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29 March the morningI've been feeling a bit anxious, actually incredibly anxious, but this morning I woke up and the morning was just golden with the sun. I felt my shoulders relax and a calm and creative feeling emerge. I have these little cards, like a deck of cards from the bookstore you know, and one is about energizing and the other about balance - each night I go through them and pick my favorite for the next day. It is fun and keeps me focused on keeping things healthy and simple. Today's cards are - spirituality matters and rereading a favorite book before bed. Simple and nice. Yesterday's was more about cleaning the slate and finishing undone projects. I did both and felt great.
Attempting not to do things in extremes feels new and I know it has been one of my biggest problems. It creates swings in my life - mostly exhaustion or hyperness - are the two that just create chaos. Sounds bipolar disorder-like but as checked by physician it is a result of head trauma that is common. The goal is to keep it all in check. When I feel energized however it is hard to slow down because it feels great, but it always leads to severe exhaustion.
This morning everything feels great. I love quiet mornings and sunrises like these. I note the man who picks up my garbage is looking so thin and yell out a huge thanks for picking up my stuff. I paid my bills and realize that procrastination is often worse than the task itself. I start a collage and think of the woman I just photographed who taught me that there is no right or wrong way to make art. She was wonderful and radiated warmth and easy soft delight about all things. Child-like wonder with colors, textures and objects that go into her art. I feel blessed by the people that I get to meet through work. Actually I feel tremendously grateful about all the people whose lives cross.
Interestingly during my drinking bar time I ran into an older man. He looked at me briefly and we started talking and he said, "You don't take care of yourself." HUH? How did he know? I was sitting there freshly showered and dressed well so I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror wondering if perhaps my make-up was running or my hair was standing up on end or something...nope, looked okay. It was as if this stranger took a peak into my living space, saw the things that I disregard, knew that my refrigerator was empty, and the water bottles were missing the recycling bin or something! The thing is is that I take care of all my deadlines for work and appointments. I focus so much on how I appear on the outside to the world and my work mostly that I rarely take time for myself and my private life. I thought that if I did these other things that I was "making it okay" - barely and by the skin of my teeth (what a weird saying - I must have that wrong). But somehow this man knew. Yes, it took a man who was drunk to make me clean my apartment some, do my laundry and hit the grocery store. I feel better suddenly. So much about my life feels like mere survival that I don't pay attention to the "little" things. I brought soap that I love that smells like lavendar as a treat too. My anxieties calmed some. I guess that it is true that in order to give of one's self that one must also take care of themselves. It really sort of freaked me out, but what a great and helpful observation.
Life is funny sometimes. The unexpected encounters adding so much.
22 March LivingI have always been surrounding by addiction. There are all sorts of addictions - food, shopping, drugs, alcohol... These past two weeks I chose alcohol, and different from my addictions of possibly food and shopping sometimes, I knew it was wrong and not good for me. It seems in retrospect that I almost made a concious and deliberate attempt at falling into the addiction of drinking. I drank every night for two weeks straight. I learned a lot from it actually. I learned that addictions are things that are done often to fill a place within one's self that feels lacking - the void - an attempt to fill that void with something, anything, to remove the feelings that are uncomfortable or a part of life that feels unsatisfying possibly. They call addiction a disease and I have heard frequently that that word itself can be split in two to mean what it really means which is dis ease - uneasiness essentially. The crappy part the addict learns is that whatever myth a person may tell themselves, the substance, the things, don't make things "better".
For the first couple of days of drinking I found the attention of the people at the bar, other drunk people, to be flattering. That is sad sounding but true. I liked the freedom I felt it brought me - away from my fears and reality it felt as if I was on vacation from the trappings that are of my mind. The constant desire to get better from my injury have taken up so much energy. I felt empty often and I have shopped and eaten often to feel better over the years of recovery. In my mind, there were many "if only's". If only I hadn't been in the accident...If only I knew more people better...If only I lived in a different place, be it an apartment or a state in the country...If only I was more successful at some photography...If only I was a better or different person really.
I understand gratitude and the power it has and yet I was still filled with if only's a lot of the time - which basically means that I probably am not as grateful as I should be. But a part of me worried about a sense that being complacent would not push me forward, make more work hard, make me a better person, or make me the person I should be or could be if I tried really hard. In some ways happiness got confused with not trying hard enough. That I should always be struggling to do the next hard thing. Maybe some of this comes from being an athlete for most of my young life - while I value the discipline and rewards that my sports training taught me - it also conditioned me in some ways to believe that once a goal was reached, the bar was raised immediately to the next level. A constant run around a track where the dog never gets to the rabbit type of feeling. This is good in some ways as far as going for things - but there is a negative that I can't quite find the right words for - possibly a sense, when exhausted, of hopelessness that sits squarely on my shoulders at times - because even when I do great, I see directly to the next thing that I have yet to accomplish. To me it felt ungrateful to not work hard towards the next thing. Maybe it is, but maybe there is a middle ground to ease the sense of never quite getting to the goal because I am always raising the stakes. Have you ever watched the downfall of an olympic gold medalist? It is a common problem. I have watched the best at their sports celebrate and then cry because the next move is so undefined and they are used to the definitions, goals and intentions so deeply associated with that high award that once they get there - they look at the medal and wonder, "what now"?
I think that as a society we are obsesssed with constant happiness. Watching TV every ad promises that happiness is our's if only we do or have what they are selling - even antidepressants. I think that we - or at least I - bought into the belief that something was wrong with me when I felt sad, unsatisfied or uncomfortable. I think this is why addictions are so easily formed. Unfortunately it seems that too much of one thing or anything in excess takes away from that happiness rather than gives - with the exception of love maybe. I found that during my binge of drinking that I could see the downfall of it all more clearly. From experience knowing that I didn't understand alcoholics but understanding the pitfalls of such a lifestyle helped me to realize that even if something feels good in the moment that those are temporary moments, covering up a much deeper need- or trying to hide a feeling of unease about life. Knowing that others before me NEVER found the answer in a bottle - a bit like the rabbit at the dog track too - I saw suddenly that there was nothing wrong with "feeling the discomfort" - that I would rather live through the uncomfortable moments than to miss the good while subtracting the bad through substance. The substance lets one "check out" and after two weeks I realize that that isn't the answer. I did get over some of my fears - I felt fearless and free while intoxicated. I felt drunk and not much else. I let go. I didn't try to control things. I gave up though too - And in that, I lost more than I gained.
In wanting to be free, I lost myself. In wanting to be fearless and without discomfort, I lost my pride, confidence and self-esteem. I said things I didn't mean, made poor choices, left my friends to go to the bar, isolated myself except in conversations with other drunk people who frankly probably don't remember a word of what I said anyway - all very pointless really and hurtful to those close to me. All so that I didn't have to feel scared for a couple of hours. And then I would sleep. I took off from work. I wasn't fearful but I lost my passion. I lost hope more so than on any bad day of sadness. And I think that hope is really beautiful. I think that hope is the wellspring that makes us able to do all sorts of things.
But hope also implies the future and expectations and goals. And maybe that is where I have gone wrong...maybe when I think of goals, I think of a racetrack with no happiness and always wanting more around the next bend. So I wonder what hope is? Hope gets me out of the bed in the morning. Hope helps me make phone calls for stories in photography. Hope helps me share. Hope makes me smile. Maybe goals should be about living more than having. Maybe goals can encapsulate loving the moment, watching the cardinals in my backyard, doing things for the sake of merely doing them and enjoying the journey. I suppose that brings me almost full circle to why I began skating in the first place as I child. I did it because I loved skating - I didn't skate to win the gold medal - gosh at that age I didn't really even know what a gold medal was really - I skated because I loved the very act of doing it - the feeling of the ice under my blades, the wind on my face, the way the rink smelled, the routine and the quiet concentration. As I got towards the end of my skating and injury from doing too much while growing and having to quit the sport - it had become more about the winning and the competitions and less about realizing the fundamental reasons I felt so well as a child.
And so after drinking heavily for two weeks, I realize that maybe that doesn't make me some expert on why people drink or are alcoholics as I have been around all my life, but I did learn from it. I am stumped really on why the alcoholics I know do not wish to make a change. I always thought if I was better, I could help them stop. I now have a sense of compassion about the whole issue more. I wish I could give them Hope. I wish I could let them know that it is okay to feel the sadness within them and use it to help them learn instead what they really need and to ask for it. Sadness is not a bad emotion. I have realized rather that it is merely a beautiful flag that helps us know that something within isn't getting what it needs. That there are healthy ways to find beauty in the world. That "if only's" are not guides - "if only's" tend to be more excuses for not participating in the present. That the present no matter how bad or how hard is worth living through if only to have the chance to look up at the sky and realize its beauty and share that wonder with someone else. That there is always someone we can share that with even if we have to capture the mailman and give him or her a smile.
Fear, addiction, and if only's are trappings that can be broken. And when they break, tears of joy and happiness and sadness are again possible. To avoid those things is giving up, to embrace them is living. And living is beautiful. On that barstool, I disappeared from life - with the ridiculous notion that the bottle would fill me up instead of making me feel as empty as it did. So I begin afresh. With a heart full of love, a soul filled with hope, gratitude for everything under the sun, and a courage to live with sad times, happy times, and fear. I welcome it all. I am ready to be a part of living again.
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