Recovery

Hello! I'm on the flip side of surgery, well into recovery. Things went very well despite being in surgery three hours. The tumor was much bigger than they suspected but Pathology reported it was benign. They removed part of the gland, the tumor and surrounding tissues. I have an incision that runs from the top of my ear to the middle of my throat and lots of bruising. Needless to say I'm really generating a lot of stares from people. Some paralysis around the left side of my mouth and a half a face of numbness but we will know in six months how much of this is permanent. All in all I am just greatful for the awesome Dr.'s, nurses, family and friends that I have including all you awesome bloggers. I was able to ice my face and neck, lay in bed, get waited on and read an entire book.

But like all things it must end. Back to work this past Monday. Not that I have a physical job but I'm pretty wiped by the end of the day. But there is something to be said for the routine of life. Getting up, getting ready, doing a job, taking care of one's family. Routine is comforting. It gets you out of yourself. It keeps you away from going to deep into the scarey zone that resides in your mind. I have to keep that door shut because negative thoughts and pity live there! Not a neighborhood I want to walk into alone.

The Saturday before my surgery I attended my favorite weekly AA meeting and a woman spoke of something that just resonated within me. She was talking about a friend who years ago had been in a car accident. This woman was infused with small pieces of glass in her skin from the windshield and is still finding pieces of it years later. The woman talking said she felt like her alcoholism was like that broken glass. That just when she thought she had it all she would find another piece to remove.

What a great analogy. Isn't it true to the program that it will never be truly gone? That for the rest of our lives we will be removing these shards of our past? The guilt, the regrets, the amends that we still need to make? I was awestruck. At first by the realization that it is a lifetime of removal but that it also served another purpose. That we should ever forget where we came from. Those broken pieces keep reminding us of just how much damage our disease can do. Just how much it can destroy, and how we need to manage what is left, and to never God forbid add any more.

You hear a lot of things in AA. Some pass over like wave of water, other penetrate deep. This one I love. Just like my pretty new scar, I don't mind having to keep removing those pieces of my past. They keep it fresh, they keep it real. In fact I know I will never be smooth skinned. My life is too complex and too wonderful to ever want to reach that goal. I hope you are all enjoying the last remains of summer. The kids and I are off to the lake tomorrow. My two youngest start school on Monday so that want one last carefree weekend of fun. I want to lounge by the fire and start on another good book. Hugs to all.......

Changes....

They keep coming: changes. When you know they are about to happen, or when you least expect them, there they are. My sponsor told me early on "Change is good, and its a good thing we don't know when its going to happen because we would never turn a corner". My life has been a stream of changes lately.

It started at the end of May. I was rubbing my neck when I found a lump. I could tell by the size and shape that it didn't belong there. So either I had a Greek olive lodged in my throat, or something a little more serious was going on. My Dr. thought it was a swollen gland so we waited a month but when it wasn't going down we did a mirror image CT scan. It showed a large tumor on the perotid gland. Two biopsies later, it is benign but going to be surgically removed on Monday before it gets too big, and also as a preventative measure in case it became cancerous. The unsettling part of this is that the facial nerve that controls the lips, and eyes runs right along that gland. The Dr.'s expect some temporary facial paralysis, but depending on how deep the tumor is there is a risk of permanent damage to the nerve, thus permanent paralysis on the left side of my face.

As you can imagine this was an unexpected change in my daily course of life. And for the first time I can say it with all honesty, "I'm scared". The surgery will take 2 to 3 hours, an overnight stay, a week off of everything, and weeks to heal. Not to mention a scar that will run from my ear down under the jaw and into the neck. Good thing I'm way pass the "vanity stage" in life. Before I would have loved the attention that this was going to bring. How people might fuss over me, poor selfish little me. Now I look the dangers, how humbling this is going to be because I will have to rely on other people for help. You know us alcoholics: we LOVE control. And this is way out of my control.

So with a deep breath I have to let go. Let the Dr.'s do what they are trained to do. Let my hubby step up to the plate in my place. In other words let life do what its suppose to do. Sigh, that is still so hard for me. Sometimes I physically have to close my eyes, and open and release my hands so I can tell myself,"Let Go"! I am a work in progress when it comes to this.

Other changes are happening too. My best friend took our oldest son's senior pictures a few weeks ago. We had a wonderful day of shooting in the historical district of a city, all urban and edgy, but I kept getting a lump in my throat as I watched them. Where has my little boy gone? She sent the proofs last night. What was funny is that he looked so old while she was shooting the pics and last night as we were looking at the actual pictures, I could see the little boy in his eyes that he once was. So we are getting ready to apply for the college he wants to attend, scholarships, and the last year of classes at his high school. Changes...

Our middle child is entering sixth grade. Taller, voice lower, into new things. My daughter has shot up in height, and is about two inches shorter than me. How fast things change. And its hard to keep things in perspective. It's hard not to feel that time is going by too quickly. So I go to a meeting where people tell me "one day at a time"! That change is necessary for growth. To "live and let live". And as usual this programs keeps teaching me. And by the grace of God I remain teachable.

So even the weather has changed. Crisp and cool thanks to a cold front, even mother nature reminds us that change is coming in the seasons. So please take care for me. Remain teachable, embrace change (even if there are days I could use less change) and I will pop back in to look at all the blogs as soon as I can. love and peace....

Small lessons learned from small acts.....

For those who know me, I love to garden. Flowers, not veggies. Not that there is anything wrong with veggies, I just leave those up to the farmers, and support local stands or farmer's markets. I'm a flower girl. When we bought our home 14 years ago we inherited perennial beds. Overgrown, old bulbs, a mish mash of design and function. I didn't know a tulip from an iris, let alone a cone flower. One of my neighbors came over one evening and helped me decipher what was what. Thus a love of gardening was born.

Since then I've spent years reworking the beds, and even tearing out, redesiging, adding to etc. until pretty much the entire yard is bordered with flower beds. This is a passion of mine, even in my drinking days I loved to garden. But when July came I used to get very lazy with my gardens. It was too hot to enjoy them, I didn't feel like weeding, I just watered to get by. In otherwords I didn't know how to nuture.

Nuturing was something I learned through the program of AA. It taught me that in order to nuture, I had to have patience. I may plant one year, and then have to wait another to see results. That all things have to have a certain amount of care. All things bloom, and all things die. Sometimes bugs will destroy something that only 24 hours ago was beautiful. That not all things will develope the way I wanted them to. And that there are so many things I cannot control such as drought, heat, frost, chipmunks etc....

So I had a revelation of sorts the other night as I was watering. Rain has been scarce here in the Midwest. Not to mention the heat index was at 105 degrees most of the last 7 days. So I was watering for the second time in one day and I began to really look at the beds. What was working, what might need reworking and I realized that through the program I had learned how to really care for something I loved. I was weeding all the beds at least once a week, removing/dead heading once a week, translplanting, dividing, and watering. Watering slowly and methodically like my grandfather did. Taking my time and not being in a hurry simply to check one more task off my list. I found that I was taking great pleasure in the simple act of caring. And why? Because I was getting so much in return.

These beds allow me to think. They allow me to listen to the birds chirping around me. To notice the big bumble bees pollenating as they buzz from flower to flower. To watch the grasses gently swaying in the wind, and to enjoy the butterflies as they flutter through the folliage. A few hours spent in my gardens and I do not need a therapist. They have taught me to slow down, to wait for the fruits of my labors to appear. But they've also taught me something else.

They've taught me that my gardens will never be complete. They need room to grow, they are ever changing, they need improvements, they need patience to come into their own time. Just like us. As hokey as it sounds a garden is a perfect metaphore for life. Because just like those beautiful plants we all need room to grow, to change, to nuture and be nutured, and to evolve into something wonderful....

Life as I know it.....

Hello! I hope you are all doing well. I have been to say the least busy. May was a blurr of activity and June has been humming right along. Some days it crosses my mind that I ever had time to drink. Seriously where did those hours come from because an ordinary day is working eight hours, guitar lessons for my daughter, haircuts for my two youngest, new shoes for middle son, grocery shopping, dinner and before I know it its quarter to ten at night! Weekends are either spent at the cottage or cleaning and gardening. So I started to ponder this revelation and the answer came to me in an unsual way. Through a line I heard in a movie.

Who better to deliver this line than Morgan Freeman. As I found a few minutes to sit down one afternoon I clicked on the TV and right into the last hour of the "Shawshanke Redemption". The line that struck me is so well known, "get busy living, or get busy dying". How true that is. I was really rather unaware of the fact that I was slowly dying until I started living. Living has a speed all unto itself. Some days are full throttle and others are like a soft breeze. All are wonderful in their own way.

I was working with my sponsee one afternoon and I was able to get the opportunity to see what I looked at just three months in. She's been dealing with life sober and it shows. Big black circles, darting scared eyes, high pitched voice. Hands nervously moving back and forth. I had a mirror image for about an hour. I used to look the same way. She was very frustrated this particular afternoon because she is coming to the realization that she has little control over anything. At one very frustrated point she yelled, "What the hell is the secret to sobriety!" to which I replied, "there is no secret, there is no magic cure. You simply have to want sobriety more than you want alcohol". She looked at me like I was nuts. But it has taken me a few 24 hours to figure this out. So when I got home I peeked in the mirror. No black circles, no pinched face. Just someone who now likes the person she is becoming.

So to share a "living" moment with you picture this: A warm spring evening in May, a small pretty art gallery, beautiful art on display, a soft breeze coming through the entrance. I stood up to read two poems of mine that had been selected, inspired two awesome pieces of art, and were now published. I gazed out accross a sea of smiling faces (one of which was my dad) and I thought," how lucky I am to be in this moment, to see how my life has changed, to be humbled by the fact that life is so good, and that I get the honor of experiencing it.

You simply have to want sobriety more than you want alcohol. No big grand explosion of knowledge. Just a simple fact. And once you realize this you can get "busy living" and then you will see just how great life can be.....

Totally worn out.....

May. It's the best of months, it's the worst of months. Busy is my middle name. Not that this is anything new. It happens every year, but this time its different, this time I'm worn out. Tired. Want to close my eyes and sleep for a week tired.
Physically, mentally, and spiritualy tired.

Have you ever felt like this? Like its a chore to keep your eyelids open? I have, in my deepest time of drinking. I just wanted to escape. Remove myself from everything, and everyone. I think I actually thought I could somehow drink myself into an entire new life. Not that there was anything wrong with the life I had it just overwhelmed me, and I wanted to disappear. Take off, avoid. It's my achilles heel, because when I start to go on overload my brain signals :flight.

Now thanks to my program that's not an option. However I still can have the physical side affects of stress. For me that's exhaustion. When May hits we are going full blast. Fieldtrips, ceremonies, events, last few weeks of school, a million deadlines, and all of this hurling us towards summer. This time my body put the brakes on way before my mind could catch up. It just got tired.

Saturday is when I first noticed it. I'm a pretty high energy girl, and we had just spent two days in the Twin Cities. Day one was spent at the college my oldest wants to attend and the second was touring around Minneapolis. By the time we made the three hour trip home I was consumed with exhaustion. I walked in the door, collapsed in the chair, and if I had my way I would still be there, but life doesn't work that way.

Is this a trap? Am I falling into old patterns? Am I on slippery slopes? One could answer yes to all of these but somethings different. Before I could not have recognized this feeling. I would have kept pushing until everything fell apart. Now I do what I can and I modify the rest. Normal people know instinctively how to do this but I don't. I had to learn the hard way.

My sponsor taught me to listen to what my body was telling me. When it's had enough I need to listen. I need to stay hydrated, get extra sleep, and do what necessary, not what I think wonder woman would do! For a control freak ego maniac such as myself this was a bitter pill to swallow! What do you mean I can't handle it all? Of course I can, otherwise I'm a failure. In whose eyes? Mine. We are often our hardest critics. It's taken me three years into sobriety to figure this out.

I have finally cut myself the slack I need. I've been through a lot of changes in the last few years. I've dealt with a lot, I've taken on more than I imagined I could and guess what? I need a break. So I will give myself one. If I want a nap, I'll take one. If I want to sit outside and do nothing I will. If I want to laugh, cry, scream, or be quiet I can. I answer to myself. So instead of letting my imagination tell me that somethings drastically wrong, I just listen to what my body is telling me. It needs a break, a much deserved one at that. Sometimes just being able to admitt that I am not superwoman is the exact medicine I need to make me start feeling better. So tell me, what's new with you?

That first year....

There's something special about a "first". Your first kiss, your first love,
your first child, your first year of sobriety. A lot of people won't experience the last "first". They either won't have to, or they just won't make it. A week ago A celebrated his "first year". He's a sweet young kid (30ish) who just happen to be celebrating turning one! That ear to ear grin he wore the entire meeting was enough to make even the hardest of hearts turn soft. So many people went around the room and talked, and congratulated him, and then it was his turn to speak.

"I came into AA broken. Mentally, physically ( I had just been in a horrible car accident and had a broken shoulder, ribs, and was in a neck brace) and spiritually. I had no idea what I was doing, if my wife was going to be there when I went home, if I still had a job, if life was worth living. You people taught me it was. Little by little things got better, little by little my mind cleared. My wife stayed with me, my employer kept me working, my body, mind, and spirit healed. Now one year later I can't imagine my life with a drink."

We've all been there. That broken mass of confusion that just needs to find a path. Some instruction on how to live. I always tell people, "after high school when they were handing out instructions on how to live your life, I didn't show up. Too hung over from the night before". And when you don't know how to live, life gets very tough. At least now I have a better sense of who I am, what my purpose is, and where I am going.

There are times when I forget that first year of sobriety. How each day is so fought for. How there were moments at the end of the day when every fiber and nerve cell were screaming "I need a drink". How I didn't think I would ever sleep without being half intoxicated. How heavy my heart was, and how cloudy my mind was. Taking out my skeletons, tossing them away one by one, getting rid of years of useless luggage that I carried around. Staying in today, asking for help, and saying thank you at the end of the day. These were the simple acts that my life was missing. A friend of mine who I haven't talked to in a while gave me a call to just say "hi" the other day. When I said my prayers, his call was on my gratitude list. Those tiny gestures that make all the difference.

Being in my third year of sobriety, life has changed. Things are different. My oldest just took his ACT's. We are touring a college in the Twin Cities next month. He has become a man. That sweet little "first born" is getting ready to leave. There are times when I am excited, and terrified all in the same breath. But mostly I am anxious to watch him become the person he is suppose to be. For now I have one more year of him at home. I plan to celebrate it all. Kissing my two youngest before bed the other night made me realize that they are almost the same height as me. (not hard when you are 5'3) Tonight they have a dessert concert at school and they are so excited to perform. Life is ever changing.

My hubby and I are getting older. I've noticed gray patches at my temples. I now need readers for up close, and after a day of hard yard work out bodies pop and snap like firewood. But life is different. It has a peace that the first year of sobriety didn't bring. There are still ripples in the pond, but no longer waves of emotion. Life rides on a much more steady course.

I keep my yearly coins in a special butterfly box a friend gave me. When I came home last week I went into my room and opened that box. My first year coin is beautiful. My sponsor special ordered it for me and I love the weight of it. It signifies the long journey of those 365 days. And its important as you move into sobriety that you remember that it wasn't too long ago when things weren't so good. I smiled as I placed them back and put the lid on. I am truly grateful and I hope that box has room for many more.......

You just got to want it......

"You just got to want it", spoken by my friend D at last Saturday's AA meeting. It all just comes down to that simple little phrase. Not just a little bit, but the whole package. If you want it, you'll work for it, you'll get sobriety, peace and serenity. Not all at once but you'll get it. If you want it.

Working with my sponsee has proven to be a blessing to me. I've gone back to my roots in the program. I do the readings right along with her. And its amazing how in the third year of sobriety that step one has even more meaning than it did when I first walked through the doors. My life was unmanageable. I had tried to manage it but the more I relied on alcohol the more unmanageable it became. Until there wasn't anything I could do.

My sponsee is struggling with this. You know the whole "I grew up with money, I'm educated, my husband has his own business, I don't have to work". So how could she possibly be an alcoholic? I don't know, I'm a college educated suburban mother of three and the disease found me. After listening to her go round and round about if she was or wasn't a real alcoholic I gave her this to chew on: "You need to own this disease, or the disease will own you". She stopped and stared at me, "what does that mean". It means the longer you keep trying to figure out if you are an alcoholic or not, the longer the disease gets the upper hand. Acknowledging your alcoholism is the first step towards taking some of the power away from the disease.

I spent six months trying to figure out if I was really an alcoholic or not. You know what happened in those six months. I retreated very far in. I just kept opening one door after another inside of myself and went deeper, and deeper in. It wasn't fun anymore, it had become a necessity. Not like air, or food, or sleep but as an addiction, a habit, somthing you know is bad but you can't put it down. Once I finally admitted I was an alcoholic I was allowed to walk outside of myself and begin to take away the disease's power. It doesn't define me but its an important part of who I am.

I've started praying on my knees before bed. I thought people were crazy when they said they got down on their knees to pray. But since I've been doing this I am overwhelmed by the calm, the serenity that comes from being in touch with your HP. Humbling. I guess I needed to remind myself from where I came to where I am now.

I also asked my sponsor to start writing down things she was grateful for every day. She asked, "what if there's nothing to be gratful for at the end of the day?" I said, "no matter what happens there's always a reason to be greatful. Nothing is too small. I was reminded of this myself last week. My children and I bike along a path that wraps around the lake. The sun was setting, the sky a brilliant peachy pink, the water shimmering like a million diamonds, the spring air quickly cooling. I looked up and my three children were riding oldest to youngest. It was the most beautiful sight to see. Three carefree happy kids, and it took my breath away. Until that very moment I didn't know what realy humility felt like. It's a lump in the throat, it's tears in the eyes, it's being grateful for every living moment, each and every day.....