The Seven Year Stitch ✂

Because I love a good sewing metaphor.

On 7.13.14, I woke up at 2am with my heart beating into my throat, anxiety full throttle, sweat streaming out of every pore. I sat up and said to anyone who was listening, "I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I can't do this anymore." I haven't had a sip of alcohol since.

After a year or so of just not drinking (one element of claiming 'sobriety' for me) and doing the work of recovery (that thing everyone talks about but harder to define), I'd often slide into thoughts about what might take me out of recovery, make me want to drink again. Would it be a death of someone I loved? A terminal illness? A fuck-it moment that jumps out of the shadows, unforeseen, shoving a  well-aged beverage in my hand while I say to myself, "Oh well, here goes"? My brain loves to future-trip and these kind of exercises have helped me play out the story. Conclusion always: no good, very bad, probably dead. That's the kind of drinker I am and will always be. 

In the last seven years, I've survived the death of my father, perimenopause (if you know, YOU KNOW), preteen hormones (still in it) and identity crises (now, what do I want to be when I grow up, again?), but this last year of sobriety has been the hardest thus far. I'm still processing this, but I think it was the combination of losing some women that I'd grown close to in recovery (not lost, they died) forcing me to look at my own impermanence paired with an incident that left me feeling like a disappointment and a fraud. The result, I really wanted to get mind-numbingly drunk (and there is really no other kind for me). It initially took me by surprise but then I remembered, "Oh yeah, I'm an alcoholic*". And then, as if I needed just one more reminder from that ol' chestnut, Humility, I slipped and fell flat on my back in three inches of mud while on vacation, and I had to strip like a child in front of my family and God so I could shower off and we could resume our day. 

I was going to use this time to critique The Promises of AA (and yes, they've made me tear up here and there, I'M HUMAN), but if you've ever read that passage from The Big Book and thought, "Why is everyone in this meeting nodding like this is their experience? What phase of development am I in, exactly? When are we halfway through?" I'm here to tell you that while I've experienced some fulfillment of a promise or three, I've never felt them all simultaneously. People and circumstances still baffle me. I feel useless and insecure often. I can be amazed by the shit sandwiches that I'm still eating on the regular. I've comprehended serenity and known peace, but I've also comprehended anxiety and known grief. I know it helps others to hear how far down the scale I've gone but I think what is more helpful is to hear how someone stayed sober today, because life is more often a shit sandwich than not. I want to hear how someone didn't drink today when they really wanted to. I'm more interested in not in how someone got sober, but how they stayed sober.

I've often heard that Seven Years wields some kind of magical conclusionary powers: circles close, relationships expire, feelings resolve. It took seven years to earn my college degree, seven years for my first marriage to dissolve. I spent exactly seven years in service to at least one restaurant on my resume, and "The Seven Year Ache" by Rosanne Cash was the second song that I knew all of the words to and would belt loudly in my pink childhood room ( second to "Delta Dawn" by Tanya Tucker). I got to close this chapter over the weekend when I returned from the exact vacation that I returned from seven years ago, went to a party at the very same house hosted by the same friend, but instead of getting annihilated by alcohol, scaring my children and disappointing my husband again, I got to show my kids  how to laugh and converse with friends at a party, fizzy waters in hand, and how to leave when we were done. Circle closed.

I woke up this morning feeling like this wasn't going to be just another 24 hours. It really feels like I've stitched a chapter closed and I get to start a new one. The title of the first blank page is, Who do I want to be in the next seven years? I'm settling in, pen in hand.

A little business:
---Tammi and I recorded this emotional episode of The Unruffled Podcast and then decided to take July off. A short Summer break, if you will. See you in August!

---I have a Marketplace full of silk fabric scrap earrings and a few marked down garments. I'm back from vacation, doused with that magical energy and will be loading lots of new items this week and next. And, Instagram finally granted me a shop button on my profile! Yay!

xoxo

*That's a word I use when I need to remember that there is no safe amount of alcohol for me.