Welcome to My Brain: Things I Am Thinking About This Week
Things I’m thinking about: I am a much more sane person when I take regular internet sabbaticals. I took one last week, and emerged a pleasanter creature. Clothes shopping is not nearly as fun when you don’t fit in the same kind of clothing you’re used to wearing: like, say, jeans. I’m doing better with the whole body image insecurity thing on a macro level, but sometimes it’s three steps forward, one step back. Dresses with tights and large sweaters, you will be my friends from now on. This whole Walmart vs. Ashton Kutcher thing. Basically, everything that is wrong with society today. I give this stuff way too much…
A Harmless Little Lie
It was just another run of the mill Monday at rehab. Like always, the first item on our housekeeping list was the New Beginnings House. Run by the county, New Beginnings facilitated supervised meetings between parents and children when the children have been removed from the parents’ care. Victoria and I volunteered to clean the nurse’s station, the small trailer about fifty yards away where they did physical check-ups on the children in foster care. The nurse’s station was an easy task, as it was infrequently used. A light dusting, bathroom wipe down and vacuuming took care of the little space. Lugging the vacuum down the slope was probably the…
Year Four: Practicing Peace
I know I’ve been writing a lot about my addiction and recovery lately. Hopefully it doesn’t scare anybody off, but there’s a few reasons for the trips down memory lane… It’s partly because tomorrow is my fourth birthday, meaning, the marker of four years without alcohol. Birthdays tend to make me reflective. It’s also because I’m embarking on step eight. You know, the fun one where you have to list all the people you’ve harmed and prepare to apologize to them. Yay. There’s nothing I like more than cataloguing all the terrible shit I’ve done to people. I’ve also been dealing with addiction again in an up-close-and-personal way, though this…
The Hard
I am struggling lately. This season of difficulty was not entirely brought on by external factors, though. Life is pretty okay in that regard: no one is sick, my family is on good terms with each other, Mike and I have stable jobs in an unstable economy. It’s not spectacular, but I honestly don’t have much to complain about when it comes to basic necessities. No, this is an internal struggle. Part of recovering from addiction is learning to deal with yourself, as the addict masks their humanity with drugs or alcohol. No icky feelings, no managing fears, no confronting the shame accumulated over a lifetime of being human –…