Vicarious Rising

Periodic Table

I don't exactly know why I wanted to name my post that, but I did. Maybe it's because I am enmeshed in home decorating and furnishing exploits. Not sure. We're not officially moved into the house yet because we don't have internet and cable connected (the rustic horror!), but it should all be in place this time next week. Meanwhile, I did order that Day Dreamer print that I fell in love with to go in my office.

I think I am trying to be clever with the word "irony" and the elements of gold, silver, and then the other basics. I read somewhere about some ne'er-do-well who had a custom table made to look like the periodic table of elements, and each square representing the element opened up to a compartment containing that element. Geek decorating. I think you can now get your own with just photos inside the compartments.

For some reason, I've been ruminating about that "everythings fabulous with the world" feeling I'd get with the early phases of being drunk. Not because I want to drink, but partly because I feel bits of that right now when I allow myself to not feel as if I need to save the world, cure cancer and cook the perfect dinner for my soon to be Nobel Prize winning child all in one day.

What I was musing is that we all want to be successes in our lives, some of us to the point of wishing for fame and fortune. And yet, many of those achieving those upper eschelons celebrate by using mind altering substances. I find this ironic. If you are figuratively on top of the world, the best, in your glory, why do you need assistance to feel better and have fun? Shouldn't you be happy for having reached your goals and having everything you thought you ever wanted?

It's not like this is a new perplexing question, but I was listening to my beloved Freddie Mercury and thinking of his fabulous rock star life as well as the lives of his bandmates. How many people want to know those kinds of people, be them, be their friends, lovers, confidantes? Roll in their money and bed linens?

Then why do they need the drugs and booze? What are they still trying to prove? Didn't they already make it? Aren't they who we all want to be?

I'm not just talking about the celebrities who go attention hunting, but also those who are brilliantly talented and successful in their chosen field. Some I have met are highly functioning addicts of some sort or another (yes, I know, I'm not supposed to label them, but fuck-it), indulging in excess, still trying to either vindicate themselves to the world or perhaps to convince themselves they are not actually frauds underneath it all. It's just an observation, the basic insecurity that does not seem to disappear for so many that gets obfuscated by chemical substances or other vices.

See, where I come in on this, at least in my experience, is not so much that I have because I've come into my own fame and fortune. But I've got a damned fantastic life, one that if I choose to will only get more fabulous. And yet for a time, I was choosing artificial joy so that I could take pleasure in what I already had.

And now, I still struggle to feel as if I am enough to deserve to be happy.

Fucking weird, isn't it? It doesn't matter what you have on the outside, it really is an inside job.

My Micro Valentine

Given all my intimacy issues and romance-deficiencies, it's not surprising I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. I probably ranted about it last year, so I'll skip my griping. I hate it when I get all negative anyway. It accomplishes nothing.

But my recent spate of good tidings has me feeling rather loving in a world peace goofy sort of way. I came across this little organization in, of all nincompoopish places, Cosmo magazine. It's called Kiva.org, and individuals like myself can make small business loans to the entrepreneur(s) of my choice in poor countries (with a $25 minimum). So far, about $19 million in loans have been made and over 99 percent have been paid back. Cosmo says that this is the first person-to-person microlending website.

I'm kind of in love with this idea, so I'm going to contribute.

Kumbayah, y'all.

Chickens, Otherworldly Omelets, Going Off Half Cocked & Things That Seem Too Good to Be True

I'm knocking on wood and throwing salt over my shoulder the last couple days. I'm really not even all that superstitious. But, yah know, a couple days after saying some less than nice things regarding The Powers That Be, and some strange HooDoo's been going down in my usually boring little world.

Mind you, not complaining. Just in the Realm of This Stuff Doesn't Usually Happen to Me.

Oh, it's really not all that big a deal. I mean, aside from the whole delay in closing on the house, I won the Grand Prize for a trip to L.A. that I'd entered way back last summer for kicks. Airfare, swank hotel, dinners, a little spending money. Sweet.

Yes, I am 99 percent certain it is legit. But that's where the knocking on wood and TGTBT comes in. Who really wins these things? Not me, anyway. And it includes a meet and greet with one of the cast members of one of my absolute favorite TV shows. I guess it does pay off to be a goofball fan and sign up for things on their official websites.

And then there's that my husband may need to go on a business trip to Paris in the next couple weeks, and if he goes he has invited lil' ole me to go along. I love Paris. I can definitely be soothed about the delay in moving into my house by a trip to Paris. The other two times I went to Paris I was still drinking, although I can safely say I have never been drunk in Paris. Still, the idea of being 100 percent sober in Paris seems sort of invigorating to me also. Plus, there's all that Parisian food. Have I mentioned I like food? Oh... and baguettes, just baked and warm... heaven. My personal opinion is that French bread kicks Italian bread's butt. But I'd rather have espresso in Italy than coffee of any sort anywhere else. Mmmm... getting off track, but I do love food. Hence the kitchen and pantry in my house. My husband and I both love to cook. Which reminds me, I need to get some gym equipment for the rec room. I'm getting to an age where my metabolism isn't what it used to be.

I have no issues with The Powers That Be or The Cosmos and I am not counting eggs or chickens before they hatch or putting any of them in one or even several baskets. I'm not messing with any of the poultry products, and it's not because I am one big scaredy cat. I'm just thinking it's Thanksgiving time come early for me, and I might be one of those Presidentially pardoned turkeys.

Asses Will Be Asses

True to form, despite that he is not speaking to me, I received an e-card from my ex-best friend this morning for my birthday.

It was of a clown dropping trow, mooning me.

And he says I need help.

Friends Will Be Friends

I shouldn't be doing this. It irritates me to no end. Times like these I wish I were made of stone.

I really have turned a corner, realized that someone I adored was not the person I believed him to be. That our friendship was disposable and flimsy, easily shattered under the slightest scrutiny. He only cared about me so long as I was his unquestioning admirer, his most loyal fan. The second I poked around his dubious behavior or pushed for discussion, he called me a drama queen, troubled and bitter. He would refuse to talk to me. End of conversation if he didn't like what was being said.

In the past two months, I haven't cried at all over losing my best friend. I've actually felt rather relieved at not riding the rollarcoaster I'd been on with him since I'd gotten sober. I cried a lot during the turmoil, but when I realized he really didn't give a shit, I felt calm and surprisingly not sad. Until today.

Today I missed something I'm not even sure was ever real. How can I feel such grief over a friend who has been so cruel to me in the past year, someone who thinks so little of me? Someone who would rather belittle me than try to understand me? I shouldn't care at all about such a person. I don't want to care at all.

I hate him so much right now. What I wouldn't give for him to apologize. I'd probably forgive him anything.

Some Hole

Lately I've been drawn more and more to blogs of people who are in relationships with addicts more so than those struggling with the addictions themselves. I find this odd being the addict half myself. It's not so much that I am trying to understand the other side of the equation, those supporting addicts, although that would make sense. I actually feel a certain kinship with these people - and I should note that the majority of these bloggers have been women. I'm not sure why this is.

My own husband does not have his own program of recovery. He does not seem interested in having one. And, to be honest, doesn't seem to need one. I think it would be completely bizarre to see him suddenly going to meetings and sharing. It would be totally out of his character. I cannot imagine it. The closest I can come to imagining it is seeing him trying to help other people. But introspecting himself? He's more likely to analyze the quality of his toe lint than the status of his psyche.

How does this play into our marriage? Well, it doesn't make for deep discussions of any sort of spiritual matters. But I guess I can do that elsewhere. I've had other people to fill in those sorts of roles.

You know, I started this post, and I don't know what I am looking at here. I've been seeking intimacy, looking for it in my marriage and in my friendship with my best friend and finding myself back at square one. I kind of wonder why anyone would want to put up with me. And then I think, why wouldn't anyone want to be with someone so phenomenal as me? I'm see-sawing between megalomania and inferiority. Your average addict personality.

It's funny, one of these bloggers, Mantramine, mentioned in her post today that she feels like she and her husband spend most of their relationship thinking about him, the addict. A few of her commenters in similar relationships commiserated. I can say that this ain't the case in my marriage. Not that my husband never thinks or worries about me. But I can say with a great deal of confidence, it is not a good chunk of any part of his day. He worries much more profoundly about what is for dinner.

So, I do what I do best... I research.  What is intimacy? I don't think I have a clue. Maybe these people know what it is. They put up with those of us with the worst characteristics and love us anyways. Maybe they have the secrets to happiness. Maybe they can fill in the blanks for me.

I really am such a novice at this thing called life. Not much else to do but keep learning.

Lessons in Sobriety

My son thinks it is crazy to do homework when it is no longer required. It's funny how much wisdom we gain as we get older and how youth really is wasted on the young. I'm also glad that I am a relatively young parent and started my sobriety young because, well, just because. There may yet be a chance for me to do something worthwhile with my puny life. My grandfather likes to say "only the good die young so I'm not going anywhere for awhile." He's 87 and still fairly spry, so I might take after him.

I have been procrastinating on my homework that Scout sent me because I don't feel especially learned at the moment. I'm not going to tag anyone because by the time I've completed my tardy work, this meme has done the rounds.

First, the rules (as copied from Scout's site):

• Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
• Post these rules on your blog.
• List seven random and/or weird facts you have learned in recovery. (This is where I’m changing it to seven things I’m grateful to have learned in recovery.)
• Tag seven random [?] people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

1. I can have an adult relationship with my mother that I never could have imagined before being in recovery. It may not be the mother/daughter relationship I dreamed of, but it is still something worthwhile.

2. Life is a journey not a destination. Enjoy the ride. And don't go too fast.

3. That I really, really, really have an issue with powerlessness. Probably should underscore this one about fifty times.

4. I don't have to do everything alone. If I start feeling all solitary, it is likely my own doing. It may not be quite so easy, but I can find people out there who are compassionate and understand and who can listen. All I have to do is share.

5. The serenity prayer really calms me down and I don't know why. I'm not going to question it. Just glad to have it. And I also have grown to like the promises as well.

6. My inner voice rarely lets me down, if I bother to stop and listen to it. The trouble is that I still let too much outside noise get in the way of letting me hear what it needs me to. I have a ways to go in learning to trust myself.

7.  I don't always have to be actively doing something. Just being is sometimes good enough.

Not a terribly impressive list, but it's what I've got. The bottomline is that I am grateful to be sober, no matter what I am feeling right now. For me, drinking would not make it better or more bearable. It would just put me on the fast train to dead and disgusting.

Today I am struggling with my powerlessness. Again. I can't decide if I am just bewildered, scared, lonely, angry, lovelorn or sad. I just feel wrong. I couldn't even specify at whom or what or why. Not having any answers or direction regarding my interpersonal life leaves me adrift and scared. I don't know which end is up. I don't know what I am doing. I'm not even sure how I feel. I really don't know how to connect or act or behave or relate. Am I sure I am even human? Egads, I am a spaz.

A sober spaz, none-the-less.

Setback Mountain

I had started to diligently do my meme homework when Postpaleo put a comment on my "Chasing Gratitude" post that brought an image in my mind of where I am in my recovery.

I suddenly pictured myself as climbing a steep mountain. I'd been doing well, adjusting to changes in altitude and terrain. But suddenly an avalanche of snow and ice just dumped down over me. Because I have been steadily working my way up and have been well prepared, I've got my gear and ropes and whatever climbing shit it is your supposed to have to keep me connected safely to my spot on the mountain and not blown off a cliff. However, I've been covered by about six feet of snow and cannot move. I have to figure out how to "swim" out of the sea of snow and ice to continue my journey up the mountain.

I dream quite frequently about being trapped in snow. I am oddly sweaty and damp, yet freezing cold when there. The sluggish struggle to free myself from that predicament usually ends with the dream shifting rather than me actually breaking loose.

There's a part of me that just wants to sit cocooned under that pile of snow for awhile, numb and hibernating until I am ready (if ever) to finish g(r)o(w)ing up the mountain. And once I get out from under the mound, do I continue up or do I retreat and go back down? Is my equipment all buried?

OK, the analogy is kind of dead here, but I do like the image of being frozen in ice. I can't be hurt, I can't feel anything, it's all just stopped.

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

When I was around 15 years old, I had a rare screaming fit with my parents saying that I was never going to have children because I didn't want to screw it up like they did. It wasn't just a heat of the moment comment. Although I later wished I had kept that information to myself just because I disliked my parents having any sort of information on me.

When I became unexpectedly pregnant at 25, my parents didn't hide the fact that they thought I was going to make a dismal mother. I was pretty freaked about it too. My preparations for the task were rather like planning for an arduous long term drudgery than a joyful event. Not that I was dreading it, just that I had no expectation that I was going to be one of those mothers who was beamingly maternal.

When my son was born, my first reaction was not one of overwhelming love but of overwhelming protectiveness. I was ready to jump at the throat of anyone who came near that squalling bundle. Considering how wrecked I felt from the physicality of childbirth, this was a revelation to me. I couldn't stop checking to make sure he was still breathing.

After not too long, I fell totally in love with the little space alien, and being his mother is the most marvelous thing ever. But being a mother is the most difficult - and important - job I could possibly ever imagine for myself.

I bring this up because this week the twerp failed French this quarter not because he did poorly on his tests or quizzes (all A's there) but because he didn't do his homework. Didn't. Turn. It. In.

We're talking about a formerly straight A student here. Also, a straight A student whose dad gets, in my opinion, way too much in his face about doing his homework to the point that my son glazes over and tells my husband what he wants to hear rather than what is the truth. I, in my infinite (lack of) wisdom had chosen to stay out of the father/son politicking last year and the beginning of this year despite that I greatly disagreed with my husband's methods of "encouragement."

I was wrong. My child is in a corner. I suck.

Anyway, that's where I am today. And on top of it, I have to mitigate how to not reprimand my husband. I have tried on many occasions to get him to tone down the belittling and swearing at our son because it is not an effective way to get a kid to do anything. Sometimes my husband agrees, sometimes he just says "tough shit". Either way, he usually goes back to yelling at our kid. I've tried to tell him the only thing it does is make our son mad at him and not more interested in taking responsibility for his schoolwork. I ask him to try to remember how he might have reacted as a child to his own father. It goes on deaf ears.

And I don't want to undermine my husband by contradicting him with our son. Walking the fine line to keep up our son's self-esteem without coming off as trying to be the "good" or "nice" parent has been difficult. It annoys me. I don't think I am necessarily the better parent. I think my husband just isn't listening. He makes it harder for me because I have to be even more careful about how to say things so he doesn't come off looking like an even bigger jerk by saying: "ignore your dad, he's being mean to you."

And my son needs to understand the purpose of the homework isn't because his teachers and parents want to bore the piss out of him. Or that not doing your homework is a good way to "go on strike" if you are mad at your teacher or parents.

Ah, well. It's all just my own home work. Better get to it.

Dejected from the Driver's Seat

The faux smiley has faded today. I'm glad for it. Stepping outside of myself to observe the schism of behavior and emotion alarmed me a little. DKThinker wrote in my comments section that this was likely dissociative affect, and I think she's spot on.

I can acknowledge that there are plenty of reasons for me to dissociate. I still crack up when I think of my dad telling me that he has proof I had a happy childhood because I smiled in all the photographs. One episode of the TV show Dexter had Harry, Dexter's foster father, tutoring the young serial killer Dex to smile for the camera in order to fake normalcy to the world. I can't tell you what chuckle I got out of that scene.

The emotion that is rising to the top today is rejection. My poor feminine ego has taken a bruising. That's a tough one to tackle under any circumstance. And when I am trying to move forward out of a dead end marriage without falling onto the crutch of a going-nowhere friendship, it weighs all the worse. My will wants to run amok when the reality is that I am helpless. These two men cannot and will not do as I wish. I cannot make them love me as I want them to. And that hurts.

I've never really understood the popular AA saying "feelings are not facts." For some reason that platitude comes to mind now as a particularly unhelpful piece of wisdom that might be tossed my way. But maybe I am thinking that whatever I do, I should not let the feeling of being jilted and unattractive become my reality. Just because these two schmucks don't know how to appreciate what they've got doesn't make me a loser.

Yah. I don't believe one word of it. I need a cheerleader. Some really hot guy doing backflips for me would do the trick.

On the up side, it is a new thing for me to feel sorry for myself. I never used to have this sense of entitlement before. Yea me. I like myself well enough to throw a pity party on my behalf. There's a silver lining in everything. Can't say I'm not an optimist to my core.