Just a Moment

I caught a moment in the kitchen tonight, after cleaning up dinner, about to turn off the stereo, Dixie Chicks "Godspeed" was on, and as I had my hand on the button for "off", I waited a minute, looked back at my kitchen, the main lights already off, only the light above the stove still on; the dishwasher starting to swish and sway, and I waited, listening to the raucous noises from my three boys in the tub, and I suddenly realized, everything is going to be okay.

These are the moments in another life I never would have had, much less appreciated.

And I am so, so, thankful to that moment for seizing me when it did. After a long day of yelling and fighting, pinching and scratching, taunting and tattling, my boys were all together in the tub, splashing and squealing, blissfully unaware of the madness out in the World, or even of my own simmering anxiety as of late. To them, all is right in the World, as it should be.

I don't need anything else.

"The rocket racer's all tuckered out
Superman's in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon, we'll find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh, my love will fly to you
Each night on angels wings
Godspeed, sweet dreams

God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears Amen wherever we are
And I love you."

Raw

So, yesterday I sealed the deal. By making it public, I feel like I made it forever, real.
What I never realized was how much I had let drinking dictate who I am. I've always thought of myself as this comfortable, happy, optimistic person, which I know I still am somewhere, but this surrender has me feeling emotional, vulnerable, and raw.

I've heard it said that early sobriety is truly like being born again. So in a lot of ways, this raw and vulnerable feeling is exactly right. It doesn't make it easier, just, better knowing it's normal.

I've known all my life that it was a risky thing to tempt fate, having an alcoholic mother. But, the mind of an addict is so tricky. I told myself since I never had a hangover, rarely drank in front of the kids, never drove, never embarrassed myself, was still highly functioning, that I didn't really have a problem. But the thing is, I do.

After dinner every day, I was counting down the minutes until bedtime, so I could have my wine. Bedtime was particularly stressful, because if the boys didn't play along and just follow routine without any glitches (helloooo, they are 7, 5, and 3!) I would become totally incensed that they were stealing MY time! Imagine that...a Mom so jealous of her wine time that she became irrationally angry with her own kids....... for being kids.

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." Martin Luther King Jr said those words, and I cannot think of a better way to look at things right now. I don't have to be sober for life...RIGHT NOW. I just have to do it for today, believing that the next step will appear for me tomorrow. And that is huge, because if I start to think about my Birthday (without wine) or Valentine's Day (without wine) or my Memorial Day Picnic (without wine) or simply the next few Fridays (without wine), I will surely run screaming backwards.

This day, 7 days ago, I had my last night of drinking. I didn't know it would be my last, and I thank God I didn't know, because the way my addictive personality works is, I have to "prepare" for "the last day" by planning and preparing and then inevitably it's not what I expected or wanted or it wasn't enough or what I want to remember as "the last time", so, in turn, it doesn't end up BEING the last time. But last Sunday I had quite a bit of wine left in my Franzia box, and so I figured I'd finish it off before The Week began.

 And then on Monday I got the phone call from my Dr.'s office making sure I would be at my appointment because my triglycerides were very high and my Dr really needed to go over the results in person. I immediately hung up and started googling what high triglycerides meant and the top 4 factors were heavy alcohol use, belly fat, general overweight body, and lack of exercise. Check, check, check, and check. But the alcohol use stood out. Because I have been running from that truth for years. I had already overcome two addictions, so I told myself I wasn't really an addict. Isn't that something? Ha.

So, anyway. That's where I am today. Still scared and my temper is still very much on the surface. This is kinda the thing I've been heading towards my whole life. I've lived around it and tried to handle it, control it, nip and tuck it so it seemed acceptable and workable. I've centered so much of my time mentally building up ways I could make it work. Because I love it. I really do. And I will truly miss it and it will be hard not to tell myself I can have it. But the cold hard truth is, it does not love me in return.

The Rage

This has been so long coming.

I had some blood work done and basically I need to stop drinking.

I've never been able to drink in moderation. That's hard to admit.

During each of my pregnancies, I actually weighed significantly LESS after the baby was born from 40 weeks of abstaining.

I love wine and the velvet smooth calmness it gives me. After a long day with my boys, I race through bedtime as the one last hurdle to my reward.

And now it's gone.

I have made it almost 7 days at this point.

And today was the first day I felt ragey and stabby and on the brink of tears. Oh fuck it, I've cried already 3 times today.

The beginning of the week I just felt depressed and tired, trying to process and envision what this new life might look like.

Please don't get me wrong; I know this is for the best.

I'm proceeding with caution, but I'm proceeding. But I'm still full of rage that I can't drink. There; I said it. I am FULL OF RAGE.

I am scared of my temper, and previously, the knowledge that if I got through the day I could have that thing, my thing, for me and me alone, it helped.

And now it's gone.

Now I don't know what to do.

Wine was my thing. My comforter, my fun, my time to be a grown up entity apart from my kids.

But I do not know how to drink moderately. If there's wine in the house, I will drink it, period.

So, anyway, I think for awhile I might use this blog as more of a journal of my life during this upcoming year. I fucking love my boys, so much, that I don't want them to have an unhealthy Mom, or, God forbid, no Mom at all.

I can't continue the course I was on. This is new territory for me. And I'm scared. I'm already terrified from what just one half of a day felt like with this rage.

I just think I am in a peculiar place where I could either end up like my Mom, or something else...someone I've never met before. But who I desperately need to grab my hand and pull me through. 

What My Kids Did Over Holiday Break

While I, of course, appreciate and value the hard work that my sons' teachers put in over the course of the Fall, and want nothing more for them to have at least 2 weeks of relaxation with their own families...I think that Holiday Break is about 1 week too long.

Over the break, my kids reminded me how much more their teachers should be paid in the following ways:

They did this, to MY bed, Every. Single. Day.

They hijacked the Christmas Tree box for the three days following New Year's as a "fort"

so I had to leave the tree up. Or, 1/2 up, or.....whatever that is.

They tirelessly complained and fought and broke shit despite being surrounded by this

and this

and this

and this

and yet only were able to muster the strength to write 3, yes three, Thank-You cards.

Despite my best efforts at keeping the house smelling festive and 'Christmassey" with apples and cinnamon on the stove and candles throughout the house

they did their best to keep it smelling more like this.

Well, at least I had the healthy winter fruits on hand, to keep the sugar and processed foods from being gobbled up

Ha. Ha. You didn't actually think they would eat that did you?

I wanted to spend time playing things like this:

but they wanted this:

and I have no patience for that.

So, while I love and adore my sons, I know I'm not alone in feeling celebratory that tomorrow they go back to school. Who's with me?

The One

I've probably started this post about 1000 times in one way or another. And then it emotionally drains me to the point where I have to back away slowly and try to put it out of my mind for my own good, and the good of my kids who deserve to have their Mom at least somewhat focused on them and not immersed in the past from which there really are no stones left unturned or lessons to be learned.

But like that Genie's bottle or Pandora's Box, this proverbial can of worms refuses to be closed. The words must come out.

My mother was an alcoholic who died from her disease by way of cirrhosis of the liver.
She was also my Mother and the person I automatically think of when I'm faced with my own questions, trials, and tribulations as I parent my own children.

If I ever do get around to writing a novel, it will likely be centered around a tragically flawed person who despite her brilliance, beauty, charm, and children's desperate need of her, succumbs to her demons and thus becomes a footnote in the life that should have been. Because that's really how I feel. I feel like her story never got told, never even really started, before she died, and now her story is simply the background to my own life. Everything I do, I do either to remove myself from her legacy or try to emulate her in every way possible.

It's a complex thing to explain, let alone, live. There were truly two of her, the drunk, and the mother who so wanted to be perfect for her daughters that she completely came unhinged in her attempts to be.

Anyone who knew her would testify that she was the most fun, lovely, compassionate and wickedly  whip-smart and witty person they'd ever met. She could converse for hours on pretty much any topic, but civil rights and the plight of the downtrodden were her passion. Anything which involved helping the under-dog. From a baby squirrel who fell from a tree, to a client whose kids had never been to the Zoo, my mother was going to help them.

She played the piano and to this day, the memory of her sitting at the upright Wurlitzer and Sons makes me smile.

She ensured that we knew how fortunate we were. We sponsored a child in Africa through the Christian Relief Fund because she felt strongly that to really know our fortune, we must see reality for most of the rest of the World.

She threw us Birthday parties and everyone dressed up and she led the games of Operator and Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

She curled our hair for portraits at JC Penny.

She spent long nights working in her office to spare one client an inkling of misery.

She was always buying blankets to give to the homeless she drove past on her way to work, both in Hartford, and later on, in Pacifica CA.

She taught us that no matter the color of someone's skin, we all had the same blood inside.

She drove through snowstorms to pick up a single Mom and her kids in the  midst of a domestic situation, not out of a sense of duty as their lawyer, but because she couldn't stand the thought that they didn't have a warm place to sleep.

She would nurture the most forgotten among us.

But , because of her disease, the nurturing of her own kids became inconsistent.  Sometimes, there was fear, hatred, and shame that muddled the waters. The older I got the more embarrassing and pickled with anger our relationship became. I was realizing just how wrong things were, that I shouldn't have to drag my passed-out Mom up two flights of stairs to bed, or on the other hand, pour water on her the next morning so she would wake up and go to work. And God, did she play the victim. Everything that was crumbling in her life could be pinned on someone else.

 By 14 I just wanted to be as far away from her as possible. I was done covering for and enabling her. I was angry and wanted the Mom that other kids had. She moved to California and I stayed in CT with my father.

She died in California when I was 23. November 30th, 2000. She was 53, the same age her own alcoholic father had been when he died.

And just like that, the seismic shift from childhood demon to memory's saint happened.

I don't know if it's exclusive to kids of alcoholics and addicts, or maybe kids of the mentally ill can attest to it also, but once your parent is gone.....well, what are you to do with the memories? Are you to allow yourself to remain the harsh judge of their frailties, to stay angry and hurt and utterly powerless, or do you, for your own hearts' sake, allow yourself to look gently on those transgressions so you can have something nice to hold onto in your soul?

I was 23 and she was dead and I never got to fully unleash my anger towards her. I never got the apology. It was all just so sad and pathetic and such a lame ending to what could and should have been an amazing life. I couldn't reconcile the two legacies she left.

And now, I have my own children, and I'm left wondering,  should I?
Do I "get to" honor her? Or were her life choices so selfish that I should still hold her in contempt? Must I recall the brutal details of her failures, or has the act of having lived through them penance enough?

I don't see why I can't do both. Yes, she had a disease and it made her do and be horrible things.

But she was my Mom. She was my Mommy, which my boys now call me. She was a person who did amazing things which changed the course of other peoples' histories. She mattered, to a lot of people, but also, very much so, to me. What I know of "mothering" came from her. When I sing songs to my boys at bedtime, I think of her voice, which, towards the end of my time living with her, used to send my shoulders into tight balls of disdain; but which now I miss so very much. I  remember the kissing of boo-boos, the coloring of eggs, the fanatical Christmas tree decorating, the hugs and the warmth of her, and the love.

She wasn't the best Mom, but, she was mine. At the very least, she showed me what it is to be vulnerable, complex, messy, and ultimately, very, very, human.

Rest in Peace, Mom.
I forgive you, and love you, and think of you all the time. I hope to continue your story and make you proud.
And to do what you always wanted, but never could, do. To write my story with the Happy Ever After you wanted.

Welfare, explained through memes.

GAH! So it's not even halfway through my first cup of coffee when I see it. You know, one of the many memes floating around that says something like "Government Assistance: You may think it comes from rich people, but it comes from people who work 70 hours a week and still can't afford to buy what you can. You're welcome." I'm gonna just let that sit there, while I try and figure out just who this is aimed at. Who is being "your welcomed"? Those on government assistance? Oh, well I guess that includes everyone, because everyone pays taxes so everyone can enjoy the services a government provides. Who works 70 hours a week? Those lucky to have a job. People on government assistance, meanwhile, either just lost a job where they worked 70 hours a week, or are desperately seeking employment so they too can work 70 hours a week. (I won't even get into how ludicrous it is that anyone should have to work 70 hours a week to make ends meet, but that's a whole other blog) And the rich, who the meme says isn't paying their share to those on government assistance? Well, actually, that is damned straight the truth. That's the whole point, I guess, that those with immense amounts of disposable income aren't required to give a fair proportion of it to those with NO disposable income.  

The reason people have to work 70 hours a week has very little to do with paying for those on government assistance. Maybe if those who were so certain that they were being cheated out of their hard earned money looked a little closer, they would see that the percentage of their pay that went towards "welfare" is sickeningly little, when compared to what goes towards the defense budget or tax subsidies for the super rich. If you consider TARP (if you don't know what TARP is, google is your friend) being considered a form of welfare, and most do, then only 9 cents out of every tax dollar goes toward providing welfare services to those who can't provide for themselves. If you don't, the figure increases all the way up to ... 12 cents. The other $ .88 or 88% of your taxes go support the operations of the government or defense. You ultimately get the Social Security and Medicare back. What should be obvious to all, and I mean all, even those who complain the loudest, is that the amount of your taxes paid each year that go toward helping the temporarily helpless is pathetically small! To listen to the Conservative rhetoric regarding this issue however, you would think that if we could somehow cut this portion of expenditures out of the budget, you could cut the tax rate in half; not.

Another thing that really irritates me is that those who complain the loudest about their tax pennies going towards welfare are most likely also the same ones who proclaim to be God-fearing good Christians. I want to implore you to stop. Just stop. You actually suck at Christianity if you flinch at your taxes going to the poor. Period. You have completely missed the whole entire boat of what Christianity is if you feel that way, and should immediately turn in your Jesus card. Right now. I'll wait.

Here's the thing: these memes are posted by people who are my friends. That's why I see them. And I know these are good people, which is why I can't just "un-friend" them and only be "friends" with people who see things exactly the same way I do. But I can't for the life of me just sit idly by and not try to educate them to the reality. The reality is, if the super rich weren't given (by our legislators who are coincidentally bought and paid for by the super rich) every loop hole and tax haven known to man, they WOULD be the ones funding welfare, which, in my honest opinion, is AS IT SHOULD BE. Believe me when I say, it really isn't you or me or my 70+ hours a week working husband who is paying for welfare, the fact is, social welfare programs have been, and will continue to be, the most slashed and underfunded programs out there, followed closely by education. Isn't that something? But Wall St bailouts abound, Banks are rescued because they are "too big to fail", the defense budget is bloated beyond three times what any other nation's is, and we still have children in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA who are starving. Those lazy, grubbing little welfare scum.

I guess I just want my friends to understand, or at least humor the thought, that no one is immune to poverty and it's awful consequences. Everyone is just one instance of bad luck away from needing government assistance in America. And why is that? It's because in America, so much emphasis, so much celebration and glory is attributed to wealth. It's indisputably the main goal for the majority of Americans: wealth. And when that is the ultimate goal, the ones who fail to partake in the cut-throat climb are going to be left behind, and either we, as a society, take care of them, or they die. What kind of civilized nation are we? Would we actually so belittle and dehumanize the poor for their situation in life that we would let them die? Is this 1500's feudal Europe?  Aren't we better than that?  

My Many Mothers.

Aware of Mother's Day this coming weekend, I've been reflecting on the many women in my life who have acted as mother-figures. I'm sure we all have several of those women who in some way took on the role of adviser, mentor, nurturer, supporter, throughout our lives. Any childhood has the capacity to have been fractured in some way, and in my own childhood, that came from the combination of divorce and my mother's alcoholism. I've spent close to 33 years formulating my vision of my mother as a whole, and still, I feel as if I've only scratched the surface. Maybe we all feel that way. But whatever the whole picture is, she was flawed, and her mothering style left gaping holes which others, thank God, stepped in to fill, either because I sought them out to do so, or they saw the need and did so anonymously and without being asked.

I think my first "surrogate Mom" that I can recall was my 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Horowitz. If memory serves me correctly, (another thing I've realized lately, coming from an alcoholic childhood, is that some swaths of memory seem almost made-up, they're so fuzzy and soft that perhaps the reality was too hard, and so I created some nicer memories out of necessity) even her first name was the same as my actual mother's, Nancy. Nancy Horowitz, in my memory, was the first woman besides my Mom who singled me out as someone special, and talented. She made me feel like I was special in a good way, like I had something inside that was unique and good, maybe even great. She showed me how to fall in love with words, how words could create whatever lovely existence or reality I wanted. Through her guidance, I could make my life better by simply imagining it to be, and putting the words in my mind down on paper. She made me feel loved, and good.

Other friends' Moms also stepped in to make me feel mothered in ways I just couldn't find at home. I remember a particular set of two girlfriends, Tina and Sam, whose Mom's seemed to sense that I needed some extra acceptance and nurturing. Sam's Mom especially seemed to make it a point to invite me along on their family trips and vacations. To me, she was a vision of glowing golden warmth and vitality. In her I saw what I decided was what an ideal Mom should be; she projected joy and love for her own kids in a way that was different from my own Mom, and it felt safer and less likely to shift suddenly. I think I felt a measure of awe that her kids didn't seem to have to earn her love, it was just always there, heaped upon them for the simple reason that she felt it and she gave it because they were her children. That was one of the first times I witnessed real, unconditional, motherly love.

One substitute Mom seemed to have been rather reluctantly, and innocently ill-prepared, nudged into their role. That person was, of course, my step-mom. Obviously, the only more complicated relationship with a woman that I had was with my "real" Mom, and I could probably write a whole book on the difficulty, felt from both sides, of what accepting a new reality, a new mother-force in my life, was like. I can only say what it was like for me, it was confusing and hard, there was no instruction book or how-to guide on what to feel or how to know what I meant to her. All I knew was that this was who my father had fallen in love with and chosen to spend his life with. I wasn't sure what that meant for me. We had gone to the requisite divorce therapist, but knowing that it was "not my fault" didn't translate to what I was supposed to feel or how I was going to be inserted, already with personality formed, into this other woman's life. Or, if that insertion was going to be welcomed. I didn't know if I was an added bonus, or an added burden. After all, all she knew was that this was the man she had fallen in love with, and he had two daughters with a broken Mom. As I sit here sifting through the memories of that time, I have to say, I am only now seeing what a leap of faith she must have felt that she was making. What a risk that was, to knowingly choose to become the dreaded "step-mom".  To say our relationship had its ups and downs is a laughable understatement. She would have had to have a PhD in child psychology to have been ready for the new life she suddenly found herself in. But she stayed, she made a life of her own with my father, and with me.

 It took me many years to truly accept her, and what she gave of herself. My mother got the credit of being the Mom, the kisser goodnighter, the tucker inner, the Mommy memory I created through both intentional, and subconscious, deletion and addition of qualities and memories desirable, and not. When your own Mom is the best and worst thing about your childhood, the one who took her place, in your other parents life, is shouldered with the task of holding the broken pieces later and attempting to make whole the shattered mess. Out of choice. Out of love. Imperfect, and perhaps unexpected and ill-fitting, as it may be at times.
And for that, I am so grateful that she stayed, when for so long I only wanted her to leave. That is love.

So, as it was, I staggered into young adulthood with few skills or tools for living a purposeful or goal driven life. I guess I sort of just felt as though I barely survived my childhood, with my awkward and furious grabs at motherly love. The combination of feeling motherless and the desire to be mothered led me to become reckless, but desperate for approval.

I myself showered love and care on anyone. I would "take care" of whatever wayward friends needed a couch to sleep on, laundered their days lived-in clothes, made them meals, drove them wherever their ill-considered plans took them. But through all of this, it was me who needed care. As much as I told myself I was independent, strong, a survivor, I was really just a child who needed guidance. I self-medicated, and ran with the absolute wrong crowd, but through it all, I kept reading, devouring books, and kept imagining and writing a better life for myself. The guidance that Mrs. Horowitz had given me in 7^th grade had carried through, and still, deep inside me, I knew and believed that I was special. Somewhere, in my heart, I knew that I was smart, I knew I had purpose, I knew I was meant for something. I just had to keep going.

Enter "Mama Joyce". I think it was an immediate connection, and I actually think that I immediately started calling her Mama Joyce. Joyce was (and is) that kind of person who just exudes competency and safety; I felt, always felt, that Joyce was a beacon in the storm. She had been through more than her fair share of tragedies, but she just kept keeping on. She was still able to see the good in the World, the beauty in music and friends, the humor in circumstances. She taught me so much, where do I even begin? She foremost taught me personal responsibility. That my life is just that....mine. No one elses decisions or actions have any effect whatsoever if I don't allow it. The past is the past, I don't live there anymore. It's my job to be a good human being. It's no one elses' responsibility, it's mine and mine alone. If I continued to look back at all of life's transgressions against me, I was missing the chance to have a good one now. I was raised with empathy and compassion, but sometimes those qualities turned to inward self-pity. Mama Joyce picked me up, shook me off, and said "Okay, you've had a good cry. Now move along." And for that I can never express enough gratitude.

From all these Moms, and my own, I blended together the lessons and gifts they taught and gave. I try to leave out the things that still hurt, but if there's one thing I've learned, mothering means making mistakes. Making mistakes, but owning them and trying to make them right. 

Oh, Moms of the world, whether you have children or not, Thank You. Thank you for giving love, however you express it. Thank you for spotting those kids who need you. Thank you for nurturing dreams and bestowing self-esteem on those who might not see it at first. Thank you for picking up fragments and providing the glue to make something strong and useful. Thank you teachers and friends, parents who choose to love children they didn't bear, stalwart models of survival and joy. Thank you thank you all my many "moms", Happy Mothers Day.You made me the Mother I am.