Through The Looking Glass

I have always loved the number four.  I'm not sure why - my own little touch of OCD, I guess.

Any time I'm picking a number - for anything - I choose four, a number that ends in four or a multiple of four.  A seat number in an airplane or setting my alarm clock (7:04am), for example.  It simply HAS to involve the number four. 

It's been going on since I was a kid - as young as nine or ten - my own little attempt at feeling some semblance of control over my increasingly complicated world.

Tomorrow I turn 44 on the 4th.  That's a lot of fours.

Last night the kids broke out our home movie collection and we sat on the couch and watched our lives from when the kids were babies, toddlers and into their preschool years.

I watched with a mixture of joy and sadness - wistful for their chubby-cheeked youth, for what looks on the screen as a simpler time, but I know differently.

There is Finn in the tub when he was just learning to talk - I'm holding the camera in one hand and bantering with him about his rubber ducky.  He laughs, flashing his two little bottom teeth, just poking through.  "UH-OH," he says, as he plunges the yellow duck under water. "Ducky needs HEWLP"  It looks for all the world like an ideal scene of mother and child bonding. 

But I know that perched behind me on the edge of the sink is a wine glass.  Bath time back then was never done without my liquid assistant.  The days felt interminably long, boring. 

My gut churns as I watch Greta, pigtailed and adorable, coloring and chattering on about her picture.  I'm laughing behind the camera, egging her on, zooming in on her brow knit together in concentration.  I remember what I was thinking, back then - that I was recording for posterity that I was a good mother, not a drunk.  Not an alcoholic.  I was desperate to prove to myself and anyone watching that I was loving, engaged.

I watch the images flickering on the screen and my heart aches.  Shame burns somewhere deep inside, at the very root of me.

How could I not see, I wonder, how blessed I was.

Another disc, fast forward about a year.  Finn is almost two and Greta is almost five.  It's April of 2007.  Steve is filming what looks like an adorable family breakfast scene; Finn happily smearing oatmeal in his hair, perched in his high chair, Greta next to him, prattling on as usual.  Then Steve swings the camera my way, and I'm leaning on the counter, looking weary and bloated. 

"There's Momma," he says.  "She was partying last night, weren't you Momma?"

I cast the camera an irritated, sheepish look.  "Yes," I whisper.  "Stop filming me, you're making me uncomfortable."

I look into my own eyes and want to scream at my visage STOP.  Stop what you're doing, stop sliding down into your own destruction!!!
A mere two months later and I'm conspicuously missing from the videos.  It's summer of 2007, and the kids are at the zoo, the Museum of Science.  My sister-in-law balances Finn on her hip and laughs as the cousins squeal in delight at otters rollicking in their tank. 

I'm not there.  I am in rehab.

A little later, and there we are again, happy kids with a sober Mom.  Finn is closer to four now, Greta is almost seven.  I no longer need the camera lens to prove that I'm present in my life and theirs.  I am slender again, bright eyed and happy. 

But that knot in my stomach as I watch doesn't loosen, and I still want to scream at my image:  be grateful for all you have - ahead of you are some rough waters.  You are going to lose your Dad. You are going to get cancer. 

PAY ATTENTION, DAMMIT.

But that's the thing, isn't it?  Paying attention?  Recognizing how fleeting moments are, even the ones that feel like they last forever?  The long, ordinary days that feel like duplicates of yesterday?  The constant-ness of parenting, laundry, cooking meals, all the mundane rituals that wear you down?

I'm not particularly afraid of getting older, even though the idea of being forty-four seems incredible to me; I feel about twenty eight mentally. 

What jerks me to attention is the idea that life zips by, right under my nose.  The days roll into one another, virtually indistinguishable.  Every now and then something jars me out of my day-to-day existence - something wonderful or something scary - but for the most part forty-four years flew by. 

Why is it so much easier to lose myself to fear of what may be lurking around the corner?  It is far easier to have faith in fear, instead of just plain faith.

Back when I was a drinking Mom, I felt like I was watching my world through dirty glass - there, but not there.  I felt one click removed from everything - my family, myself.  I numbed out the uncertainty with one more glass of chardonnay.  And then one more.

Being sober is scarier - the uncertainty is pointier, right up in my face.  I don't hide behind liquid anesthesia anymore, and I feel scared more than I ever did when I was drinking.

But here's the thing:  the dirty glass is gone, too.  Even fear is a real emotion.   I am present in my life.

Looking at the un-sober me on the screen, faking normalcy, wishing with all my heart I was someone else - anyone else - because I didn't know how to be, I feel sorry for her, but I realize she is a necessary part of who I will become.  I mentally wrap my arms around her and forgive her. 

Maybe that's the trick to paying attention.  Constantly loving who we are today, forgiving the person we were yesterday - the one that didn't know what was coming down the road, or who made poor choices. 

Or maybe now we're struggling, and we look back at our former selves and think: man, she had it all together. What happened to me?

Life happened.  Life happens.  The only moment we have is this one, the one right under our noses.

This person right now, today, on this last day of being a forty-three year old wife and mother of two -  she only knows what she knows right now, in this moment.  Regretting the past, or worrying about the future brings back the dirty glass, the one that prevents her from Paying Attention.

It would be nice to believe all those fours - 44 on the 4th - will keep me safe, make for a great year.  But the thing is?  It's a great year already. 

No matter what.