was delegating work when I was simply asking for help because I was drowning. I FUCKING QUIT. I QUIT WITHOUT NOTICE. I was so done with the mental bullshit that place put on me; I was drinking, I was crying in the parking lot, I brought work home every single night and it’s all I talked about. It consumed me. It started to affect my relationship, my home. I wasn’t happy, and every night when I got home… I was miserable and made everyone else miserable without realizing. When I quit, I sent out that last final “for my mental health, I can’t give my all anymore.” I didn’t even get a reply back, nothing. Just silence. After everything I did for those motherfuckers. EVERYTHING. I learned that day, truly what it means when they say “You’re just a number.”
I’m past it now; I was hurt at first. I liked my position there, and starting over is scary for anyone, especially when you have job stability. But when one door closes, another opens. I called that time in my life my “TO WANDA” phase, from “Fried Green Tomatoes,” because I didn’t care; I was going to hurt whoever’s feelings, and I was going to do whatever I needed to do that suited me best. I went on a week-long trip to Tennessee. I quit my job; I started a new job. I needed to take care of me. Learning to let things go is a larger part of sobriety than one could imagine. If you hold on to resentment, anger, or any type of ill feelings, it will bring you down. It will always be an excuse, maybe not today, but an excuse in the pocketbook, a “justification” of why you needed that bottle that day. Let it go. Start to heal your inner self. Meditate. Life is too short to stress about low-paying jobs, perverted bosses, and toxic revolving doors.
Bird Listening
Daily writing prompt
Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.
Bird watching. Bird Listening. The older I become, the more the simple things in life bring me the most joy. I love to get up early, grab a fresh hot cup of coffee, step on to my porch and listen to my birds. My land is full of all sorts of trees, I have filled it with different feeders through out the years, and some mornings the trees are so filled with birds if you listen, it sounds of a scene of Jurassic park or in the movies right before something catastrophic happens and all the birds go crazy, fly around and chirp. That is what brings me joy. My Birds.
Monday.
It’s 5:13. My internal clock has changed since I stopped drinking, but I’ve always loved mornings. I’m a go-to-bed-early and get-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn kind of gal. Mornings are quiet. The house is still asleep. No kids to referee, no food to cook, no dishes to wash, no laundry to fold. It’s simply me time. I crack a window, listen to my birds; they are chirping loudly. The air feels brisk outside. It smells like summer: freshly cut lawn. I’m just missing my first sip of hot coffee. I make my way down my bedroom hallway and into the kitchen.
As I count the scoops of coffee grounds into my coffee maker, I look at my sleeping children. I wonder what today entails. Will my day stay this peaceful, or will it slowly turn into a shit show? With five kids, you never know, but to give them the benefit of the doubt, some days they are sweet baby angels and get along all weekend long and miss each other until they see each other the following week. They love each other. It’s a blended family type of love. It’s good. We’re meant to be. As the coffee begins to drip into the glass, I think about how it’s been a long winter of depression here in Michigan, and for the past week, it has been cloudy and rainy. Maybe I’ll work on neglected flowerbeds or take the kids to the park, finally clean my car out. The coffee maker beeps as it finishes, bringing me out of my thoughts.
We finished the day off with some steak and fettuccine noodles, followed by a side Caesar salad. We had spent our morning outside lighting off some bottle rockets and playing baseball, riding bikes down our country road. We live on 5 acres, with the sun shining bright and the deep blue sky. It felt nice. Nice to not have an agenda, to lounge around the house, and not have to be anywhere. It was a Sunday reset day without the Sunday; Michael was getting ready to take my “Bonus Babies” home and my kids were prepping for school tomorrow; planners needed to be signed, outfits picked out to make our morning less chaotic, and backpacks placed by the door.
I would normally have had a few drinks by now, to “wind myself down.” My overstimulating weekend, with seven of us in the house, can be a bit much. I would have tried to get my last few sips in before Michael arrived home from taking his kids to meet their mom, knowing in my head that it’s not doing anything for myself. I’m not catching a buzz; I’m not just sipping a little glass of wine while cleaning the house and readying the kids for bed. I’m just fueling my addiction because something is saying, “drink more, drink one more sip before he gets home,” almost like a game. How much can I get away with before he gets home? And that’s just it; I would have, and when he arrived and questioned my flushed cheeks, I would have tried to make up some dumb lie, then laid on my side of the bed hating myself, wondering, “why am I like this?” and he would have laid on his side of the bed, fed up with another one of my lies because he knows me better than that. Michael always knows. It’s his silence when he doesn’t even bring it up anymore that kills me the most.
But, not tonight. Tonight I am a week sober. I suffered a headache earlier in the day while out to the “local Piggly Wiggly,” as I call it because we live in a rural town, with one stop sign and one grocery store; so rural that when they took down the “one stop light” to replace it with a “one stop sign,” there was a Facebook boycott page and a town meeting held to keep that darn light. When I arrived home, I wondered if he would question it, my flushed cheeks. I know there is trust I need to mend; it’s another part of the journey. Mending wounds. All I can do is be honest and upfront. I love him. I appreciate him. I need him. I’m one week down and will start another week tomorrow. I’ve got this.
Memorial Weekend.
I have ribs marinating in the fridge. I used cherry cola as a brine; I love cooking. Food is my love language, but just like drinking, I always overdo it. I cook too much, preparing more than we will ever eat, often leaving hardly any room in the fridge. It tends to be a pattern for me, overdoing it. Drinking and cooking have always been something I looked forward to. Hand in hand, a good Jack and Coke while frying chicken… then eventually it became less Coke and more Jack..
I keep reflecting on Michael’s question last night, “Why did you want to stop and grab a bottle? What made you want to stop?” That’s what he meant. Stop and grab a bottle... I couldn’t answer it other than with a typical, “I felt like it had been a long day at work; my body craves the sugar.” It’s all a bunch of bullshit. I crave the first sip of alcohol the most, the warm burning sensation, feeling my mood immediately loosen up. That’s why I want to stop for a bottle. I want that warm fuzzy feeling without the guilt, the lying, the control it has over me. Always thinking about it, always wanting it.
I’m ready to be free from it. To live in a world that mostly involves drinking in order to have fun, I must remain sober. “Freedom is a mindset, not a set of consequences. Just because I can’t drink anymore doesn’t mean I’m missing out. Being no longer dependent on alcohol is truly what freedom is about.” I learned that from my podcast and played it over and over. Feeling “left out” hit the nail on the head, which also contributed to my relapse. Wishing I could control my drinking and enjoy myself like everyone else. Then, once I celebrated my one-year sober anniversary, I thought, “I deserve this; I can handle this.”
I indeed could not handle it.
Saturday.
Saturday. The weekend always feels like forever for it to get here, then it’s always gone so fast. I’ve been up since 4:30; we just got a new kitten, and that’s like having a newborn. I get up, sit on the side of the bed, and chug last night’s warm lime Gatorade, check the time on my phone, see Michael isn’t in our bed, grab the cat, and head down my hall.
This Saturday was different, familiar but it’s been a while. My head didn’t pound, my face wasn’t warm and swollen. I wasn’t hungover, not even in the slightest. I set the kitten down in the litter box and made my way to the coffee maker. Michael’s sleeping in the living room with the kids; they had a sleepover. My mom was over yesterday to watch the kids while I worked. I recently just left my previous company after two years, which I feel confidently contributed to my mental decline and sobriety relapse. Which is strange… because it’s also the place I was able to achieve my one year at. Making coffee, I realized my mom only left me with about a cup of creamer left. Lovely.
Today is my count day 4. I wrote on a sticky note at work March 20th and left it on my desk. That’s when my sobriety journey starts again. Last year was rough, and this year, so far, hasn’t been the easiest, and I unfortunately always return to the thing I know best, alcohol. Last night, I expressed to Michael how badly I wanted to stop at that same old gas station and buy that same old bottle of booze. He asked, why? I took offense to that. I don’t know? I’m an alcoholic. Is that what he wanted to hear? He changed his question and asked, “Why do you want to stop? What made you realize?” or something along those lines. I was already upset. I told him it was a dumb question and that he should just be proud that I didn’t. I found a podcast recently on Spotify called “F****** Sober,” and I absolutely love it. I listen to that on my commute to work, and the way it’s written, it feels really good to have found something to relate to so much. It helps me not stop at that same ole gas station.
By now my cup of coffee is cold, and I’m sitting at my computer trying not to wake Michael. He has been patient with me. He has been more than understanding; he has already been through this with me before. How dare I get upset with him last night over a question? He was trying to help. He was trying to help me think of a title for this blog. I was a jerk. He purchased me a new meditation mat for my birthday to help me get back into the things I love because I expressed how lost I am. I have yet to use it. Today, I start that. Writing this blog is the start of healing my inner self and helping my sobriety. If there’s one thing I learned from being sober for a year before, it’s leg work. You have to do the leg work. It’s more than just not drinking. It’s healing your inner self.
Soberly, Yours. 