Life – Page 13 – I Am Writing

Happy Blogversary to Me!

December 28, 2017December 29, 2017 Mary C

I had a nice reminder from WordPress that today is my anniversary with them. Two years ago, in the mess of my life in early recovery from alcoholism, I decided to blog about my experience. I wrote mostly for myself but if I helped anyone else along the way, I would be happy a million times over. It was a very tough year that included internal struggles, family struggles and the death of my mom just weeks before her 75th birthday.

At the end of 2016, I decided I wanted to create a fresh new start for the new year and locked up the old blog and started anew with iamwriting.blog. It was as if I was locking away my recovery (and the death of my mom) to say that part of my life is done, now onward and upward. But it turns out that is an integral part of who I am now and I thought it fitting to unlock my old blog in case anyone can use it to glean hope after putting away the alcohol. It is a truly worthwhile venture.

I was ashamed for so long about being an alcoholic. Like many others, I denied it and tried different ways to control it on my own and kept silent about it just for that reason and it wasn’t until these past two years of recovery that I’m becoming more comfortable in my own skin. While I don’t shout my disease and recovery from the rooftops, I feel blessed to have been on this path and for the people who have come into my life because of it. I have a new peace today that I never thought possible. I used to be a daily drinker, many times to the point of blackout and even though I said over and over I wasn’t going to drink that day, I would, in the end, and I thought this was just how it was going to be. I’m so grateful it’s not like that anymore.

So in honor of my blogversary, I decided to change the settings on my old blog from private to public and maybe someone who is ready to find their way to recovery will stumble upon it and find some comfort knowing others have traveled that same path before them.

Now onward to 2018.

Life

Confession

December 27, 2017December 27, 2017 Mary C

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I am not who you think I am. We present ourselves to the world as we want to be seen, all our positive attributes on display as a freshly unfurled flag on the fourth of July. Privately, when absolutely no one is looking, I let all those ideals go by the wayside. There’s actually nothing I like better than to be on my own in my own house. It’s easy to want this because it’s a rare thing – I love my family dearly but I crave alone time.

What do I do on my own that I don’t want my family to know about? I am lazy. I spend an hour debating whether to just clean the house so I can relax without it hanging over me (because I do love a clean house) or just let it go until the last minute. Often times, I’ll clean up one small space where I plan to plant myself for the day, a book and tea and candy within easy reach. I don’t do the laundry because it’s impossible to ever be done with it, just as it’s impossible to keep a tidy house.

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Life

Cherish these moments

December 25, 2017December 27, 2017 Mary C

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I wasn’t ready for Christmas this year. The outdoor decorations didn’t get done the day after Thanksgiving and therefore did not get done at all save for throwing a wreath on the front door. A week ago we managed to get a tree and string some lights but it sat undecorated until 3 days before Christmas. I’ll admit I wasn’t feeling well and then it turned into pneumonia. I was happy enough to wrap myself in a blanket and read away the hours I should have spent on doing Christmas prep.

I was feeling a little down but not able to put my finger on precisely why. Maybe it was the unseasonably warm weather or that Liam mentioned over the summer he didn’t think Santa was real. Maybe I’m missing my mom more this year than last. Maybe I’ll never feel so joyful about Christmas again. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I was feeling pretty down that Liam didn’t believe any more and even though he hadn’t mentioned it again since that one time in the summer, I went through the season wondering how his “knowing” would change things. Our elf didn’t come either since I’m pretty sure he has a rule about waiting until we were all decorated before making an appearance.

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Life

NYC Take Two

November 15, 2017December 27, 2017 Mary C

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Over the weekend we made another quick trip to NYC. I could probably stay a week and still call it a quick trip, there’s always so much I want to do. A couple months ago a friend asked if we’d like to go with them and of course I didn’t hesitate. Our sons were in daycare together and although they parted ways after kindergarten we have kept in touch and get together with and without the boys several times a year.

There was nothing on the agenda for this trip and on the train ride down we bandied around some ideas. A show, the Met and one my bucket list items to skate at Rockefeller Center (the giant Christmas Tree that overlooks the rink was being hoisted on Saturday and the rink was closed). We made our way to our separate hotels which were a couple blocks apart and regrouped at noon to grab some lunch. It’s often hard to make decisions in a group on where to dine but pizza was agreed on and we quickly made our way to John’s Pizza in Time Square, a reliable place to grab a few slices if ever there was one. Their salads are pretty good too.

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Life

Hesitating over the publish button

November 13, 2017 Mary C

Warning: this is a super long post. I’m sharing something I wrote for my writing class about a time when I was judged. I have this weird disease and I’m sick a lot. But if you were to look at me you’d think I was perfectly healthy. I reread the piece and made some edits but I’m not 100% happy with it. I almost think I should re-do it from scratch because I feel I’m leaving something out but then again I don’t think I will ever get it to what I want. These are just a few snippets of what it’s like.

“You look completely normal but you’re a freak.” I eyed the seventyish, red-faced doctor who just spoke those words to me. Who is this guy with the tufts of white hair escaping from his balding head, a white lab coat near to bursting against his portly girth and where did he leave his bedside manners? I didn’t respond other than to give him a look I’d honed over the years when people discovered my insides didn’t match my outsides. No one had called me a freak before, though. At least not to my face. I didn’t take much insult, having heard many variations of surprise like this before.

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Life

A Dream of Gymnastics turns to Dancing

November 8, 2017November 10, 2017 Mary C

After watching the 1976 Summer Olympics, I decided I wanted to be a gymnast. The only problem was there was nowhere to take lessons in our small town in upstate New York. I was nine years old and wanted to be just like Nadia Comaneci, the top gymnast from Romania who won most of the gold medals that year. In my imagination, I pictured myself on stage being handed a bouquet of flowers as someone placed the gold medal around my neck. I calculated the year would be 1984 when this happened.

I begged my mother to find somewhere I could take lessons and after asking around she found a place that taught acrobatics which wasn’t the same thing but at least it was something. My instructor was the only dance teacher in our small town. She taught tap, jazz, ballet, modern dance as well as acrobatics and was happy to add me to a group of girls my age to teach us moves and a routine we would display for our parents and friends at an end of the year recital.

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Life

No Guests for Dinner

November 6, 2017November 7, 2017 Mary C

I’m currently on an airplane on my way to Chicago without internet access and decided to use auto fill on my phone to create a prompt for today’s blog post. So without further ado, and from 35,000 feet, here is the sentence I’m starting with:

I hope that you can bring your family to the house and have dinner.

When I was in my twenties, I often imagined my future life where I would meet the man of my dreams, get married, have kids and live in a neighborhood like the one I grew up in. The neighbors would be like family and dinner parties would be a weekly thing. Sometime around my early thirties, the only part of my dream that was left was to meet a halfway decent guy and get married. I also started to think it would be OK to remain single so I got myself a cat which seemed to be a panacea to all the single ladies.

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Life

Eggs over pasta

November 6, 2017November 6, 2017 Mary C

Several years ago (nearly 14 to be exact), my husband and I made our first trip to Italy together. A few months earlier, we had been in Paris on our honeymoon, and when we ran into a priest at the Louve who had been in school with my younger sister, we decided to take him up on his offer to show us around the Vatican where he was finishing up his studies.

It was a marvelous trip. We stayed in an apartment near the Vatican and worked our way around the city by foot, bus and train. The food was pretty spectacular but I was unaccustomed to the various courses and until we dined out with Father Brian, we stuck to our American style of eating of just one course per meal.

Father Brian was surprised and explained that the norm was to order several courses. The restaurant we chose that night was in Campo de Fiori, a wonderful square in the heart of Rome, that was called La Carbonara. The first course that night was pasta and I decided to go with carbonara, the dish the restaurant was named for. It was love at first bite!

When I returned home, I made it my mission to track down a recipe that would approximate the dish and it’s still a staple in our household all these years later. It is quick, easy and calls for just a few ingredients: pasta, eggs, grated parmesan, diced pancetta, chicken broth and red pepper flakes. There are never any leftovers.

Life

Halloween regret

November 1, 2017 Mary C

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I wore my pajamas to work yesterday. Easiest costume ever. The coziness of flannel, the soft fur lining of slippers pressed against my sockless feet, the pure comfort of it. Who doesn’t dream of wearing pajamas to work? I sprayed my hair into a rat’s nest (it really didn’t need much help), threw a roller in the back of my hair and was at work in record time. And then I realized I had a meeting with several managers and a couple VP’s and I instantly regretted my decision.

I was one of the first to arrive at the meeting first thing that morning and one of the VP’s looked at me through squinted, questioning eyes and I said, yes, I’m wearing my pajamas. In a teasing, scolding tone, she said she’d be sending her managers home if they came to work dressed like that. My boss came in shortly after and sat nearby, glanced my way and then inched closer to whisper I’d left a roller in my hair. I said, I know, I’m wearing my pajamas and got another quizzical look. It’s Halloween, I explained. Ah, enlightenment dawned and there were smiles and jokes about how I’d pulled one over on them.

I should probably explain pajamas are the opposite of my working MO. I tend to take great care with my appearance when I’m leaving the house, even to run to the grocery store. On days when I work from home, I shower, dress, put on make-up and jewelry as though I’m going into the office. It just makes me feel better and I think I do better work when I’m “suited up”. So this Halloween “costume”, while at first so enticing, had me wanting to run home by noon to shower, fix my hair and put on real clothes.

The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough. I would have enough time to shower and change before picking my son up from school so we could go to his friend’s neighborhood for trick or treating. When I got to school, he was dressed in his costume with his friends and they talked me into letting him go with them so I told the mom I’d meet them at the appointed house at 6:00 where there was a pre-trick or treating party. A pre-trick or treating party?!

I arrived well before everyone else and sat in my car because a) I didn’t have a kid and b) I didn’t know the hosts of the party. Minutes passed and I worried I had the wrong house and texted to make sure I was in the right spot. They assured me they were on their way and soon pulled in and the kids jumped out of the car ready to go. I had tried to talk Liam out of the costume he chose. I knew he’d be picked on but he wouldn’t be deterred.

I think it turned out to be a disappointing night for him. As I suspected, he was picked on for the costume and said someone had actually hit him. He quickly discarded the mask and the boys ran through the neighborhood like their life depended on it, picking up treats along the way. As the night wound down and he had one more confrontation with a girl who wanted to spray his $100 jacket with shaving cream before I intervened, he said he’d learned his lesson about his costume choice which will remain a mystery here.

We had a quiet ride home as we both mulled over our poor choice of costumes this Halloween.