Anyone noticed that nothing fixes anything? Life just keeps happening? You can get better at managing it (I GUESS), but then there’s just . . . more to manage? All of which to say never have I related more to a check-in than when one our beautiful anonymous community members described “dragging [their] busted Hyundai Sonata of a soul across the finish line of this summer.” My soul’s out here absolutely tootling around on three of those little donut tires. I’m out of wiper fluid and I need an oil change. And do not suggest I go to the mechanic I am too busy keeping this hunk of junk running to think about getting it repaired, come on now.

Lots of wisdom from our readers this month. Part One of August check-ins is below; we’ll share Part Two next week. —TSB Editor

All We Get Is a Moment

By The Small Bow Family Orchestra

I’m dragging my busted Hyundai Sonata of a soul across the finish line of this summer, having enjoyed very little sun or sand. Work blows, but more importantly, my head’s not right, and I keep showing up with a mental knife to a gun fight. Friendships are rusty, emotional sobriety self-care is flailing, I’m truly scared about my annual physical (if their little questionnaire asked how many bags of Doritos you eat in an average week, I’d be committed immediately). Undoer of Knots, pray for me.

My mother might be dying, and I can’t be there. Or I won’t be there. The distinction is meaningless; the guilt is there either way. I have tried to be her caregiver over and over in frantic move-ins to her home, only to just as frantically exit in emotional distress. Last time I made it nearly six months before I swallowed as many pills as I could and ran out into the street. It’s been a long two years since that. I’ve repaired many things, but my relationship with her can’t be repaired. I can tell you how I was wrong, I can tell you how she was wrong, but in the end it doesn’t matter. She has a recently adopted daughter who has taken over. It’s best for everyone that I sit in fear, shame, and exile rather than to try and fail again. Love in absentia, all the way to the grave. 

Recently I was at a bar before a concert with friends when I was accosted by a very drunk woman who wanted me to order her more beers because she and her companion had been cut off by the bartender. We were about to leave so I used that as an excuse but she became angry and was insulting and mocking me to my face. I just kept smiling and saying no and escaped before she got even more belligerent. 

Ten minutes later, I was in line waiting for the concert venue to open and discussing this story with my friends. I said, “I think she would have been even more angry if I told her I was sober.” The man in front of me turned around and said “I just tell people I’m an alcoholic in recovery.” We began chatting about navigating concerts sober, AA, you name it. It was only for a few minutes but it was my higher power guiding me to the right person at the time I needed it. For the rest of the night, I didn’t think about alcohol; I enjoyed the show sober and appreciated the experience of soaking in music without alcohol. 

This is the result of years of therapy, crying in many church basements, step work, and community. I struggled with the concept of an HP for many years and now I understand. I feel different. I can keep going. I can do this. I am not alone and you are not either.  

I wasn’t going to write a check-in because it seems like there is not much to report. On the other hand, I’ve been failing miserably at my recovery program all summer long. I hate summer — I live in the south. But it’s also just seasonal depression in reverse. It happens every year. I had to get back on a medication I had stopped when I was “doing so well” and now I’m . . . not. 

We went on a family vacation which was the highlight of July. There was a heatwave there which presented its own problems but we managed to have a good time anyway. 

I’m failing miserably at parenting. I’m too emotional and can’t seem to regulate myself whenever challenges with my teen come up (which is often). I only have two years left before she goes off to college and I’m afraid I’m going to ruin the time I have left with her by being a clingy, insecure and emotionally unstable mother. 

I can’t let this happen but I feel helpless to change it.

I’m feeling some sense of loss with August upon me, and the feeling of another summer gone by. I’m three and a half years sober, and I wanted to take both of my boys on a vacation, but this summer became about two different things: Switching work roles and walking my older son through getting his wisdom teeth and another molar removed so that the alignment of his teeth can begin. And I turned 49 this past week, which doesn’t scare me as much as it used to, but there’s still something there. I guess this summer season was about switching that work role and the surgery. One has a very big possibility of making my day to day life easier while the boys are in school, and I can extend my career with what I’m learning. And I can afford to get my son’s teeth aligned, which was not possible three years ago. I can hold, at the same time, that good things happened this summer as well as the fact it still passed. I’m still just a little sad.

It’s been quite a month. It started with a serious car crash and then spending the rest of the month in the hospital. I’m not out yet but should be going home soon. I’m lucky to be alive and they say I should be walking on my own again in a year. I had one staff member say I’m the most broken person they’ve seen who didn’t also have brain damage. I’m pretty banged up. I’m also in my fourth year of sobriety. One of the things I’ve been thinking about in this very painful and challenging month is that I doubt I would have handled it as well when I was drinking. I’ve learned a lot about myself since I quit drinking and all of that is helping me with this. I’ve been focused on gratitude for what I do have and for the love and support I’ve gotten from friends and family. This is all so much easier than it would have been if I’d been thinking about getting out of here so I could get some relief from a bottle. It will be a challenging year but I’m focused on staying in the moment and taking it one day at a time.  

I have been thinking a lot about Jason Molina. The AC is broken in my car, so the windows are down and “Farewell Transmission” is making its escape out to the world. Jason Molina died when I was in college, and some of our friends had known him, grown up with him. He was a real person with a real problem. He drank himself to death, and back then I wondered if I would drink myself to death someday too. I am really glad that I didn’t. It has been half a decade since I had a drink, and today while we ran a song at band practice I thought about how long I spent thinking that giving up drinking and trying to improve my life and my mood would crush my creativity, but instead I feel the most honest I have ever been. Suffering isn’t necessary to make good art, and suffering doesn’t make you interesting. A little mantra to myself and anyone who needs to hear it. It’s the beginning of August and I am so glad to be sober. 

I’m currently sat on a beach in Portugal on a short holiday after a pretty shit first half of the year. Ironically, I’ve spent a lot of the holiday beating myself up because I’m not “in the moment” . . . whatever that actually means.

Earlier this year I was diagnosed with some stomach problems which ended up spiralling into a much bigger mental health crash than I expected. I had to take a couple of months off work and found out that rock bottom was a lot deeper than I realised. There were points where I just didn’t want to be here and things got a little scary in my mind.

I wanted to reach for anything that would make me switch off, binge, disappear into something, just feel out of control for a bit. I didn’t, but I'm still battling with the urges at times.

Sitting on a beach in Portugal, I keep catching myself looking around at everyone else. Everyone seems relaxed, confident . . . like they’ve somehow been given the handbook for life that I never got. I know that’s probably not true, and everyone has their own problems but to me, they all seem to have it together more than me.

I’ve tried really hard to switch off this week, but I don’t think my system has that capability. It feels like my body reacts before I even have a chance to.

I’ve probably spent so much time trying to notice whether I’m happy that I’ve forgotten to actually experience anything. How do I know I’ve “been in the moment?”

I’m down in the dumps of self-pity. Nothing is wrong and everything is wrong. Even the weather is cheating me because it’s too hot to enjoy summer, and it used to be MY season. I just want summer to end, but I don’t want the light to go away.

And my aunt said something last week that grabbed hold of me. My parents had visited the week before and she said their other sister said my father, their brother, isn’t happy. I was like, Happy?! When has the man ever been happy? Growing up working class in Upper Michigan like he did, like I did, happiness wasn’t on the offer. Three of my immediate family members died deaths of despair and a cousin just got out of prison. Happy?! I live in fear that my father will outlive my mother. A year ago, I told her: He’s going to ruin the rest of your life. I pray when death comes for him, it’s quick.

My family’s disease is grief and despair. I carry the grief in twisted solidarity.

I realized the summer’s fading light agitates me because I don’t trust it enough to let it in in the first place. I’ve never held onto the light, only the darkness. Peaceful John shook this loose when he talked about grief and holding it so tightly you don’t let the air in . . . I’m defending myself with my grief and shutting out the light before it even makes it in.

I left my job in December. Not having a place in the order of things is unsettling. The past seven months have been a lot of unstructured time. After a meeting on Sunday, someone asked how I spend my mornings. I write, read, meditate and do free online bullshit yoga classes. I say the serenity prayer at the end. If I run into my neighbor with her groceries, we take them up together. It happens often. We have our routines. I keep saying I burned my life down this year. Yesterday, I told someone stillness was required. I’m grateful for it. I feel all the things I buried with work, cardio, nicotine, disordered eating, alcohol, drugs, and unavailable relationships.

My friend called the other night. He’s going through big life changes and doesn’t think anyone knows him. He joked about the way I used to tell stories at 60mph then described a scene from Fight Club (the book not the movie) on working all day for “one perfect moment.” He said life felt like that in 2019. I thanked him for sharing and thought of the Sunday meeting I go to. We listen to each other for three minutes. It’s not perfect but it’s a chair to sit in for an hour, a place to be. The shares help me to see things differently. I think he was right. All we get is a moment — one hour, three minutes, a phone call — when life feels great. Then it’s on to the next thing.

fin

ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN