Pulling The Plug

Marriages don't just die.

They aren't here one second, and then gone the next, like when someone drops dead of a heart attack, or a plane crash.

It feels like a death, though.  All around me are the shattered remnants of the life I thought I would have.  I'm aching for an answer - like a doctor doing a post-mortem.  I want a body - a victim - to pull apart until I figure out the exact cause of all this pain.

But the source of the pain isn't dead.  It lives on, everywhere.  It shines out from the faces of my children, the little upwards smirk in Finn's smile that he got from my husband.  It grins out at me from photographs.  It slithers into bed next to me every night as I stare at the cold, empty space where the man I thought I would love forever used to lie.

The end of a marriage is like standing at the bedside of someone on life support.  They are there, but they aren't.  You don't want to let them go, but you ache for it to just be over, already.

And then there is the anger.  At him, at myself, at life.  As I madly search for answers, all I come up with are more questions.  A lot of them start with:  what if?

What if I weren't an alcoholic?  What if I had worked full time instead of raising kids?  What if we had gone to more counseling?  What if he hadn't met her?

It's a pointless question, what if. Because the death of my marriage resulted in thousands of tiny events, minuscule decisions I had no way of knowing were nudging me down this path.

What if I had paid more attention? What if I had been a better housekeeper?  Thinner?  Prettier?  Better with money?  More organized? Less preoccupied with the causes I'm so passionate about?

In other words, what if I had been, well, less ME?

That's the heart of it; the thing that is so hard to look at, but that lies at the root of everything.  In a marriage someone has to love you for who you are, not who they thought you would become, or the ways they thought they could change you.  In the end, he didn't love my Ellie-ness enough.

I look at myself in the mirror and listen to those voices having a tug-of-war in my head:  you're not good enough, you're better than this, you didn't do enough, there is nothing more you could do, you are a bad person, you are a good person.  You aren't lovable, yes you are.

I slip on the white gloves, don a mask and apron and root around in the dead body of our marriage.

I play this game with myself.  This "I should have left him when...." game.  I think: it should have been when he started criticizing my housekeeping.  He's neat, I'm not.  Or when he would call me a teenager, tell me I can't handle money like a responsible adult.  Or when he said I was fat, when I was newly sober and had had two of his babies. When I got hurt and angry he told me he was just telling me what everyone was thinking, it's just that he had the guts to say it.  After that fight, I packed a bag.  I even drove down the road, before of course I turned the car around and came back, remorseful that I wasn't skinny enough for him.

So I lost weight.  I cleaned more. I tried to be better with money.  I scrambled to be the person he wanted, and of course in the long run it didn't work.

It would feel really good to paint him as the bad guy. As someone who was too demanding, too unreasonable, too much of a perfectionist.

But, of course, he has is own version of this game.  He could play the "I should have left her when...." game all day with me, and when the sun went down there would be no winner.

So I'm left with me, in the mirror.  I stand with my regret, anger and hurt, and I stare at my own eyes, looking for answers that don't exist.

If I am to survive this with my sanity intact, I have to love my own Ellie-ness.  For so many years, I identified myself as the other half of him.  For twenty four years, in fact. Half my life.  The body on life support isn't really our marriage, it's the version of me that was tied to him.

It's time to pull the plug.  If I don't, I will go crazy.   I will lose myself in the what-if versions of who I was, not who I am becoming.

I don't want to bring a broken person to the next phase of my life. So instead of doing a post mortem on the marriage, I'm doing one on myself.  I have spent the past year getting in touch with my Ellie-ness. This is a first for me.  I have always been someone's other half.

One of the realizations I have had is that it is exhausting to believe that I am omnipotent.  Not in an arrogant way - like I have all the answers if only you would listen to me - but in a self-involved way.  Spending so much time thinking I am somehow flawed, or wrong, is as ego-driven as thinking that I am somehow better than anyone else.  I don't get to be best, but I don't get to be worst, either.

I am embracing my humanity, that sometimes things do not go they way I expect, but that I am not the sole cause all my own heartache anymore than I am the sole cause my own joy.

There are things that just aren't fair.  Or right. Or just.  I have been wronged, and betrayed, and my path has veered sharply in a direction I didn't choose.

But, so what, really?  Who am I to say it's the wrong direction?  If I ask that body on the table, the one who didn't know who she was without seeking someone else's approval, she would tell me I am not going to be okay on my own.  All the voices in her head, the ones that belonged to people who didn't love her Ellie-ness enough - they killed her.

So I am not going to listen to what she would tell me.

I pulled the plug on her. She did the best she could, but it's time to move on.

Why Hello There, Me

I have been separated for six months now.

I was married for fifteen years, and we were together for twenty three.  I can't remember much about my life before him, as a single person.

Perhaps that is because I can't remember a time I have ever truly been single.

In high school, I dated the same guy for five years (one year into college).  We were voted 'class couple'.

I dated consistently in college, and married the guy I was dating my junior and senior year three months after graduation. It wasn't a good marriage, and we were divorced after only a couple of years.  I was already good friends with my next husband-to-be, and we starting dating very shortly after my divorce was final.

I have always had a roommate, even when I wasn't seriously dating anyone.

I have never really been alone.

I'm good at being someone's other half.  I spent most of my life focused outward; trying desperately to make the people who I love, love me back.  It didn't matter how many times they told me they love me, I always felt I had to be doing more, becoming more, to ensure they stuck around.  It's both rewarding and exhausting, living like that.  I would mold to fit the interests of whomever I was with; if he liked mountain biking, so did I.  If he liked classical music, I listened to classical music.  If he liked a neat home, I tried my best to keep it clean.  You get the picture.

When I got sober the first time, in 2007, I remember thinking that first year that I was very grateful to be married, because I was terrified of being alone and knew he was an added layer of security to help me stay sober.  I knew he would leave if I relapsed, and being alone was the only thing more frightening than being newly sober.

My husband and I made it through very, very tough times.  Relapse. Death (my father's).  Cancer.  Another relapse.  I thought we were bulletproof, even though niggling doubts, deep below the surface, were whispering to me that I had lost myself somewhere along the way.

I ignored those whispers, because although maybe I wasn't as happy as I could be, I was way too afraid of the unknown.  Better to be with him and try harder to make it work than to face the world on my own.

And then, a year ago, what became the final straw: another relapse.  A long stay in treatment.  And he asked me for a divorce.

That was last summer, two weeks before I was discharged.  I remember thinking that we'd come around, we'd make it work.  After all, we always had before.  I had been with him more than half my life. I expected to be with him until one of us died. I wanted it to be me who died first, so I wouldn't have to live without him.

Of course that is not how things turned out.  He was done.  He saw our relationship for what it was: two people who were having to work way too hard to be happy together.  I was blasted out of denial, and into reality:  the two of us were over.

Despite all the difficulties of the past few years, the prospect of being without him was the most frightening.  Last time I was in early sobriety, I had his eyes on me at all times, and the threat of his leaving me to keep me on track.  I had his steady presence in my life; a shoulder to cry on, another set of hands and sharp mind to help me navigate the daily waters of parenthood.  A lover and a friend, right there next to me when I needed him.

Gone.

The first couple of months were a blur.  It was surreal, and scary, and I spent a lot of time bargaining with the universe.  The universe listened patiently, sighed, and then went on its merry way, as the universe is prone to do.

Sometime around Christmas, acceptance started to creep in.  Up until then, I would have taken him back in a heartbeat if he had asked, even if I knew it wasn't the right thing to do.  I hated being alone.

I realized, finally, that I was not only okay on my own, I was thriving.   I wouldn't say I was happy - even now happy may be a stretch - but damn if I didn't have more peace of mind.

I was learning to love myself, love my life, just as it is.

God, The Universe, A Higher Power (whatever you want to call it) was doing for me what I couldn't do for myself: clearing my path to make room for an authentic, brutally honest fresh start.

I lost my license a year ago this week.  I haven't sat behind the wheel of a car in over 365 days, and it will be at least July before I get it back.  At the time, the prospect of being without a license was unimaginable, just like being without a husband was unthinkable, too.

Here is what I have learned:  not being able to drive is one of the best lessons I have ever learned.  I have to ask for help.  I have to be super organized, and rely on good friends to get me and my kids where we need to go.  I can't run around like a nut just to avoid being in my own skin.  I have to just, well, BE.

There are moments I ache for grown-up attention.  I crawl under my cold covers at the end of a long day, and there is nobody there to download with me, to affirm my decisions or offer advice.  It is very lonely at times.

But here's the rub: for the first time in my life, I have ME.  I am able to be within my own skin, and be comfortable.  I pray, I meditate.  I sit with myself and feel all the feelings.

And I am far from alone.  I have an amazing support network.  I have people in my life who help me when I'm having a hard time helping myself.  And I ASK for help.  This is new.  I was always an "I'm Fine" girl; I'd rather help you with your stuff than look at mine.

The Universe has shown me that I not only can't do it alone; I don't want to.

I have always had a man in my life to define my self-worth.  That was comfortable for me, and easy.   If our relationship was okay, I was okay.  If he was happy with me, I was happy with me.

I am free from that, now.  It's scary, to be sure, but it is also exciting.

And there is a big difference between being alone, and being lonely.  Lonely for me, I have found, is a choice.  I can now be by myself and be totally content.

And it turns out I hate mountain biking.  I am not a fan of classical music.  My house is in some form of constant disarray, but that doesn't make me a morally corrupt person; it makes me a busy mom of two.

I value my time alone.  I crave it now.  Getting to know me has been a terrifying and wondrous experience, but it turns out I like me.

And importantly - maybe most importantly - I am staying sober not out of the threat of being left alone, but because I am enough of a reason for me to stay sober. Of course I want to be sober for the kids' sake, but I have learned the hard way that recovery is an inside job, and no amount of love from others can keep me sober long term.

I have to be enough of a reason, to myself, to stay sober.

And, finally, I am.

For Rebekah

It's your smile I think about most.  And that giggle.

I have never met anyone who loved to laugh more than you.  It was infectious.  No matter what my mood, you could pull a reluctant smile from my face, and I soon found my self erupting in laughter.

I want to say thank you.  Thank you for the cozy, late-night chats, the two of us snuggled in our beds. The darkened room and hushed corridors brought something out of us; a pure honesty, shared unvarnished truths.

We'd laugh, you and me, about our twenty-three year age difference.  How could someone so young be so wise, I'd ask.  You would pull a face, stick out your tongue.  See?  You'd say.  I'm just a kid.

But you weren't just a kid.  You were a soul sister, one who had been through so much and still with that smile.  OH, that smile.

Remember the two of us, duffel bags perched on our laps, heading to the next chapter of our journey with wide eyes?  Wondering what would happen next?  You grabbed my hand, as I recall, and said I'm glad I'm going with you. 

One time, as I schlepped up all those stairs to our room, I heard beautiful music playing.  I paused outside our door, listening.  I thought you had speakers for your iPod, and was going to chide you for keeping them secret.  But no, I saw as I opened the door, it was you playing your guitar and singing. Ethereal and melodious, your talent came from someplace deep inside you, someplace God-given. You sat up, startled, when I opened the door, and blushed.  I'm no good, you said and abruptly threw your guitar to the side, nobody is supposed to hear me. 

I stood speechless for a moment, awestruck.  That was beautiful, I said.  Please don't stop.  True to form, you picked up your guitar and belted out some crazy made-up tune, twangy and funny, and I jiggled around the room in my own middle-aged funky way.

Every morning you got up early.  Every morning.  You weren't going to miss that morning meeting for anything. While I mumbled and grumbled from the comfort of my blankets, arguing in favor of an evening meeting, you be-bopped around, humming.  Get up, girl, you'd say.  I got us a ride. 

You made fun of how all my shirts had stripes.  Is that some middle-aged Mom thing? Or just an Ellie thing? you'd grin.

Interesting coming from you of the eleventy-seven-hundred LOVE PINK sweatshirts, I'd grin right back.

Of all the girls in the house, you worked hardest at getting to meetings, chasing your recovery.  The minute you were eligible to get rides from other women in the program, you hit that pay phone and called and called and called until you got to a meeting.  You wanted this, badly.

Keeping a clean room, however, not so much.  You bounced into the kitchen one morning chirping about how you made your bed, how proud I should be.  Later that day, I smiled to myself when I saw the comforter pulled up over a pile of clothes, lumped up like a tiger sleeping under the covers.

I could make you bust out laughing by trying to be all hip (nobody says hip anymore, Ellie, you'd say).  I'd tell you I was feeling some kind of way, and you'd clutch your stomach laughing.  Sorry, you'd say, it just doesn't work coming from you.  I had to ask you want a 'snipe' was, which you found endlessly funny.  For those of you wondering, it's also called a 'put-out'.  Yeah, I had to ask, too.

A favorite memory is the day we were told to put on a skit about the counselors.  You picked one of the more colorful counselors, and groaned.  I can't act, you mumbled.  I'm not funny.  But then, your big entrance came, and you clacked in on borrowed  high heels, reading glasses (mine, of course) perched halfway down your nose and gave everyone a stern look before breaking into a dance and belting out "Because I'm happppyyyyy!" - a dead-on imitation.  I glanced over to the counselor you were portraying and she was wiping tears from her eyes she was laughing so hard.

And a proud moment:  when we put on a recovery version of the Wizard of Oz, and you bravely played your guitar and sang to the acoustic version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", facing one of your biggest fears:  putting your talent out there for all to see.  You were, of course, amazing.

You made friends everywhere you went. People were drawn to you, to your light.  Always quick with a hug and a smile, you had an eye for someone in pain.   You made people feel special - you made me feel special, the way you'd light up when you saw me.

Even after we were no longer roommates, you encouraged and inspired me.  We'd text inside jokes, check in on each other.  Your bubbly sweetness flowed through your words:

But nothing - NOTHING - compares to the way you loved your child.  Little Madisyn.  The way she would squirm and wiggle and dance when she saw you, then collapse into your arms and stay there for hours, perched on your lap like a queen ruling her subjects.  And just like her Mom, she would giggle and giggle and giggle, for hours.  Her little face so like your own, big eyes staring up at you with unadorned love.

My sweet friend, you left a gaping hole, a dark space devoid of light, when you left.  You are one of the great ones, those rare people I meet who slip into my life like a pair of comfortable slippers.  I owe you a huge debt, sweet girl, for being there for me during such difficult times, for buoying me up when I was sinking, for making me laugh in spite of - and at - myself when I needed it most.

Mere words fall short of how much I love you.  And I always will.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My incredible friend Rebekah died on January 26th of an overdose.  I won't tell her story; it's not mine to tell.  But I know she would want me to say this, because she said it to me over and over:  if you are struggling, please reach out for help.   She posted just those words on her Facebook page only three weeks ago.

It's hard not to stamp our feet and ask why. I get it, because I live in this world.  Addiction is a confounding, baffling and insidious disease.  It doesn't hold back, doesn't discriminate, and it pounces the minute we are weak and alone.  I don't waste time wondering what happened, or why.  I know there isn't any reasoning that will help, or explain.

We have an epidemic in our country.  In my little part of the world - South Shore, Massachusetts - a person dies everyday from an overdose, and countless more are hospitalized, paralyzed, slip into comas.  The more affluent areas are hit the hardest; it starts with pills stolen from medicine cabinets, usually, and it's so addictive it leads people straight to heroin.  And it can be found everywhere.

No child is exempt from its reach: no amount of love, or money, or strict rules can spare a kid from its grip.

What we need is education; parents need to get educated on what is really happening in our middle schools and high schools.  It's so easy to think:  not my kid.  But by the age of 14 or 15 every kid will know someone who has tried opiates or heroin.  They will know where to get it.  They think they are immune from danger, as all teenagers do, and they are vulnerable.

Rebekah's love and light will live on in me and everyone she knew forever.  Her death is so tragic, and it saddens me beyond words, but it fuels my determination to keep on mission, get the word out there that addiction is all around us, and despite all the tragic tales there is so much hope.  But we can't fight something we can't face.

Talk to your kids.  If a friend seems off, ask if they are ok.  If you think someone is struggling with drinking or drugs, they probably are.  Reach out a hand.  If you are struggling yourself, know you aren't alone.

Asking for help isn't weak; it's the strongest thing anyone can do.

A Newly Seperated Girl's Guide to the Holidays

I went to the mailbox yesterday and received my first holiday card. 

I used to adore this time of year - both sending and receiving cards - picking out that perfect picture (always taken as a family at Thanksgiving) and running to the mailbox every afternoon to see it chock full of those non-bill-shaped envelopes bearing updates from friends and family.

When I saw that first green and gold envelope with a little heart sticker on it, my stomach plummeted.

This year there will be no holiday card from our family, because our family is separated.

I suppose I could send a card with just the kids on it. But what would the message say?  Joy?  Merry Merry?  Happy New Year?

I don't feel any of those things this year. 

Over the holidays, even more than usual, there are reminders of what-isn't-anymore all over the place, like little bomb-lets that explode in my face when I least expect it.

Holiday commercials of intact families celebrating over a Thanksgiving meal. Magazine ads of Moms and Dads kissing under mistletoe, or grinning conspiratorially to each other as they stuff holiday stockings or wrap gifts. 

The holiday cards with smiling Mom-Dad-Kids, their arms slung around each other, wearing goofy Santa hats or matching outfits.  All together, just like they were last year, only one year older.

The holiday season makes me glare at the wedding rings of the Moms in front of me in the grocery line, their chubby babies' drooling grins taunting me.  I used to be them, I think.  My stomach twists with regret and jealousy.  Why didn't I pay more attention when all that was mine.  

The changes are coming at me fast.  Our beloved dog, Casper, died last week.  She was thirteen years old, lived a long, full life, and it was time for her to go.  My husband and I got her when our marriage was only two years old.  As I mourn her loss, I find myself thinking: my marriage began and ended with her life.

I don't want to put up the tree.  I don't want to decorate.  I don't want to celebrate.  Every step of the way I'm haunted by traditions past:  he cuts the trunk, I hang the ornaments, a crackling fire blazing in the background. 

I want to curl up in a ball and unfurl on January 2nd.

Friends mock-complain about all they have to do: the in-laws coming to stay, prepping meals, planning trips to see family, grumbling about what to buy their husband or what their husband will get for them.  All of it sets my teeth on edge, but I just stand there and smile, feeling like I have a blaring neon sign on my forehead that says:  separated.

I gazed at the smiling faces peering out at me from that first holiday card.  Then I closed my eyes, and I prayed. 

May they have a happy holiday season. May I find joy in the blessings I have, instead of all I do not have.

It helped.  A little.

Here's the thing, though: none of these emotions have any bearing on our separation specifically, on the circumstances behind it, or the reasons why.  I don't regret the separation itself, I realize, although it's confusing and hard and sometimes I just want to get in my way-back machine and start all over.

What I'm grieving is the loss of The Dream, the one that is shoved in our faces over-and-over-and-over during the holidays.  If you were an alien from another planet and landed on earth on December 14th, or thereabouts, you would think we were the happiest-smilingest people in the Universe.

At least that's how it feels to me, newly separated for my first holiday season.

Our society commercializes happiness, and it's never more glaring than in November and December.  I'd like to see a magazine ad, or a commercial, of a single mom and her kids sitting down to Thanksgiving, or buying a Christmas tree. 

They'd be smiling, I know they would, because my kids and I smile together. A lot.  I am not unhappy when I'm able to live my life as it is, and not how I feel it should be.  Most of the time I am content, and I'm able to grow and learn from the hard lessons life is teaching me right now.

But, dammit. It's almost impossible not to lose myself in comparisons when family-and-togetherness is everywhere.  Logically, I know that we're still a family, just in a different form. I know my kids are over-the-top excited for Christmas, and that they had a great Thanksgiving with their Dad.  I had a great Thanksgiving, too, with some amazing sober friends. 

I would be okay, most of the time, if that damn cookie-cutter family wasn't grinning out at me from my television, Facebook stream and mailbox. 

That's not how the world works, and I know this.  This is hard core life-on-life's terms. When I'm in a good head space, I can find peace in chaos.  When I'm not, I find chaos in peace.  I fall into the 'shoulds' - how my life should be instead of how it is. 

Don't Should On Yourself, my friend would say.

I'm trying. I will get through this. I will say a prayer of compassion over every card I receive this year. I will pray for peace of mind, for acceptance of what is, and gratitude for all I have. 

But sometimes?  Sometimes I just have to get my truth out there, that this is hard. 

It just is.

The Hallway

You know that expression, the one that says "God doesn't close one door without opening another one"?

I've never particularly liked it - it felt too much like a Band-Aid over a bullet hole, like plastering a bumper sticker over an openly bleeding wound.

Of course it's true, like most over-used sayings.

The part that isn't mentioned, though, is the hallway.  The one I find myself standing in right now,
one door firmly shut behind me, but the new door remains out of sight, at the other end of a shadowy journey I can't define.

I spend a lot of time by myself. I can't drive, and so I leave the house only with help, and only when necessary.  It's amazing how much of my identity was wrapped around the woman-who-did-stuff.  I used to go non-stop, all day - rushing to and from appointments and errands and business engagements and housework, and making dinner, and activities ...and, and, and.

What I have learned is the vast majority of all that rushing around was unnecessary.  Life just felt more comfortable when I didn't stop moving.  I would never simply sit and think, or pray, or breathe.  When I did these things the feelings would start to come -the fear, anxiety and uncertainty I felt at the core of my being - and so I'd go someplace.  Like Target. Or Michael's. Or Stop & Shop.  I would lose myself in the mundane hum of normalcy, mindlessly pushing my cart up and down aisles, making hundreds of tiny decisions so I could avoid thinking about the bigger ones.

What happened, when I stopped - well, let's get real .... when I was forced to stop - was all the feelings came to the surface.  I could no longer dodge the reality of my fear.  I don't numb it from the inside-out with alcohol, and I don't numb it from the outside-in with labels I affix to myself to validate who I am.

I am slowly peeling away all those labels, and its scary.  I pick away at their sticky edges - Wife, Mother, Writer, Daughter, Blogger, Alcoholic, Cancer Survivor, Sister, Friend.

Every major way I defined myself has changed.  I no longer lose myself by slipping into the characters I assembled to feel better about myself through your eyes. 

Now, when I push the cart up and down the aisles, I don't feel like I fit anywhere, and it's uncomfortable.  The Moms I talk to jostle about, clutching their car keys and dashing off to the activities I can no longer take my kids to.  They talk about the husband I no longer have.  The family dinner I am no longer preparing.  Planning the family vacation I no longer go on. 

All of the major relationships I have in my life are changing, evolving. I have taken a giant step back from everything that used to define me, before.  My work. My family. My marriage. My social life. My writing.

I long, sometimes, for the way my life used to be, before the weight of all those self-affixed labels crushed me.  When my biggest problem of the day was how to fit it all in - get one kid to soccer and the other to CCD and get to the grocery shop and start dinner.  When my brain was so crammed with my To-Do list - my businesses, my family, my husband and friends - that I didn't have to think about myself.

I know I can't go back there.  I know this hard stop is in my life for a purpose.  I squirm in the silence, in the calm.  I'm great in a foxhole.  It's the lulls that scare me.

I suffer when I resist the reality of what is, as opposed to what was or what might be.  I am in the most pain when I scream and kick against all those closed doors, those maladaptive coping mechanisms - my people pleasing, my co-dependency, my self-medicating with alcohol or work.

I can't even hide from myself in my marriage anymore.  I am not Mrs. Anybody.  I am just me.  

When I can let go, when I can just stand still in this dark hallway and just be, I feel fleeting moments of peace. 

I am mourning the loss of the blueprint, though.  The one I so carefully drafted for how my life was supposed to look, like a perfect holiday card.  The one that made me feel as though I was in control of my destiny, although of course I never was.

I don't have any blueprint anymore.  Every pre-conceived notion I had - every label - is torn and tattered.

Now I stand alone, peeling back the labels, feeling naked and vulnerable without their papery armor.  I stand shivering in the Damn Hallway, waiting for God to crack open the next door.   So far, He hasn't.  He is making me wait. 

He is making me put up boundaries, ask for help, sit with myself awhile.

And so, I do.


 

Becoming

The hardest part of the day is the last part. Those six or seven minutes between wakefulness and sleep, as I drift off in the in-between space of moments past and moments yet to come.

Instead of those sleepy, mumbled conversations between two married people, parents downloading their day, giggling over a funny thing a kid said, or offering assurances that the work meeting the next day will go fine.... there is silence. 

Sometimes I unconsciously slide my foot over to his side of the bed, expecting the warm reassurance of his presence.  My toes are always icy, and I used to snuggle them up against his shin.  He'd wince and say "ah, c'mon!", but he wouldn't move away.

Now the sheets are cold.  My toes are icy.  He is not there.

I knew separation would be hard, in the broad sense.  I worried about juggling all the moving parts alone.  I didn't know how I would handle the morning routine all by myself.  And what would I do about dinner?  Do I cook for just the three of us?  The kids only really like to eat about four things, so I mostly cooked for him. For us. Would the kids and I sit around the table, where we ate thousands upon thousands of family dinners, with his empty chair blaring silently at us?  I wrung my hands about the schedule - how much time to spend there instead of here?  How would they adjust? How would I adjust?

What I didn't know, what I couldn't know until I was in it, is the hardest part isn't the big picture.  In many ways, because of his long work hours, I handled many of the logistics on my own anyway. Mornings he was out the door before we were all up. Many nights he worked late, and what to eat or where to eat it never bothered me before.  And managing all the moving parts of the kids' schedule?  Well, that was always my role. I'm a pro at all those things.

The part I didn't expect?  The ghosts. Every inch of my life is our life. Was our life.  Is our life.

See?  It's confusing.

Over there is the bureau we bought decades ago, as a newly engaged couple, feeling very grown up on an afternoon of antiquing.  On the mantle are the metal statues of two cranes intertwined, purchased at a funky little store down the street from our first apartment.  When Greta was born we found a little baby crane. "Look, they are a family now, like us," we said. They whisper to me of what was, what is, and what isn't anymore.

I am surrounded by my most familiar and comfortable space - my home and everything in it - and nothing is familiar anymore.  Or comfortable. 

"We marry people because we like who they are. People change. Plan on it. Don't marry someone because of who they are, or who you want them to become. Marry them because of who they are determined to become. And then spend a lifetime joining them in their becoming, as they join you in yours."  ~ Huffington Post

The funny thing about becoming?  It's not a straight line.  It's not all forward momentum. 

Before I thought of becoming like brick laying - cumulative - each brick snuggling firmly on top of the other as we build.  Upward. Stronger.

Then life happens, and that brick wall is smashed to smithereens.  Every brick is still there, except they lie in an unrecognizable jumble at my feet.  Over there is the brick where we saw our first ultrasound picture.  We made a girl, I whispered to him in awe.  That moment is still there, as solid as it ever was, except now it has a crack down the middle.  All that happy, that certainty of how it would all play out, is altered.

Because sometimes, to become, we have to break apart what is to make room for what will be. 

People do change. We know that for a fact, right?  So why is it so hard to keep up?  To pay attention to the thousands of tiny moments, infinitesimal feelings, decisions, thoughts that accumulate every day?  And then it seems so sudden, when things fall apart, or fall away.  But it isn't.  Because we're always becoming.  Changing.  Evolving. 

But our expectations stay stuck.  It's human nature, I think. I am still that young woman clutching her first ultrasound picture, a Technicolor vision of how my life - how our life - would be dancing in my head.

That vision didn't have alcoholism. Or death. Or cancer. Or depression. Or separation. All these things are just as much a part of my becoming as all the joy, success, happiness and peace.


"Marry them because of who they are determined to become. And then spend a lifetime joining them in their becoming, as they join you in yours."

Ah, yes. Sounds straightforward, right?  All Hallmark card-y.  Hopeful.  Because becoming sounds so positive.  All new-agey and personal growth oriented.

But growth, like becoming, isn't all forward momentum.  Most of the growth I have experienced feels a lot like the opposite, in fact. It feels like zooming backward, blind to where I'm headed, white knuckles bracing for impact. 

It's how we survive the out-of-control moments, the backward zooming moments, that define who we become.

Back to marriage. To becoming, and growth.  How do I ask someone to stay with me as I zoom backwards?  As I cast my eyes at the broken pile of bricks at my feet, only to stare in amazement that I'm the one holding the sledgehammer?

I guess the answer is that I don't.  This moment in my journey is an inside job. 

I can kick and scream and lament what was lost, or I can set about, well, becoming.  

On Simplicity, Serenity and Struggle

I find myself in a tug-of-war.  I love writing in this space, and I miss it.

Following the chaos of my relapse(s) and subsequent 90 days of treatment, I vowed to take a break from living my life so publicly.  I have been doing serious thinking about the role blogging plays in my life, in my recovery.  I have more questions than answers.

I still receive numerous emails from people who identify with my story, have been helped in some way by my words. People offer bits of their own struggles, their own triumphs, and it comforts me, makes me feel less alone. 

I don't have regrets, because despite everything I continue to believe that being open brings more gifts to me than being closed. When I share some of my vulnerabilities with the world, the blessings I receive back are beyond measure.  I am long past worrying about judgment, censure or sideways glances on the soccer field.

This blog has been, in large part, about my addiction and recovery story. But I also wrote about motherhood, creativity, advocacy, balance and family.

The past six months have shown me that I do not need to share all the intimate details of my journey. Some things are meant for the sacred intimacy of real-life: family, close friends and recovery people.  

I have focused on living a quiet, simple life. I stepped away from the day-to-day of running Shining Strong, I took a hiatus from my jewelry businesses and from blogging.

My main focus has been on self-care and my family.  My kids are my priority - after my recovery, of course, because without my recovery I will lose everything.

I find myself in an in-between space. There are lots of changes happening in my life, and I ache to write about them.  But it's not just my story to tell.  What I say here impacts my kids, my husband, my family.  

Because I have shared my struggles here, I am stopped often - even from people I barely know - who look me in the eye and ask me, in a heartfelt manner - how are you?  

I don't know what to say anymore.  I am someone who shares; I find comfort in connecting with people.  I want to be truthful, but I find myself uncharacteristically speechless.  

I struggle with the balance between what is private and answering authentically. It feels shallow simply saying, "I'm fine!  And you?"

So what to do about here?  In the land of One Crafty Mother?  I realize, looking back, that I have never been untruthful or misleading here.  I have written as authentically as I could.  But there is a kind of safety in crafting words to describe my life to the unseen masses.  It's the parts I didn't even have access to myself - the pain, the depression, the grief and anxiety - that got me in the end. Writing is powerful, but it can allow me to skip rocks over the really hard stuff, even as I believe I am digging deep.

So here is what I can say:  I am okay. I have an incredible relationship with my kids, and for this I am beyond grateful.  My recovery is solid. I am able to live in acceptance and surrender and keep it in the day, with lots of prayer, meditation and support.  

Recently I re-opened my online jewelry shops, but I haven't been marketing them aggressively. Like sinking into a hot bath, I am slowing reintegrating into creating again.  It feels good.  I am writing a lot on the side, away from the public eye. It is healing.

I am smack dab in the middle of a fantastic recovery community; I reach out for help.  I stay active, present and involved.  I lean into my feelings, and share them face-to-face with the unbelievable support network I have right here in front of me.

I am also not okay. My husband and I are separating. I won't get into the details, because it isn't my story to tell.  It's our story. It will always be our story, no matter what happens in the end.  We are working together with love and respect for each other, and that's a lot.  That isn't to say it's not hard - man, is it hard, but I find that anger, resentment and fear block my contact with God.  It's simpler to live in compassion and faith. Well, maybe not simpler, but certainly more serene.

I know that God's got us, that we need to row the boat but that He is steering. I know I will learn and stretch and grow. 

Our little family has been through a lot in the past three years, and a lot of it revolves around my issues: the death of my Dad, my cancer, my depression/anxiety, my relapse, my absence during my treatment.  And now our separation.  

I find myself waiting for things to settle down, for life to return to normal again.  I find myself grappling for a foothold, wanting to shake answers out of the Universe because I want to know, dammit, what is going to happen.  

When I do this, when I live in the land of expectation, I suffer.  When I pry my white knuckles off the steering wheel, surrender and ask for help, I am calm and steady.  I know now that this is the only power I have over anything: how I metabolize my world.   

I have the power to let go.