My thoughts are racing. It feels like my heart breaks and then heals several times a minute. I’m fearful and panicked.
This morning someone said, “If you hold a man down, you have to stay down with him,” (a quote from Booker T. Washington) and a bell rang in my heart knowing this is true. When did I become the kind of person that tries to hold people down? What’s happened to me? When did I get so bitter?
I’m working hard on putting my feet back on the ground of the real world, instead of on the murky quicksand world of the web. In the last twenty four hours I’ve sought wisdom and comfort from those that know me, the bands around my heart loosening as I listened to my friend’s laughter when I told him how I felt, reminding me as always that my perspective is chronically skewed.
I am just me, here, small and flawed and broken. I fuck up all the time and sometimes I get confused about who I am and sometimes I do stupid shit and sometimes I’m petty and angry and, again, so fucking bitter.
I don’t want to be bitter.
I want to find joy.
I have been in an obsessive loop of crazy, but yesterday I realized I needed to put the brakes on and pull myself out. It’s hard; the crazy has amazing centrifugal force and if you even drift near it you get sucked right back in.
Last night I heard a man talk about a friend that died, a young man who had everything to live for but took his own life anyway. I remembered my friend Web, his easy laugh and warm smile wiped from this earth by a bullet he shot into his own head. I’m angry, still, all these years later that he didn’t have the courage to work toward getting better, even though he knew how to do it. I remembered a girl I used to know who didn’t pull a trigger but killed herself with powder and booze just a couple of weeks ago and how she, too, knew how to live life sane but chose instead to live in a way that killed her. In 17 years of living sober I’ve known dozens that couldn’t do it, that couldn’t get clean, that died by their hand or the hand of the disease of addiction.
I remember, now, that I’m here and I have everything to live for. I can thank God once again that my daughter has never seen me drunk, and even if my sober life is one full of chaos and occasional strife she doesn’t know, she doesn’t see it, she feels SAFE. This morning she climbed into bed with me, curled around my body and said, “I love being with you, you’re so nice and cushy and warm!” My heart burst with joy and I realized I’m the luckiest fucking person in the world each day she is my daughter.
I have nothing to complain about.
I have love, I have joy, and no matter what, I have words. My life is fucking good. I remember now.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Joy is elusive, but just keep putting one foot in front of the other and staying open to the possibility of joy, and it will peek out. Now you know yourself well enough to know that you wll make it through rough patches because you have before.
Also, with reference to your prior typo–I love “coddler’s pose.” You coddle some people (Tori, Charlie, your mother) and I hope you are coddled by some people as well. Good wishes for some coddling now.
You lift people up all the time, too, and probably don’t even know it. Except now, because I’m telling you you’ve done it for me, and undoubtedly a ton of your readers. Don’t be so hard on yourself..that’s what the rest of the world is for :/ Wishing you some nurturing and coddling today, so that you can share it :-)
The irony of life is that we tend to focus on the bad things when we have much that is good. Good becomes the norm, the mundane, the everyday. That which is foreign stands out simply because it’s different.
It’s easy to get caught up in the turmoil; we all do it. It’s the love we surround ourself with (or not) that determines if we find our way back.
You are loved. Clearly.
Sasha calls me squishy too. Makes my heart feel all cozy and warm.
Love. So much love.
Oh wait, you said cushy. It reminded me of squishy. Anyway I think it’s the same sentiment. :)
I tried to comment on your other post yeterday, but I don’t think it went through. Anyway, I think you have expressed and exposed a lot of heart these past few days. Sadly, when you expose yourself that way, there are those who are going to dump all over you. Those who will see your vulnerabilities as weaknesses and prey upon them.
If you need someone to talk to I’m here. I did my share of exposing my vulnerabilities on the internet and facing those who would tear me apart. I did my share of processing through grief, anger, rage, etc. My circumstances were different, but the emotions are not so very.
Glad you are working to make yourself happy, wishing you all the best!
I get “you’re all squishy like mud” quite often, and when I am not all grown up and thinking lack of tone (which is a stupid way of thinking when talking to a 3 year old) I remember that this little girl is making so much worhtwhile.
It is far too easy to get caught up in the cycle of angry and bitter, but so much nicer to let things slide off your back and enjoy the little things, the sweetness in life. I’m glad you’re feeling better and working at being happy. If you’re anything like me, that’s an uphill battle, and I wish you the very best in the fight.
Cecily – you are much loved. Not just by your close friends but by the much wider world of those whose lives you’ve touched in the honest, often gritty way you write and make our deepest beings resonate. There are days when all of us look in the mirror and hate what we see. We feel useless, fragile, fat, frumpy, ugly, inadequate, unwanted and terribly alone. And then we read how someone else feels – and they feel the same. And the aloneness goes. The “I’m the only one like me” evaporates. Almost every time I read you, I want to tell you – Cecily girl, you are awesome. You are loved. You are admired and cherished and meeting you has been one of the very best things that ever happened in my whole life. So there!
Life is good! That doesn’t mean there is not bad – and if we didn’t have some bad we would be flat and unappreciative of good! Per my therapist – “breathe, it will be okay”. The haters hate because they are not dealing with their own demons but they need some way to expel that negativity. If we embrace our own demons and deal with them and learn to live with all of our emotions, our own bitterness goes away.
{{{{HUGS}}}}
Lovely piece. Don’t we all feel the same way at times?
Much love friend
Joy is funny that way. We work so hard to find it, but the truth is? It was there all along. Just have to keep your eyes and heart open. Thank you for sharing your journey, step by heart wrenching step. We are walking with you Cecily.
It’s so easy to lose perspective. Don’t beat yourself up. We ALL get sucked into the quicksand. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly I can build a hard, bitter shell over the incredible charmed life I lead. And I haven’t had to deal with half of the negativity you’ve been faced with lately.
The important thing is that you’ve broken through. This is a wonderful post.
Love this. Thank you.
I would like to say that you should be proud of yourself everyday for being/staying sober. I’m an adult now and my mother is a recovered alcoholic of 38 years. I have also never seen her drunk. I am so proud of her. I have known from an early age the affects of addiction. She never hid from us that she too was an addict. She still works hard to this day to maintain that. Your daughter will one day be so proud of your accomplishment in staying sober. You will be an inspiration to her even if that’s the only thing you feel like you successfully did. Because there’s not many people out there that can. You’re a string woman.