Day 356

Friday

After a recent conversation with C, where he explained that basically he’s a 12 year old boy at heart (and I can confirm this over and over in our marriage), I’ve assembled some thoughts on the topic that I want to share here FWIW.

And of course, I’m going to tie it to alcohol.

C started drinking around age 14 and really hasn’t stopped at any point in his adult life. Without revealing personal details, he has had his share of negative life experiences through his adult years, and at every point the response has generally been to drink rather than to process the events in a healthy productive way. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions given my state of mind about alcohol, but I wonder if he isn’t 100% correct about his emotional age – with an arrested emotional development around age 14, that explains a lot.

And his job of 20 years, which is essentially that of Peter Pan – managing a team of on-air jocks at a rock radio station, and then entertaining the masses on his own morning drive show (primary aimed at the 18-45 male crowd who listen to classic & new rock), one can only imagine has further ingrained the idea that it’s 100% OK to be like this. In fact, it’s an asset in this environment where emotional maturity is seen as weakness, and machismo is alive and well.

This wasn’t the first time he’s brought up that 12-year-old comment, and it’s usually mentioned with a bit of a “well aren’t I cute” chuckle, in relation to some low-brow joke or insecurity about how to handle the complexities of women. 

I wonder how many men deal with similar issues in their emotional development. Emotional intelligence is proven to be encouraged more in girls than in boys during the formative years, and adding alcohol or drugs as an escape from the tough-to-deal-with emotions of life experiences certainly doesn’t help. But for those of us who have a natural tendency to avoid conflict (internally and externally), it provides a convenient, and in the case of alcohol, socially acceptable, way of handling the slings & arrows of life.

All that being said, in my understanding (still limited of course, given that all of this is just an assumption) of the situation with C, I am slowly, slowly coming to a place of acceptance and even empathy. Which, in the end regardless of whether I’m right or wrong about this way of framing the situation, is helping both of us.

Look at that – I’m processing!

Day 355

Rob Lawson

Thursday

Another week has flown by, 60-hr work week under my belt and this one shaping up to be similar. The first thing to go is this blog, and sleep unfortunately.

I’m exhausted and run down, ready for this project to be over. 

No major epiphanies lately, but I can provide a review of Seedlip’s non-alcoholic distilled spirits (I find their choice of language interesting).

I tried Spice, and treated it like my usual G&Ts from back in the day. I saved my first taste for Friday night after the punishing work week, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. 

I found it satisfying and fun to go through the old ritual… filling a tumbler with ice clink clink clink, then pouring the viscous clear liquid over the cubes. Topping it with tonic and a twist of lime – then stirring with the same knife I used to cut the fruit. Letting it all chill until the glass was foggy – then taking a slow, deliberate sip and letting it swirl around in my mouth a bit before swallowing.

Lo and behold, it drinks like a cocktail! No bite of alcohol, but the mouthfeel, the complexity, the dryness, all of that was there. It doesn’t taste like a G&T – nor would I expect it to – but it does have a lovely deep, rich, velvety spice taste that was quite enjoyable.

I’m slowly savoring a mocktail here and there, using it sparingly – but when this one is finished, I’m looking forward to trying out one of the other flavors.

All in all – two dry thumbs up.

Day 348

sleeping pattern

Thursday

The importance of rest.

Of all I’ve done over the last year to love myself better, the hardest to do and yet the one I gain one of the biggest benefits from is SLEEPING 8 HOURS a night.

When I’m not getting 7-8 hours a night my body gets worn down, my brain loses power, and I get snappy with the Boys. When the word Boys is capitalized, it’s all of them, including C.

It doesn’t help that working long frenzied hours makes me high on adrenaline so I’m struggling to calm down at night. 

Tonight, I promise myself I will get a full 8 hours, with at least 1 hour of non-blue-light time relaxing before bed.

 

Day 347

Wednesday

Not much to add here except a couple random thoughts.

The more I work on my interactions in close relationships, the more critical I find I’m becoming of the lyrics in love songs. So many beautiful songs about codependency!

Still cranking through an impossible work week, but I’m excited to reward myself with a kickboxing class tonight (already dressed in my workout gear even while working at the agency haha!) and a high-class mocktail on Friday using Seedlip’s Spice “non-alcoholic spirit”… will report back!

Day 346

Tuesday

I can’t believe an entire week has flown by. 

Life has been absolutely insane and, as I sit here working at 11pm for the second long night in a row, I’m amazed that I ever used to do this type of insanity AND DRINK.

How the hell did i do it???

I can barely function sober, AND with very necessary self-care. I couldn’t fit both meditation and exercise in today so I went for exercise. Turned out to be the smart choice.

Even though I’d only had >4 hrs of sleep the night before, I was super sharp for the 9am call with London. Nothing like getting the blood pumping to the brain, even if only for 15 minutes! 

And it was good I was. Because my creative director was on the line, to support me as I presented to one of the most top-level global CDs on the client-side that I’ve ever met virtually. I’ve learned that the best way to approach important presentations like this is to have prepared a bullet-proof rationale ahead of time and then deliver it quickly in a couple short sentences, right at the beginning. Once you have them convinced you know what you’re doing, you can pretty much sell anything in.

At least that’s the Top of the World feeling I got after the call!

A year ago, I would have prepared for the call by working my ass off until all hours while drinking heavily, and often smoking too. And a year ago, I had twins that woke at least once/night regularly. Plus, I wasn’t exercising.

Damn. The difference a year can make.

 

Day 340

Wednesday

You ever have those moments where you suddenly find yourself looking at your present life through past eyes?

This morning, caught up in getting ready for the day, I found myself imagining what Past Me would think of Current Me’s life.

The Me from a year ago would be pretty amazed to see how happy, healthy and balanced Current Me was. How much “easier” things seem to be, the trend of positivity in Current Me’s marriage (even if we still struggle with the usual communication issues), the patience Current Me has with the twins and life in general, the continued success of my freelance business and my efforts at physical health through exercise, food, sleep and meditation.

Sometimes, I lose focus on how far I’ve come, my tendency being to look ahead at where I want to go instead of resting on my laurels.

But this morning, I rested.

Day 339

Tuesday

It’s been almost two weeks since I last posted, and time has flown. 

We left town Friday, July 24th for another week at my family’s cabin in upstate NY and after a week of being off the grid, I almost forgot what being online felt like. Although I jumped right back into my online consignment addiction, Facebook scrolling, political article reading and book club reading… I did not get back on the blog circuit until now.

Not sure why, except that I needed a break.

Still 100% sober though!

And my plan, outlined in the last post, to get back on track with exercise, meditation and other healthy activities, is in Day 4 and going well.

Today was the boy’s first day back at PreK, and my first day back at work after vacation (a soft reentry, working from home in my workout clothes right now). The morning went perfectly. Up before the boys, coffee, meditation and 1/2 a FIIT workout in before they came running downstairs, super excited about starting at their new PreK.

It’s amazing how simple and yet how hard it can be to do what our bodies need us to do to be happy. I’ve been in such a slump lately, and I know it has to do with how little exercise I’m getting, zero meditation, too much pot smoking and late nights as a result.

So, knowing that, why has it been so difficult to interrupt this slump by doing the activities I KNOW will fix it?

I really don’t know.

But today, I’m feeling pink-cloud-ish after having hit the trifecta: good sleep (thanks to no smoking last night), exercise, and meditation. I guess we could add eating well, and accomplishing a few to-do items which always puts me in a better mood.

Of course I’ve learned not to expect this pink-cloud euphoria to last, but I am definitely enjoying it while it’s here.

Alcohol-related thoughts over the last week were few and far between. In fact, I can only think of twice where it was really on my mind – both times, on a date with C.

We celebrated our 8th anniversary at the end of August. While upstate, we took advantage of my folks proximity to escape for a night at a Fingerlakes B&B, and had a nice dinner lake-side. Arriving early for our already early reservation (joined only by the over 60 crowd ha!), we talked about sitting at the bar but I wasn’t feeling it so we walked to the pier to see the historic boathouses instead. Later after dinner was over, we didn’t feel like going back to the B&B yet, so we strolled around town and ended up at a bar, which I assured C was OK. I scanned the cocktail list while he ordered a local brew. As he went to drag the menu away from me (being helpful, I think?) I told him I was trying to select which of their fancy drinks to have a virgin version of… in the end, selecting a blueberry mint spritzer which was delicious.

Dates have been the toughest time to avoid drinking lately. Something about the specialness of the evening, wanting to add that element of “fun” or “treat” to the mix. And to be honest, maybe I also feel a bit awkward in that setting. C and I rarely get time alone together anymore, and I have mixed feelings about our relationship. The really tough stuff we’re dealing with is under the surface, and no one wants to ruin a night out with that, so we talk about superficial stuff – something I’m not great at in general, but especially with my husband of 8 years.

In any case, it’s probably better all around that I don’t drink anymore. Because when I did, the stuff below the surface would bubble up in the most un-date-like ways. Our favorite date-night restaurant is now off-limits after too many angry endings, two or three stiff cocktails in with both of us storming out of the restaurant to a silent drive home.

Much less drama this time around, and I focused on making room to really listen to HIM instead of trying to accomplish some agenda. While our conversations were light, and nothing was “accomplished” per se, we ended up happier and closer at the end of our time together and that IMO, is worth it. Sometimes, I think we just need to get more positive time together under our belt before anything can be worked on.

And speaking of filling buckets, I worked on filling my boys buckets to the brim this past week, in time for school to start. Lots of physical attention, wrestling, running/catching, swimming, hugging, snuggling, back scratches. Lots of focused emotional attention, really listening and being present for their stories and sad times, invented games and imaginary worlds. Lots of thinking ahead, what kinds of things they might need to be prepared for, finding cool school supplies and outfits that they picked out, talking about different scenarios, helping them prepare. 

And almost every time I really meet their eyes, really SEEING them without any agenda in my mind, I think “this wouldn’t be possible if I was still drinking”. 

It wasn’t until after I quit that I found myself able to do this with anyone, not just my sons.

It’s like I can finally see outside of myself, really SEE.