It’s Okay

In my state, COVID-19 vaccination looks like something out of an apocalyptic film. National Guard soldiers – in uniform – direct cars around strategically placed orange cones. Trucks and tents are positioned within walking distance from waiting civilian vehicles. Empty parking lots have been transformed into visually impactful scenes that feel more like movie sets than reality. And yet, when a syringe-bearing soldier swabs your arm through your window, it’s real.

If you’re anything like me – and you, too, are vaccinated in this manner – the weight of what you’ve survived might hit you. Perhaps it’s hard to hold back the tears that threaten to cascade down your face and soak your mask. You might clear your throat and blink rapidly, as gratitude and a sliver of hope bloom in your chest.

Or not. Maybe – for you – it’s just another day in this century’s version of the “roaring” twenties. Maybe you’re desensitized or you simply don’t care. Maybe economic insecurity is scarier than the virus, and you don’t have the bandwidth for both.

No matter how you experience the latest developments in the COVID-19 epoch, it’s undeniable that these are consequential times. There is a shift occurring in human consciousness and it’s uncertain where all the moving parts will land.

I can only speak for myself but I’d be lying if I said I don’t struggle to get out of bed some mornings or I don’t find myself crying without really understanding why. But fear and hope share a table in my guest house, and the hopeful guest has developed a shaky acceptance around the events that are unfolding.

Why? Well, we have to expose all we are uncovering to the light of day. We cannot heal that which we continue to bury. Like seeds, the truth will only push through the dirt, demanding attention in increasingly distressing ways.

Our generation – our generations, more accurately – have been tasked with bridging a before and an after. My role, as I see it, is to bear witness and to help when I can.

Most of us learn the hard way and we haven’t managed to transcend this trait, even though it has arguably lost much of its usefulness. The Universe is rattling across our bedside table like a predictive alarm clock, and many of us are still stubbornly slamming our palms against the snooze button. It doesn’t get much louder than nearly half a million dead and the stirrings of (un)civil war. These are unnecessary growing pains – unnecessary because it takes excruciating discomfort to pierce the depth of our slumber rather than a gentle shake.

Just because I’ve managed to make a tiny bit of sense of things on an intellectual level, doesn’t mean going through it is easy. One of the biggest challenges I grapple with is when I hear someone preach that we “shouldn’t be afraid” – or, worse, when someone goes on a condescending tirade about being “above fear”. In the Buddhist tradition (for the record, I am NOT an expert on Buddhism, so I may explain this poorly), fear is a “klesha” or an “afflictive emotion”. Kleshas cause suffering and lead to actions that perpetuate more suffering. All beings, naturally, want to be free of suffering. Although I don’t disagree with these Buddhist teachings, I also believe that fear is a normal human emotion. Fear becomes afflictive when we luxuriate and live in it. (Boy-oh-boy do I know a little something about THAT. Talk about Addiction 101!).

I have the same contempt for belittling people who are afraid as I have for verbally and emotionally abusive behavior. It is abusive to invalidate someone’s lived experience. That’s not to say I haven’t belittled people or been emotionally and spiritually immature. I certainly have. It’s a part of my shadow nature that grosses me out but I acknowledge is there. If you were to read all 60+ entries of this blog, I’m sure you could find it.

People who are fearful don’t need to be told they shouldn’t feel the way they feel. They need a little validation and some support moving through the emotion. I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I imagine it must also be true for others.

But sometimes that kind of giving is so much easier said than done. As a species, I don’t know when we will be up to the task. I think that’s what this whole ruckus we’ve been dealing with is pointing out. I grumble about what a dickhead so-and-so is because I can’t connect with their humanity. Fearful people often engage in “unwholesome” behavior and it’s hard to greet that presentation with compassion. So we get stuck in kleshas and aversion. We suffer and make other people suffer. Hurt people hurt people.

I’m currently reading The Book of Forgiving by Desmond and Mpho Tutu, and they reference the story of Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, an anti-apartheid activist who was tortured by South African police. One passage reads, “in the midst of his torture, he had an astonishing insight: ‘These are God’s children and they are losing their humanity. We must help them recover it'” (34). I haven’t yet processed my feelings about the book as a whole (I also haven’t finished it), but that passage was like a smack in the face.

One of my favorite instructors said, in a recent lecture, “Inner peace is a unit of world peace”. That pretty much sums up everything we need to know. And yet we just. do. not. get. it.

But my point, today, is that it’s okay to feel how you’re feeling right now. If you’re afraid – that’s okay. If you’re angry – that’s okay. If you’re numb – hey, that’s a survival mechanism. If you’re exhausted – totally understandable, be kind to yourself. If you’re sad – that makes sense. Look at how much we are grieving.

This upheaval may be jolting our consciousness into a new level of wakefulness – although it hasn’t exactly been effective yet – but the jolt is traumatic and has a high cost. The tricky thing we’ll have to navigate is how not to get permanently stuck in our grief, horror and anger. One of my mentors told me to think of myself as a cargo ship returning to or leaving harbor. I need at least two tugboats to escort me. Four or six would be better. We need each other to get unstuck. We don’t even have to say anything – just move alongside. That is my work as both a human and as a chaplain, and also one of my primary needs.

By the way, the only reason I am able to write any of this is because of my mentor – a radiant tugboat. She told me it’s okay and that I’m not alone. It’s okay that I can only manage the bare minimum; it’s okay that my house is dusty and I haven’t read those stacks of books; it’s okay that sometimes I sit in my car – with nowhere to go – just to feel human again; it’s okay that I’m failing my no-spend January challenge; it’s okay if I don’t have the bandwidth for baking bread or answering email; it’s okay if some things are not okay and there is not one damn positive thing about them.

It’s okay, it’s okay.

Overshadowed

History is occurring right now. To be fair, history is always occurring, but these are the moments you read about in textbooks. What’s so mysterious to me is that everyone is trying to “get on” with life despite the fact that we are living through a worldwide pandemic, as well as confronting centuries of inequality. Should we really be “business as usual”? Isn’t it a little unusual to act like everything will go back to the way it was? Shouldn’t we be acknowledging that this is a lot?

It doesn’t sit right with me. The thing about recovery is that I can’t just ignore stuff anymore. I have thoughts and feelings, and an obligation to process them. I can’t sweep them under the rug or demand that others tiptoe around so my denial remains intact. I can’t work at my computer or ask someone to pass the salt, and pretend I’m not having a noteworthy experience.

If I live to be seventy-five, and someone asks me what this was like, I’m not sure I can come up with anything better than “it was fucking weird”.

It’s weird to wear a bandana over a filtered mask to run a therapeutic group. It’s weirder still to already know and care for that group because you built relationships over a video telehealth platform. It’s weird to know the world is suffering and yet see hoards of traffic on the highway. It’s weird to lay in bed and listen to a helicopter, and weirder still to know your spouse is under its lofty gaze because she was forced to be there by an unfeeling system. It’s weird to watch people you thought were decent act indecently. It’s weird to ask yourself, “what is my part in this?” and know the answer will alienate you from others.

Everything looks the same but it’s not. It shouldn’t be.

I’m not the same.

I’ve learned a lot since I wrote An Open Letter from a Police Wife. I’ve learned that even though I was trying, I still have a lot to unlearn. There’s so much I don’t understand about history, and about the experiences of BIPOC, and that is evident looking back at my post.

I’ve learned that it’s easier for the collective to point out problems than to come up with solutions. I’ve learned that people (myself included) want to see things in black in white, when it’s not that simple. Life is a spectrum of shades of gray.

Black and white – or “all or nothing” – thinking is classified as a thought distortion for a reason. It protects the ego but it distorts reality. It’s a maladpative survival mechanism.

Human beings want to categorize others as all good or all bad, but the capacity for both exists within us all. In 12 step programs, the old timers say, “When you have one finger pointed at someone else, there are three pointing back at you”.

How often do we call other people sheep while shrouded in our own wool?

I have been so disappointed lately. I’ve been disappointed by people who don’t wear masks and who put others at risk because they want to do what they want to do – at whatever cost. I’ve been disappointed by people – adults no less! – who bully others. I’ve been disappointed by overt and covert racism. I’ve been disappointed by performative activism. I’ve been disappointed by people who turn a blind eye to things that are not just distasteful, but criminal and disgusting. I’ve been disappointed by people who talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.

I’ve been so disappointed that I’ve looked at my wife and simply said, “Thank you. I’m so glad you are who you are”.

I could become jaded by my disappointment, but I have to examine the fingers pointing back at me.

I have been selfish. I have been a bully. I have been covertly – if not overtly – racist. I have been a performative activist. I have turned a blind eye. I have pretended to be someone I’m not.

I’m disappointed because I expect other people to be all good, all the time, and if they’re not, it’s easier to write them off as bad. When I do that, I don’t have to acknowledge my shadow self – the part of me that is capable of great violence and great harm.

None of this means that I’m going to actively seek out (or tolerate) those engaging in selfish, bullying, racist, disingenuous behaviors. I firmly believe the people with whom we surround ourselves reflect who we are, and I know our brains change in interaction with our environments. Cozying up to my shadow self, however, allows me to return to a place of compassion. When I recognize that I have both “good” and “bad” potential within me, I am better able to recognize the potential for good in others, even when it is “overshadowed”.

A powerful woman I know said something along the lines of, “Even if you despise someone, it’s counterproductive to actively tear them down”. Other people reflect myself back to me – when I tear them down, I also tear down myself.

Getting caught up in extremes is a distraction not only from finding productive solutions, but from focusing on where I’m going. I’m heading for chaplaincy, for travel, and for the continued cultivation of healthy, loving relationships. I may not bring everyone with me, but I’d like the path forward to be characterized by compassion rather than harm.

Roller Skates

I was scrolling through social media yesterday when I saw a post from someone who had purchased a beautiful pair of roller skates. My inner child’s eyes widened and, green with envy, she proclaimed, “Those. I want those!”

For those of you who aren’t in the social work field, the inner child is a real thing. If you have a wounded inner child – and you don’t do the work of “reparenting” – those wounds will drive the bus your entire adult life. Sadly, most of the adult population is walking around with their wounded child in the driver’s seat.

I’ve been asking my inner child to do a lot of growing up lately. So, once in awhile, I let her win. (Actually, like most parenting, it’s a lot of compromise). Usually she gets small rewards: a Disney Plus subscription, chocolate milk, and snuggles with soft blankets. This time, I let her pick out the shiniest pair of roller skates she could find. She wanted sparkly pink wheels…and she got ’em.

beach_bunny_04_1024x1024@2x — Can’t wait for these puppies to arrive

When wounded little Autumn is in the driver’s seat, she tries to buy livestock. No joke. In early recovery, my sponsor had to talk me out of buying an alpaca over dinner rolls at Texas Roadhouse. I was heartbroken… and I thought an alpaca was just what the doctor ordered.

This is an uncertain time in history for all of us – young and old. Part of the allure of roller skates is having something to look forward to. “Keeping it in the day” is easier said than done. I’m a Virgo – I thrive on planning. Now that our vacation has been cancelled and my chaplaincy schooling is uncertain, among other disappointments, I feel a little directionless. Having a sense of purpose is an important element of any recovery program. Without that, why are we bothering to do “the work”? As time progresses, we cultivate more and more internal motivation, but I am learning that external motivators still help me more than I’d like to admit.

Something that has been eating me up about the COVID-19 crisis is the way people invalidate the motivations, experiences and feelings of others. It especially irritates me when it comes from a “spiritual” perspective. Don’t get me wrong, I have written on other platforms about what we can learn from the coronavirus. I strongly encourage maintaining a focus on gratitude (if only because it helps impede my own downward spirals). But I think it sucks to tell people they shouldn’t feel afraid – or whatever they might be feeling. I hope – from the deepest part of my heart – that I have never made anyone feel bad about their response to the pandemic. If I have, I’m sorry.

In twelve step programs, they tell you to “stay in your hula hoop, and “mind your own business,” in relation to what other people are saying and doing. Why? Resentment leads to an absence of internal serenity, which leads to relapse. I had a beautiful, hula-hoop-holding Ziegfeld girl tattooed to my arm to remind me of this principle. So, I guess it would be hypocritical of me to tell the holier-than-thous out there to STFU. When I start doing that, I join their ranks. On some level, by getting irritated enough to condemn them, I already have.

Maybe what I can do is just continue sharing my own experience. I think it helps people to know they’re not alone. It doesn’t matter what your life situation is – it’s okay if you’re struggling. If you’re not, that’s okay, too.

I’ve responded a variety of ways to this crisis. Some days I don’t want to get out of bed. Other days I am completely unreasonable. And then there are days I am inspired, helpful, and productive. Sometimes I am all of those things in twenty-four hours.

When social distancing started, I thought I was going to bake a lot of bread and become the queen of meditation. I have not accomplished either of those goals. But, like most things in life, I sure as hell learned.

It’s hard not to think about your own mortality in a situation like this, and I’ve learned how deeply I care about being alive (which is a complete 360° from how I felt before recovery). I’ve learned that my biggest regrets would be not traveling more and not living with the palm trees. (I don’t know what it is about palm trees… I love those sonofaguns). I’ve learned how much I still need people despite being the archetype of introversion. I’ve learned how to keep myself from totally succumbing to depression… and that I should stop placating little Autumn with food (hello, COVID-19lbs). I’ve learned I do like to try new things – like starting seedlings and roller skating at thirty-three.

By golly, I may not come out of this Your Majesty of Meditation but, Universe willing, I could come roller skating by with a basket of produce I grew with my housemates.

That wasn’t what I had planned… but it’s not so bad, either.

Faith

It’s just after midnight on April 3rd and I can’t sleep. I’m not sure if it’s because I had a coffee ice cream cone or if it’s because the world feels a little apocalyptic. Probably both.

This year started on a high note. J.L. returned to dayshift after 14ish long months working nights. Around the same time, I was accepted to a 2 year interfaith chaplaincy program. I told myself 2020 was going to be my year. To prepare for a disciplined academic lifestyle, I had intended to spend 6 months living my best life.

Now I’m not even sure what that looks like. We cancelled our annual Florida vacation/real estate hunt. There’s no telling what the summer has in store. Beyond that, it’s hard to even conceptualize returning to school in September. I signed up for extreme discomfort – if not abject terror – but I had planned on being “ready” for that experience – one my school describes as “the churn”. I was going to get my ya-yas out and show up equipped to get my churn on. I’m worried about how the churnin’ is gonna go when we all arrive bedraggled by a global pandemic.

It seems to me that the Universe has an unfailingly bad (good?) sense of humor. My idea of preparing for school was 6-8 months of living wild and free (sober-married-and-employed style, of course). Instead, the Universe asked, “Why don’t we see what the word faith really means? That’ll be fun”.

You see, I knew I was supposed to be an interfaith chaplain. While reading a book by Nadia Bolz Weber, I thought to myself, “I wonder if there’s a way to help people heal spiritually without adhering to organized religion”. While I wasn’t ready to run around telling everyone “the good news,” Nadia’s books rescripted all the traumatizing religious messages I received as a child. I wanted to give other people that gift.

The idea nagged at me. I finally did a Google search and realized interfaith chaplaincy wasn’t just a lovely concept I’d made up in my head.

Then I found a school ninety minutes from my house.

I sat with “the call” for months. Fear held me back. I knew I was going to have to confront parts of myself I’d been avoiding. The call was stronger. Even as I painstakingly wrote the admissions essay and sweat my way through two interviews, I knew I would get in. I have never felt such a clear sense of purpose. I can’t explain why, but I knew the path would unfold before me and it did. I learned that blindly following that inner knowing is called faith.

Then COVID-19 hit.

This is clearly something I am meant to do – there is some reason I was all but carried to this chaplaincy program – so I’m not sure why the Universe would just kill me off in a pandemic. I certainly hope that won’t be the case. There are so many ways I still want to contribute and so many things I still want to see. But my life doesn’t have more value than anyone else’s and it would be arrogant to think otherwise. I have asthma and an “essential” spouse (who is most essential to me, for the record), and I am afraid.

I have to admit my faith has been faltering. In the midst of that, I have also been questioning, “What makes a good spiritual leader? Am I really cut out for it?”

Here’s what I’ve come up with. To me, a good spiritual leader is someone who makes people feel at ease in their messy humanness, and also inspires them to find meaning in the mess. I have to say that I can’t relate to the industrialized version of spirituality out there. What I mean by that is when it’s more about selling your face than sharing your spirit.

I don’t ever want to embody that. Could I be guilty of some of those behaviors? Sure. But it’s not what I’m striving toward.

My dear friend always talks about how life is not “this or that” – it’s “this and that”. I think that’s what interfaith is in a nutshell. So if you identify with the aforementioned expression of spirituality, I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong.

The kind of spiritual leaders I relate to, however, are the ones who show you the ugly parts of themselves. They openly grapple with big ideas and feelings. They admit when they’re wrong. They’re brave enough to be wrong. They don’t give a fuck about being self-righteous and well coiffed. They’re just real.

Today the people I need are the ones who can admit they followed up a good crying sesh by mowing down a bag of Doritos, but can also find meaning on that very same Hot Mess Express.

Or not.

Sometimes it’s just a shitty train and all you can do is hold on to your seat. I need people who can call that out, too.

When I opened my laptop to start writing, a graphic popped up at the top of my Facebook feed. The words were from Anne Lamott. They said, “Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns”.

“Whoa,” I thought. “There it is. I guess I am living in faith after all”.

Grief

It’s funny how these posts tend to pour out of me in bursts. Once I give myself permission to write, the floodgates open. This part of me is like a faucet I keep clamped tightly shut, knowing the water will consume me. Once I start, it’s hard to focus on anything else – to participate in the stream of life in a way the capitalist machine would deem “productive”. I struggle with that concept even when the faucet is secured in place.

I told myself I wasn’t ready to write about my grandmother. “It’s too new,” I cautioned, like a helicopter parent aloft in her own spinning anxiety. I haven’t had a chance to organize my thoughts and feelings in the orderly fashion with which I typically approach life. Truth be told, I don’t know what I feel. I thought I knew what grief was supposed to look like and I was wrong.

The first night without her was gut wrenching. I had the first legitimate craving for a drink I’d had in years. I begged my wife, the dog, the darkness – whomever or whatever was listening – to knock me out. When her house hit the real estate market, I felt an almost-equal sense of devastation. I do not consider the town where I attended high school “home”. It’s a place that will always be synonymous with suffering. My grandmother’s, on the other hand, was a place where I felt grounded. The tidal mud pulled me out of suffering and into the stream of life. It bubbles, quite literally, with activity. When I was almost three years sober, I stood in that tidal mud and sent a plea out to the Universe: “I need something now or I’m done. I’m going to drink, I’m going to use, and I’m going to do whatever feels good. This isn’t worth it”. Not thirty seconds later, my new sponsor called my phone and told me there was another way to live.

Sadly, my grandmother’s became a place synonymous with a different kind of suffering: her own. Now that she’s gone, I feel relieved. For several months before she died, I experienced terror inducing heart palpitations. Sometimes hundreds a day. My empathic heart was literally broken. When she passed, the palpitations slowed and ceased.

If I am honest, most of the death I have experienced has been accompanied by a sense of relief. When my biological father died by suicide, I was relieved. He suffered more than I have ever seen a human suffer – at least in the mental sense. I still have not, as yet, met anyone as lost and sick. And once he was no longer hurting, he could no longer hurt me. Today I understand that hurt people hurt people. I think, wherever he is now, he understands that, too. He may not have found the answers he was searching for when he was alive, but his death validated my choice to continue pursuing recovery.

I know for a fact that there are people reading this and wondering, “why the hell does she reveal all this?” Humans are inclined toward judgment. I don’t let it stop me. Also, if you think this is too much, you should hear the things I don’t say. Friends, my boundaries are FIRE. (I love throwing in lingo I learn from barely twenty-somethings.) That being said, the reason I am so forthright is because I meet people on a weekly basis who wonder, “Am I supposed to feel like this?” And what I’ve learned is there is no guidebook for this shit. Believe me – and this is something I say a lot – I spent the better part of my life searching for the instruction manual to human existence. I loved my philosophy courses. And I’m still prone to search for an adultier adult. Most of the time, I have no idea what I’m doing, and my poor inner child screams, “No! This is chaos! This is scary! I need order! I need predictability!” And my stomach aches and my heart pounds, and the Universe laughs and laughs at my incorrigibility.

So, my grandmother died – my beautiful, beautiful grandmother – and, as it turns out, there is no “right” way to be. Most of the time, I’m okay. But then there are moments when I find myself crying at dinner and not really understanding why. And if you asked me to go to certain parts of Maine, I would vehemently decline. Photos of the coast make me sick, nevermind the rocky landscape itself. That is pain I am not ready to touch. I am not ready to fully immerse myself in that feeling of rootless-ness. At first I berated myself for being avoidant – like an active addict without drugs – but, with a little help, I’ve come to understand that this a gradual process: Our brains have built-in mechanisms to keep us safe. I am not selfish for honoring my process.

There was a period when I worried that my grandmother was out in the ether feeling hurt that I’m not “sad enough” or not “grieving right”. After I spoke those words out loud to another person – who assured me I was being absurd – I turned on my car and it was 11:11. I’ve seen 11:11 multiple times a week since my grandmother died. Sometimes twice a day. I see it on the Roku screen when I shut down Netflix. I see it when I walk by the stove. I see it when I open my phone. I’ve seen it in the company of witnesses who can attest that I’m not sitting by the clock, watching the minute hand creep forward. It startles me. And it might seem silly to some, but to me it seems like a sign.

At the exact moment my grandmother died, a beautiful red bird burst in front of our windshield. “My angels are with me today,” I remarked to my wife. Five minutes later, my mother called with the news.

If that image doesn’t sum up life, I don’t know what does.

A violent pop of color. A brief rustle of wings on the currents of time. There and gone.

Self-Forgiveness

This is an update – of sorts – because I haven’t done any blogging for myself since June. I know I repeat this triviality more than you might care to read, but I’m a Virgo and I like (need?) a rough plan when I start a piece of writing. However, having spent the early morning drinking coffee and catching up on blog subscriptions/Tricycle magazine articles, I decided to go rogue and put my thoughts down with no plan whatsoever. Watch out kids, I’m wildin’. (Whatever that means.)

Does this mean I might actually be learning to relax? Ha! What a lovely thought. In all seriousness, I have been doing a lot of work on myself. These are not small victories by any means. You are dealing with a woman who has to make a conscious effort not to match her food to her plate. Just take the first plate you grab, is an almost-daily mantra. Yesterday, for example, I endured butternut squash pasta on an orange plate. Oh, the horror of two similar shades commingling together! Sure, I could buy white dinnerware and save myself the trouble. But I like my Fiestaware and I refuse to live a life devoid of color.

There are times when I simply cannot abide the spicy black bean soup in the orange bowl. There are times when it needs to be in the blue bowl. And it’s in those moments I need to forgive myself the most. I can control the blue bowl. I can’t control that my grandmother died in July. I can’t wrap a good night’s sleep in a box and gift it to my tired wife. I can’t divert the week’s latest nonsense to some mystical drama llama who exists solely to unburden me of responsibility. When I dig out that blue bowl, it means I am suffering in the Buddhist sense of the word. It means I am resisting the fact that absolutely nothing about our human experience is certain, and it’s causing me pain. And the only way out of that resistance is to acknowledge why I’m doing what I’m doing and greet myself with compassion.

If I were to look at myself objectively – as I might in a clinical setting with a stranger – I would certainly not respond with, “Wow, you are a piece of shit. Why can’t you be normal? It’s just a bowl. Use it. It’s just food. Eat it”. Never – in all my years of working with wounded people – have I found that approach to fast-track healing. That is the voice of a critical, abusive parent. So, if my inner two year old is feeling scared – and she wants the blue bowl – she can have it. Then we can talk about why she needs it. We can examine if there are other ways to get those needs met that don’t include obsessing over which vegetables match her plate.

I have been forgiving myself a lot lately. Over the past five years, I’ve set a number of bottom lines around so-called unproductive behaviors. This summer, I’ve steamrolled over all of them.

For instance, I bought more holiday decorations because my apartment is bigger now and, well, I can. And why not? My choices are in line with my minimalist values because these items bring me joy. Today, I believe I deserve joy.

I’ve also transitioned from a (mostly) plant based to pescatarian diet. If that mutinous diversion from my value system isn’t shocking enough, I also buy many meals from my favorite cafe. Consequently, I’ve put on a little weight. My cold weather jeans pinch my mid-section, and my bikini belly is more Buddha than Bali.

All of the aforementioned is okay. I was tired of subsisting on salad, processed fake meat, and pasta with red sauce. I am also tired of berating myself for not being a cook. (I bake like a mofo. Baking has rules. Baking is safe.) And I am so thankful for that cafe. Some weeks they provide the only nutritious food I eat. Long-term, I’d like to come into balance rather than live in extremes. Can I learn to cook a few simple, healthy things? That process is an on-going struggle – and a messy one at that. The other week, for example, I managed to bastardize a bag of frozen ravioli. That takes skill let me tell you.

Today, I’m allowed to be messy. I am a human being. I am no longer answering to that nasty inner voice telling me I’m not enough.

I am not advocating we all sit around and co-sign our own bullshit. I am merely acknowledging that I am doing the very best I can in this moment. I have to trust that when I learn how to do better (or have healed enough to do better), I will. Historically, that has always been true. In order to accomplish that, however, I need to love the woman I am today. She is not going to grow in soil embittered by self-loathing.

200 Things That Make Me Happy

Although clinical work isn’t my primary professional responsibility, I love to keep a toe dipped in the water, so I co-facilitate an intensive outpatient group twice a week. It keeps me connected and inspired. A few times a year, we take a break from facilitating our normal therapeutic rotation and offer a structured gratitude group. Rather than asking my clients to write a rote list of things for which they’re grateful, I reframe the concept of gratitude. I ask them to write a list entitled “100 Things That Make Me Happy”. A huge part of recovery, for me, is noticing and savoring the little things.

There’s an old saying that goes, “we teach what we need to learn”. It’s been a shit year – and I’ve spent a lot of time processing the lessons. There’s nothing wrong with that. But none of my recovery mentors have ever said, “it’s more important to make a gratitude list when things are going great”. In fact, the opposite is true.

In early recovery, writing this list is hard. Your brain is healing. You’re just starting the process of cognitive restructuring. Consequently, your thoughts tend toward the negative. You may not even know yourself – your likes and dislikes – and what makes you happy. This is completely normal. But it’s important to start somewhere.

Even though I’ve had a little practice, it’s easy to forget the significance of this activity. Since I didn’t slow down until the 130-150 mark, I decided to challenge myself and push to 200. I stress this to my clients: it’s not a competition. It’s an awakening of the spirit.

I’d love to see your list! Share in the comments!

200 Things That Make Me Happy – A Gratitude List

Courtesy of https://www.alifeinprogress.ca/

my wife, J.L.
my dog, Cedric
my Subaru
dry shampoo
Pressed Cafe (5a. iced mocha lattes, 5b. beet salads, 5c. white chocolate cookies, 5d. spicy Greek burritos, 5e. grilled tofu 5f. pesto mac & cheese)
overalls
the baby curls at the back of J.L.’s neck
J.L.’s hugs
Trader Joe’s
apple pie
most pie, really
my porch
porches in general
knowing there’s a good show waiting on Netflix
Kissing Cedric’s paws and lips
when Cedric’s paws smell like sweet grass
sweatpants
when Chipotle makes my burrito bowl just right
the sound of peepers
Stevie Nicks
tattoos
airports
tokyo milk honey & the moon candle
farmers’ markets
fresh Maine seafood
antique stores
book stores
botanical gardens
regular gardens
greenhouses
fuzzy blankets
finding a rare seashell
soft serve
FoMu vegan shakes
Olive Garden
french fries for dinner (with honey mustard or sweet & sour dipping sauce)
Mike’s Pastries
aquariums
street art
Christmas stockings
string lights
northern lights dark rum & oak candle
campfires/fire pits
Annie’s cheddar flavor vegan mac ‘n cheese
independent film
Cedric’s puppy noises
kettle cooked chips
my Sudanese prayer beads
dog memes
art museums
Augusten Burroughs
Patti Smith
a hot shower after a long day
that feeling when J.L. and I are driving away from the city toward adventure
when wise old people tell good stories or say profound things
TV shows starring, written or produced by Ricky Gervais
Nadia Bolz-Weber
pin-up girls
Converse
the smell of the Atlantic ocean
Waterfire
vintage markets
street festivals
when J.L. laughs really hard
Burying my face in Cedric’s chest
Cedric’s ear hairs
Cedric’s eyelashes
the smell of Whole Foods
When Whole Foods’ hot bar serves perfect tofu
Whole Foods’ bakery
Massabesic Audubon on a summer evening
Rhye
the smell of rain on hot pavement
Florida palm trees
the Gulf of Mexico
hummus wraps from Hot Rize or St. Augustine’s Crave
Kookaburra Honey Badger iced latte with honey
listening to jazz with the window open during a rainstorm
Chicago
Lexie’s black bean burgers and fries
fresh flowers
dried flowers
mason jars
glass bottles
a good salad – especially with local, recently harvested produce
Shiny Brite Christmas ornaments
Bambolina wood fired pizza
Michael’s the craft store
antique car shows
the cello or violin
slow dancing in the kitchen with J.L.
chocolate croissants
hoodies
the smell of patchouli on other people
Disney/Pixar movies
empty beaches
giant pool floats
J.L.’s love notes
warm items from the dryer
clean sheets
strawberry shortcake
fireworks
Cedric’s whiskers on my face
Cedric’s eyes
good hair days
root beer floats
kayaking
spanish moss
jigsaw puzzles
National Parks
J.L.’s cooking
planning our future
Mucha
The Golden Girls
muscle shirts
Cirque du Soleil
the sound of Cedric crunching
cool bird sightings
the lupines and daisies on the side of the highway
all wildflowers
how happy Cedric is to see me when I come home
when Cedric wipes his eyes with his paws
Cedric’s elbows
discovering a new song on YouTube
drinking tea or eating lunch with my dearest friends – especially outside!
when the cupboards are stocked with snacks
ripped jeans
J.L.’s smile
beard Snapchat filters
bowties for dogs
dogs wearing sweaters
sea salt on my skin
mocktails that don’t suck
built-in bookshelves
decluttering/minimizing
collecting stickers from our travels
Dwight Schrute
getting through the day without any anxiety symptoms
Bombas or Smartwool socks
documentaries
papasan chairs with fuzzy cushions
cattails
fields of sunflowers
the sound of cicadas
butterfly sightings
holding J.L.’s hand
when J.L. sings to me in the car
decorating for holidays
taking nature pictures
alpacas
neon signs
Chihuly
the smell of fresh Christmas tree
lemurs
watching Elf on Thanksgiving night
craft soda – especially blueberry pop
when a Prince song comes on the radio – especially Purple Rain
tofu spring rolls
old school Missy Elliott
Wentworth
laughing with my coworkers
driving at dusk with the windows down and the music loud
random acts of kindness
finding secret places that tourism hasn’t ruined
chopsticks
foggy/misty fields
the smell of sea in fog
honey from our friend’s homestead
fresh baked bread
the golden hour
comfortable sleeping weather
mastering a new trick in Lightroom or Photoshop
colorful nail polish
vinyl records
recognizing the divine in a stranger
the way light filters through blinds
hidden object games
patterns or symmetry in nature
the first sip of coffee
moody skies
Yam I Am burrito from 86 This!
my last name
when Cedric spoons me
when Cedric holds my hand with his paw
the way J.L. makes me feel unconditionally loved and secure
when J.L. is safe at home
hats
foxes
restored/refinished/bespoke furniture
sustainable living
One Strange Rock
Gabor Maté
a relaxing massage
Demented Santa (a Christmas landmark in our city)
Sally Mann’s southern landscapes
jellyfish
family dinner nights
walking barefoot
my wedding ring
the beauty of J.L.’s heart

Dark Night of the Soul

My sobriety date is July 14th, 2009. God willing, in just over a month, I’ll have made it to the ten year mark. It’s no secret that this year has been one of the hardest of my recovery thus far. Pretty much everything I’ve written since last Fall has alluded to my dark night of the soul. It’s become a running joke in our household: “Guess we’ll just chalk it up to 2018-2019”. The reason I continue to write about it is because I want to be a voice of authenticity. In the recovery world, you read a lot of positive quotes and saccharine soberlogues. I’m guilty of sharing from these categories. What I read about less, however, is reality. Recovery isn’t a happily-ever-after affair. It’s unadulterated experience. It’s being more awake than most have the desire to be. Yes, recovery is the miracle of life – but when you live you hurt.

I want to read fewer commercialized yoga studio clichés and more truth. I guess that means taking Gandhi’s advice and “being the change”.

Although I believe in metaphysical principles like the Law of Attraction, I think there is a limit to their merit. Yes, if you fixate on how much your day sucks, you will attract more bullet points to support your argument. Yes, if you habitually complain, you will attract more things to complain about. However, no matter how positive you are, pain has its place. The question is – are you willing to learn?

I’ve stopped fighting my dark night of the soul. I’ve surrendered to the boughs of the inky forest. The darkness is a womb.

Marianne Williamson uses a building analogy to describe the rebirth process. She writes about how you can’t always renovate the rooms in your house. Sometimes you have to tear the whole thing down.

I hadn’t really penciled a demolition into my 2018-2019 calendar year. But that is recovery.

Over the last eight months, I’ve discovered that I don’t need a demolition so much as I need a stack of eviction notices. If you told me a year ago that I was subletting my identity for free, I’d tell you that you were crazy. In my mind, I had the whole authenticity thing in the bag. I wrote an entire post dedicated to the subject. As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t in the people pleasing business anymore. Little did I know, squatters were still overrunning the place and I had only managed to repossess a few closets. And yes, they were lovely, wild closets – Narnia-esque cupboards filled with shells and feathers, fireflies and baby animals. But they reached capacity, as cupboards do, and the suffocation became a sickness.

It’s one thing to recognize sickness and another thing to do something about it. That’s where pain comes in. Pain runs a twisted delivery service; it dispenses the gift of desperation and transforms anyone who dares to unpack the contents of the box. Without pain would I really be willing to change? Would I really be willing to ask for help? Truthfully? No. It’s easier to doze off under the pretense of wakefulness.

Most of us say, “someday I’m going to [insert lofty accomplishment here]”. This sentence prevents me from ever being enough. It gives the squatters too much room to weigh in on the paint color.

What strikes me is that in 20,000 years, it’s unlikely anyone is going to know Shakespeare’s name. Or Mozart. Or Kim Kardashian. Or Mark Zuckerburg. (Definitely not Kim Kardashian). It will be impressive if the human species even survives. The real question is – did Shakespeare enjoy his food? Did he notice the sky? Did he love his dog? Did he smile with every ounce of his being? Did he see and experience everything he could? Did he use his gifts to connect with others? Did he know himself?

Part of recovery, for me, is giving up “the chase”. And it’s fucking hard. I’ve been publicly wrestling with it since I started this blog – and privately wrestling with it for my entire life. Just when I think I’ve abandoned all pursuits, I realize sweat is pouring down my chest and I’m still wearing my running shoes.

It’s so easy to forget that our lives mean something without “someday” or that “really big thing”. We don’t have to strive toward “enough”. We already are. In a purely scientific sense, our existence serves the purpose of perpetuating life on earth. If you leave someone to decompose in a field, they become part of the system that sustains all living things. If you consider the majesty of our planet, there is no loftier aim.

I don’t know if I will ever achieve all those big “somedays”. Most of them were never for me anyway. Someday the dust of my bones will become ocean silt. The simplicity of that is beautiful. And when I unpacked my box of pain, I learned simplicity was what I was trying to get back to all along.

A newborn has no memory of the womb. At the end of my life, I imagine it won’t be the night I’ll remember, but everything juxtaposed against it: I’ll remember J.L. slipping my wedding band on after a minor medical procedure, and how startlingly tender it felt for her to make my ring a priority when I was weak and unattractive. I’ll remember the warm smell of my dog’s velvet ears, my favorite coffee shop, and teaching myself to cook something new. I’ll remember the songs that defined me; the piano and cello. I’ll remember the cool, tall grass and the heady flowers. I will be grateful I was willing to unpack – to change the sheets in the guest bedroom – to make room for more of the simple things – the things that matter.

Florida: Vacation Vignettes

May 5th: Gypsy Landing

One of my bucket list items is to become a travel blogger. When we vacation, I normally post daily Facebook updates chronicling our trip. I don’t feel up to it this time. It’s a testament to how tired I am. The desire to write is there, but I need a quieter way to reflect.

At the moment, thunder is rumbling in the distance and I’m drinking a melting iced mocha on our jungle-like patio (Starbucks only gives you cardboard straws here, which makes me much more enthused about their exorbitant prices). We’re staying in a bungalow that can only be described as ramshackle meets updated; the owner calls it “Gypsy Landing”. There are lizards and snakes in the garden and I am unbothered by their presence. I like watching them scurry and slither.

We chose this town as part of our continuing real estate exploration process. Gulfport is known as the Florida destination for artists and hippies – which is right up my alley. So far, the town motto “keep Gulfport weird” seems to mean inebriated and tangled with greenery, but my first impression could be off base. That’s not to say I don’t like it. Yesterday, for example, I would’ve happily bought two pieces of locally painted/refinished furniture if the store had been able to ship them home. It was probably for the best that they couldn’t; we are trying to pack as little as possible when we move south. After we relocate, I will come back to furnish our home. Although I will be leaving sans coffee bar and funky side table, I was inspired to add a new item to my bucket list: learn to refinish furniture. Growing up, my grandparents ran an antique shop out of their coastal Maine barn. If I could manage a little custom furniture shop in Florida, I would be overjoyed. This stuff runs in my blood.

Another goal I have is to be a one car family (or a one regular car/one vintage car family). I have this romantic vision of walking to work from our own bungalow. Laugh at me if you will, but I choose to keep an open mind about the future. These dreams certainly won’t manifest if I get caught up in the reasons why they’re unrealistic – and the idea of driving doesn’t do much for me. The strip malls and terrible drivers are part of what I hate about Florida. It makes me laugh that there are so many things I find repulsive and yet I am bewitched. Despite having Scandinavian ancestry, I feel more attractive unshowered and covered in sand in Florida than I do freshly groomed in New Hampshire. The humidity wraps me in its arms, gently curls my hair, and pulls the toxins from my pores. I’ve heard people describe heroin as a warm hug. That’s how I feel about the sweet, heavy tropical air.

May 7th: Keep Gulfport Weird

This morning we went to a farmer and artisan’s market in town and I fell in love. We bought fresh sourdough bread from a German baker and light, spongey rum cake from a woman with striking eyes. She said, “God is good and blesses us all”. I am normally wary of these messages as an openly gay traveler in the South, but I felt like she meant it and was inclined to agree. We could smell the sugar from her cake long after it was devoured. We also picked our official souvenir: elephant wind chimes from a woman who travels to Nepal twice a year. Everyone at the market greeted us with a cheerful “good morning!”

Bread from the market with a spicy sauce

The simple pleasantness of the marketplace gave me a lot to think about on our afternoon drive south to further explore the region. I was enchanted by Anna Maria Island, but a quick real estate search revealed it to be way out of our budget. As we passed through Longboat Key – a route characterized by mansions, luxury condominiums and golf courses – there was a continued shift in the socioeconomic and racial landscape that left me feeling a little sad. Suddenly I understood the phrase, “keep Gulfport weird”. I was relieved to return to the greater St. Petersburg area – to the rainbow flags, wild gardens, and spectrum of skin colors.

I can’t judge a place based solely on one afternoon drive, but I know that I don’t want the gate and the golf course.

Instead, I dream of a bungalow and a stone patio (so snakes can’t make their home underneath) and dinners outside in the evening. I dream of a little yard, a lime tree, and a plastic swimming pool for Cedric. I dream of grilling vegetables from the market. I dream of stone Buddhas and seashells in the garden.

Even if we were billionaires, I wouldn’t want the gate or the golf course. I’d buy the Don Cesar Hotel on St. Pete’s Beach and make it my palace. It’s one of my favorite buildings in the world.

May 9th: Temple of the Divine

St. Petersburg is home to Haslam’s Books – a gigantic new & used bookstore that has been in operation since 1933. Despite our minimalism, we are suckers for a good bookstore. We have a few rare and collectible pieces in our own tiny library. Amazon Kindle is great… but nothing compares to the smell and feel of a real book. We decided to spend the morning checking Haslam’s out. I loved the lettering on the side of the building and the resident cat. Unsurprisingly, I was immediately on the hunt for anything Florida related. I didn’t find any must-have antiques, but I did pick up a gritty memoir-style collection of essays based in the sunshine state and a Pulitzer Prize winning history of the Gulf. Some might wonder why I’m so obsessed with Florida. Simply put, I am driven to connect with “real Florida” and “old Florida”. This place was once an untarnished paradise. Every time we visit, I get a little taste. As for “real Florida” – well, we do intend to live here. I am a writer and a social-worker-of-sorts. I want to bear witness to the humanity of the place. In my experience, the quickest route to the human essence of any region is through storytelling.

When people come to Florida, they often intend to fulfill their basest desires. But I think there is something more primitive at play than the desire for escape – something beyond the bars, strip clubs, strip malls, and theme parks: the human need to connect with nature. When you peel back the ugliness with which it has been suffocated, Florida is a staggeringly beautiful temple of the divine.

Tonight I stood in the Gulf and watched a manatee peak its face above the water. It was no more than fifteen feet from me. Another manatee swam nearby. At least two dolphins fished behind the manatees. Approaching storm clouds turned the water an otherworldly turquoise and a light rain pelted my back. I didn’t care that the waves splashed my legs and soaked my shorts. At sunset, the Gulf is warmer than bathwater. Conch shells rolled around my feet and I grabbed them in fist fulls. A fisherman, seeing the unadulterated joy on my face, nodded and smiled. As the manatee and I coexisted for a few blissful minutes, tears welled in my eyes.

Where else can you experience that kind of connection? What could be more spiritual than the converging grace and power of sky and sea?

May 10th: The Monk

Today was the last full day of our trip. Ironically, a monk made an appearance on our final evening walk. The Buddhists teach that attachment – or craving and clinging – lead to pain and suffering. These teachings play a huge role in the Buddhist approach to recovery. While the monk disappeared into the dusk, the wisdom he symbolized didn’t. As darkness shrouded the shells and silhouetted the sea birds, the tide pulled the sand from under my feet and my balance became unstable. I thought of transience and resisted.

J.L. finally tried to coax me out of the water. “Let’s go see our pup,” she said. Still, I lingered. Walking back to the car, I swallowed my tears.

Thank God for our dog – my North Star. There are heavy things waiting for me. But so is he.

I actually tapped out on this vacation – which rarely happens. I think living out of a suitcase was just another reminder of the unsettledness of the past six months. The feeling passed, however, and I am reluctant to leave.

The thing about recovery is that the clinging doesn’t stop and the craving doesn’t go away, but I don’t permanently live there. It comes and goes like the sand under my feet.

I hate to concede but perhaps it is a good time to say “see you soon”. Despite frequently reapplying sunscreen, I somehow burned to a crisp. As a tattooed person, this is a cardinal sin. Sometimes I shake my head at the lobster red bodies on the beach. Clearly I am also still working on the Buddhist concept of loving kindness. I see you, Karma.

And I’ll see you soon, Florida.

Boot Camp

I chose “quiet” as my word for 2019. I didn’t understand the irony of my choice in January.

This year has been the opposite of quiet as it’s traditionally understood. I already talked about some of the upheaval we’ve experienced, but life has added several more layers to a cake I’d like to return to the bakery. I don’t need to get into specifics but let’s just say I don’t dare ask, “what else?” Experience has demonstrated that I will invariably find out. These days, I try to laugh, throw up my hands, and say, “okay, we’ll play your way”. Sometimes my laughter borders on hysteria.

On Thursdays, my dear friend and coworker, Jen, often drives us to a local eatery to pick up lunch for our afternoon meeting. Sometimes she also listens to me rail against the onslaught of lessons the Universe has deemed necessary to assign. “It’s like boot camp,” she sagely observed, “sometimes the Universe has to tear you down to build you back up”.

“I thought I went through boot camp when I first got into recovery,” I whined. “I don’t want to do it again”. But Jen was right. These lessons – unpleasant or not – are all part of the spectrum of human experience. Walking through them with an open heart is the only way to move forward.

I don’t know why I was naive enough to think that once I got through early recovery it was going to be smooth sailing. I guess I felt like I had “paid my dues”. But so many people have paid a much higher price in pain currency. There’s no debt ceiling. Life is not fair…it just is.

Jen went on to tell the story of the Tibetan saint, Milarepa. Rather than try to recount the story from memory, I am excerpting it from a fabulous article by Aura Glaser, which appears in Tricycle magazine:

One day Milarepa left his cave to gather firewood, and when he returned he found that his cave had been taken over by demons. There were demons everywhere! His first thought upon seeing them was, “I have got to get rid of them!” He lunges toward them, chasing after them, trying forcefully to get them out of his cave. But the demons are completely unfazed. In fact, the more he chases them, the more comfortable and settled-in they seem to be. Realizing that his efforts to run them out have failed miserably, Milarepa opts for a new approach and decides to teach them the dharma. If chasing them out won’t work, then maybe hearing the teachings will change their minds and get them to go. So he takes his seat and begins teaching about existence and nonexistence, compassion and kindness, the nature of impermanence. After a while he looks around and realizes all the demons are still there. They simply stare at him with their huge bulging eyes; not a single one is leaving.

At this point Milarepa lets out a deep breath of surrender, knowing now that these demons will not be manipulated into leaving and that maybe he has something to learn from them. He looks deeply into the eyes of each demon and bows, saying, “It looks like we’re going to be here together. I open myself to whatever you have to teach me.” In that moment all the demons but one disappear. One huge and especially fierce demon, with flaring nostrils and dripping fangs, is still there. So Milarepa lets go even further. Stepping over to the largest demon, he offers himself completely, holding nothing back. “Eat me if you wish.” He places his head in the demon’s mouth, and at that moment the largest demon bows low and dissolves into space.

The tale of Milarepa revealed that I’d spent months in full on demon opposition mode. Resist! Resist! Resist! My one woman protest rivalled Occupy Wall Street. If my imaginary tent had a sign, it would say: Welcome to Occupy Cave – No Demons Welcome. But Jen’s words helped me lower my angry little fist. “Gag on this, demon,” I taunted. We had a giggle as the dialogue went further sideways. As it turns out, “offering yourself completely” is a little easier said than done.

Not long after Jen bestowed her words of wisdom, I heard someone else say, “recovery is about making yourself visible”. I had to scrape myself off the floor. (I also have to eat crow for claiming I don’t hear new things very often. Maybe I just haven’t been listening.) These words resonated because I still love to hide – even after almost ten years. I’m the stereotypical alcoholic writer – without the bourbon and chain smoking. While I’ve been working on making myself visible in a very literal sense – like, for example, hanging out with our new (awesome) downstairs neighbors – this lesson also applies to hiding from my so-called dark side. Active addiction, in its most naked form, is the avoidance of pain. So recovery isn’t just about connecting with others, it’s also about connecting with our “shadow” selves – otherwise known as our humanity.

Glaser writes:

When we don’t acknowledge all of who we are, those unacknowledged parts will land in what Jung called the “shadow”… This is one way of seeing Milarepa’s encounter with the demons. He was encountering his shadow—all that he had suppressed and rejected in himself…We come upon our greediness, jealousy, or impatience, and the next impulse is to go to war… We don’t realize that all the while we’re strengthening the thing we’re fighting against. It’s like trying to push a beach ball into the water. Holding it down requires a huge amount of energy, and inevitably it pops back up with equal force, taking an unpredictable direction. But if you give the beach ball space and let it be, it will float effortlessly along the surface.

2019 has looked something like this: I shove each new beach ball under the water. It shoots up and smacks me in the face. I push it back down. It flies above the surface and lands 100 yards away. I swim after it – water splashing and limbs flailing – and it bobs just out of reach. I splutter and gag on the water… and it continues along undisturbed. Who is really causing all the commotion?

The infuriating answer is that it’s not the beach ball.

Glaser talks about being “willing to be with our experience, whatever it is, without judgment, without trying to fix it or get rid of it. And somehow this willingness, this gentle allowing, starts to calm things down..We discover that the journey is a dynamic process, full of alternating successes and failures. And we discover that failures are not dead ends. Every time we’re up against the wall, we’re also standing at a threshold. The invitation to open to our experience—whatever it is from moment to moment—is always there, no matter how many times we need to rediscover it”.

My definition of quiet has changed. It’s returning to center – the nucleus of existence – despite the noise. It’s the giant flamingo float in a pool of beach balls. It’s the eye of the storm. It’s the vantage point from which I can greet storm and sphere alike and acknowledge the purpose of our proximity.

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200 Things That Make Me Happy – A Gratitude List

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