My Tonight Quiet Thoughts

I've gotten out of the habit of writing things here. Everyday, I write in my journal, I wake up and I write and I drink coffee and I look out the window and my head is full, but my voice is silent. Sometimes you need to just quiet that mouth, quiet that mouth about the important things and just let them happen until they trickle on in and make a home inside.

     Last month I celebrated my one year of sobriety. And it was Thanksgiving. It was Thanksgiving and sobriety and thankfulness and fullness and help me God and Thankyou. I got to stand up at the AA birthday meeting in front of all those people who have seen me cry and who have seen me laugh and my sweet mother and strong step-father and tell my story and receive my coin. I feel quiet about this because I cannot say how it was. I cried so I wet my Mama's hair when I sat down next to her. 

     Sobriety is not just not drinking. What a lonely, empty life that would leave, just a life of not drinking. Sobriety is a spiritual journey, one in which we remind ourselves to pursue progress and not perfection. 

      I was not born with a steady hand. This mind I live in, this heart and body, so sensitive. I have a hard time disappointing people, even in the smallest way. My heart breaks when I make mistakes, I have to walk very carefully and tall so that I don't knock things down. I don't want to see people sad, and I try to make them laugh, but when they don't I want to take their pain inside me, take it from them and wrap it in my own body so it is a dull thing and not sharp enough to cut. But I can't. And it is unbearable. I don't have many close friends. Always, a game is only fun until it seems someone will definitely win, and then someone will lose and the game is not fun anymore. 

     I had a husband once who did not like for me to be praised. If I made something pretty, he grew sour and silent. He did not think I was pretty, and I did not know that until after I married him. He married me in part, because I was just good enough, but not better than him. 

      I divorced him and he moved far away without ever really knowing me at all.

      Drinking made me feel numb and I liked that. It made me feel free, and I liked that very much. Drinking allowed me to be a super bitch, and I liked that best of all. Oddly enough, I had lots of friends. They all liked to drink, too. I don't think they knew me very well. I lost myself in those years.

      Dancing, sewing, painting, writing, thinking. All those things dwindled down to tiny memories of my magic life I might have had and I was busy trying to forget.

     My mother did not let me forget. 

       Now those lost years, they feel like some one else's story. I am still so sensitive. I am learning how to deal with that. People feel pain, I feel pain, pain is good. Pain is better than numb. I have all the alive feelings now, because I am alive now.

      That is what sobriety is, it is the fullness of being, the alive feelings, the grace of the muscles being moved by the soul. My mother wears salt in her hair very well.

      All of that, the getting lost, the waking up, the finding my way and how I am today, that is what I feel quiet about. 

      Here it is December and it is cold tonight. I gave a homeless man three dollars in the parking lot outside Bill's Minimart. He said he would buy a blanket. I think that was a lie. I don't care if he bought a blanket or a beer, it's cold tonight and I have a warm home. When I walked home the moon was so full and big I said "Oh god, you are beautiful!" and there were two stars.

      I have a tree in my house and isn't that cool? To have a tree in your house? If there is a sentient Man/Woman/God person I bet they say "I have so many trees in my house! That is so cool!" My tree has lights but I haven't decorated it yet because I'm waiting for the right moment. Last night I helped my sister and her husband decorate the tree in their house and to see my sister's eyes on that tree, their first married tree together! Her eyes were more sparkly and beautiful by far, but as she is inside those eyes it's good she has a tree to look at. Her husband is the luckiest one, he has the tree and those eyes. How does he sleep at night with all that glitter and goodness around?

        Here I am, thinking about my Mama again. No matter how crazy I get all I have to do is call her up. She lets me walk around in her mind and therein find my stable ground. 

         This post is not good writing, but I am okay. It is how my mind is talking tonight. Maybe I'm just breaking the ice again, getting back into poking these keys instead of thinking pen in hand. If you want good writing go to Bless Our Hearts or TallyHassle, I do. Everyday.

      Aren't we glad the world is such a big thing and we are such little things? Isn't that something to be thankful for?