I took a long walk along the promenade in Brooklyn Heights.
I stood against the black iron fence, leaning into New York City’s skyline. I am still waiting for it to embrace me again. But, it only feels tired. Tall cranes and buildings rise, holding themselves up, heavy, against big, grey clouds. Jogger’s treads fall hard against the pavement. Couples in black coats on benches, pressed hard into one another, stiff, like magnets. And I walk, leaden, moving slowly toward Cadman Plaza.
I remind myself that the weight, the heaviness, isn’t forever.
I try to be patient and allow this time in my life to pass without argument or complaint. I let the city rise before me, flooded in darkness. I feel tired. The weight of too many narratives threatening to sink me and this island.
Stories will wait until I have words enough to write new ones.
It still catches me off guard when I hear myself saying the words out loud. — “I don’t drink anymore.”
Like whoa.
It’s not the kind of thing you can say in passing. And this week, I found myself telling my “How I Got Sober Story,” twice. Friends and acquaintances find out that you’re sober and, immediately, they want to know more. How? and When? and Why? and Whyyyyyy? Sobriety is something that almost always requires an explanation. And, I do it. I explain. Not because I feel like an explanation is owed but because, to some, sobriety is this unthinkable, incomprehensible, impossibility. And, I feel obligated to dispel that notion.
Sometimes I forget I’m sober. I forget, I am the odd man out. And, maybe that’s the big-time-bonus after a long stretch of sobriety: Forgetting. — Forgetting everything.
While I played my tale of woe on repeat this week, for the first time, I felt something new. An astranged feeling — a disconnect. The cousin of insincerity, if you will. As the words left my mouth, I had to remind myself that those things that happened did, in fact, happen to me. I hardly recognize the woman in my own story. I don’t know how I ever knew her. It’s almost as if I couldn’t know her. — The small world where she used to live. The poor choices and the meager portions she allowed herself.
I think part of this revelation is, I’m no longer going to 12-Step meetings with regularity. So, I’ve been distanced from that narrative. A lot of rehashing goes on there. I’ve taken myself off the loop. And, after taking this big step back, I’m happy about deciding against wading into the murky lake that I once splashed around in with masochistic delight. My sorrow, these days, is watered by a different well. And, until this past week, I hadn’t taken the time to notice, much less appreciate, the big changes I’ve made.
I’m focused on my endgame. I forget to look around. This is why all those 12-Steppers were encouraging me to be consistent about meeting attendance. I need to be reminded. I need to remind others. And, on some level, that’s true. But, like most healthy relationships, breathing room is always a good idea. Truth be told, I think the space I’ve put between myself, my disease, and all that mea culpa-ing I was doing has allowed for this recent, rewarding reveal. I’m starting to discover that if I stop talking about being a mess. — I stop actually being a mess.
We all could stand to forget a thing or two. Our messes included. Go on, forget it! Forget the definitions we so rigidly create. Forget the people we hold accountable for so much of our pain. Forget the crap that still hurts.
Of course, we can’t forget everything. If we did, we couldn’t appreciate our big changes. We’d devalue our endgames. But, forgetting isn’t letting go. And, forgetting isn’t forever. — There’s always room for remembering. Later. We can put the pain aside and return to it later, with reverence. I promise. If we don’t make room for the new, good things, then the other things, sometimes the big things, slip through our fingers — not the least of which is time.
My sober story needs to be more present. Which, when I think about it, was always my goal. It’s important to remember how I got here, but, it’s also important to put away the things that don’t serve me anymore. It’s no longer about how I couldn’t hack it back then. It’s about now. It’s about what’s working.
It’s possible to tell your own story without throwing knives. It’s OK to make revisions. As the writer of your life, it’s a kindness that’s deserved. — Earned.
Next time I tell my “How I Got Sober Story,” it will be new and improved, rooted in the now. I’ve made some detailed mental notes. The first of which is: Just remember to forget — while the forgettin’s good.
I’m driving home from an amazing weekend when, suddenly, I see it coming. I pump the brakes. — But, it’s too late. — The horizon hits me hard. Breath knocked from my chest, I gulp for air. The thick, orange sky cracks me open, impales me, my guts spill out across the console, soaking the floor mats, seeping into the metal frame, and drip out onto the highway.
Our old Lombardy Street apartment, still remains, unimpressive and industrial, a concrete ghost hiding behind McDonald’s golden arches, staring at me, the highway level with its window eyes.
This darkening sky is a memory I’d long forgotten. Sitting in traffic on the expressway, the smell of gasoline and rubber — the smell of the city. I remember this. We were always returning. From weddings and weekends and snowboarding trips, tired and achy, with blisters and bruised knees, longing for the comfort of our big, red couch. — Drinks in front of the television set in my baggy, black sweatpants. Meeker and Morgan was the exit I waited for, my socked feet propped up on the dash. Meeker and Morgan announced us — we are home. We were home.
The sign is the same. Green, with peeling white letters. The sky too. A color that mixes the blues and whites of winter, but where its line meets the Earth, warm reds and yellows pool beside the sun, warning me that in just a few weeks, days, moments — Spring will arrive. Too soon. All this time. Gone. All this pain. For naught. And you, erased.
I think about the past too much. I know that. I probably talk about it too much too. How things looked and felt. How the air smelled. How, back then, home was a place — not a feeling. I beat myself up for doing so much wrong. Wrong jobs. Wrong people. Wrong comforts in the the wrong places. But, this highway can’t be blamed for any of that. There is nothing to change in this place. Nothing that makes it better. Nothing that can make it disappear. Nothing that can make it right. It is its own place, free of my assignments. I cannot erase these miles. It will always be here, this stretch of road. The sign is just the sign. The sky is just the sky. And, neither of these things will bring him back. Nor I.
I tell myself — This is it Sarah. The moment that, for better or worse, you need to just let go. I pick up my phone off the passenger’s seat and snap a photo. Capturing it in my hands so I can try to release it. The light. The traffic. A deep breath. The exhale. — He’s gone. — Let go. Please. Sarah. Please. Just let him go.
The sun sinks lower. And, I have passed the worst of it now. — Metropolitan Avenue. Wythe Avenue/Kent Avenue. Tillary Street. Cadman Plaza. Atlantic Avenue.
Now, it’s just me and the BQE. Gasoline and rubber. My blood dripping thick drops onto the dividing line. Driving away from the feeling I called home.
Without him, the sign is just the sign. The sky, just the sky.
There’s nothing like a good corporate questionnaire to highlight all the things you’re not.
I sit at my MacBook Pro, just one double-click away from zombie status, filling in field after field of yet another online job application. This is just one of the many questionnaires that I’ve completed in the past few weeks. A repetitive, mind-numbing process that reminds me I don’t quite fit the mold into which I am constantly attempting to pour myself.
I keep reading all these articles about Millennials. Fucking Millennials. — The problems we face. The problems we create. We’re asked to face the destitute world that the Baby Boomers have so lovingly left for us to burn down, meanwhile — we’re moving back in with them, staring out longingly from the windows of our childhood. Our lazy, privileged existence, devoid of any work ethic or gumption. — The whole conversation makes me angry. Infuriated. Why are we the generation that no one can figure out?
I hate the sweeping designation that’s been bestowed upon our flailing age group. Not all of us are representatives of the Lena-Dunham-GIRLS culture. — At least we’re not trying to be. I find myself wondering, how should I designate myself? How do we set ourselves apart, step up, and place ourselves on solid ground without compromising our values and abandoning our dreams? And, please, don’t tell me we need to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps.
In searching for the keys that unlock the mysteries of the kingdom, I’ve answered my own question. We Millennials, are the seeking generation. And, for us, today’s commerce lies in the search. So much is available to us. And yet, we choke. There are too many places to begin. It’s no longer the pool of pensions and 401Ks that our parents waded into years ago — security is a thing of the past. Now — this river is wild. And, if we’re going to survive, it’s about finding our true calling. Our purpose. — Heart-based business, baby.
A Baby Boomer once told me: “No matter how good you have it — work is work. You’re never going to wake up everyday and find yourself satisfied and excited to show up at the office. That’s just life, kid.” Um. That’s some bullshit and I’m not buying it. — An antiquated excuse born of another era.
To the dreams Baby Boomers lost in Vietnam we hold up our own. — The Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan — this banner of unending war, which has served as the backdrop of our lives, now more than ever, a sobering reminder. — Our work is worth fighting for.
Privilege, if nothing else, has afforded us Millennials hope. Work is not just work to us. It has to be our heart’swork. Work that feeds us. So, it’s worth waiting for — worth seeking out in this generational void. We, at the cost of returning home, regressing to our 17-year-old-selves, will wait for something that fulfills an unmet need in us — in our world. Oh, and I guess it should pay the bills too? — Therein lies the real gap. The economy is only just now starting to catch up to our wide-open hearts. And, we’re still left wanting.
This questionnaire asks me if I “Strongly Agree” with this? Do I “Strongly Disagree” with that? And, I keep finding myself in this position of being lukewarm. I am trying to remember what it feels like to get riled up about something. To run hot. Where is the heart I so easily find in my writing or in the faces of the smiling regulars I’ve greeted at my plethora of service industry jobs? Why can’t our joy also meet our dividends? I didn’t get sober to lead a thankless life, redeemed only by my employer’s willingness to offer decent health benefits and to match my Roth IRA contributions.
During this process, filling out this heartless questionnaire, my purpose is jolted. Awakened — it remembers. I make the shift from disheartened to inspired. This piece-of-shit questionnaire, now revelatory. A reminder of all these things I’m not, it begs me to put forward all the things I am.
Would you say you are: Stubborn as fuck? Mildly manic? Conscientious? Coyly critical? Empathetic to a fault? Occasionally work-inappropriate? Passionate for people? A wide-open heart? A rabble-rouser? A dinner-table-debater? Tired and poor and yearning to breathe free? Ready to Burn. This. Shit. Down.?
Yeah.
Yeah, I’d say that’s correct. — In fact, put me down for “Strongly Agree.”
My coworker tells a red-faced customer that the New Year starts with our bones.
He is referencing the seasonable cold front that, only just now, has arrived in New York City. But, as I stare from the coffee shop window out onto the still-dark avenue, I think it’s possible his theory has nothing at all to do with the weather.
He’s right though, the New Year does start with our bones. And, after letting some heavy weight drop, I am left again — feeling empty. Just a feeble frame.
This feeling is a familiar one.
September 9, 2012. I stood in the center of my Portland living room. I remember staring with empty eyes at my black, cubed, IKEA bookshelf. I read the title off the spine of every book I owned.
It was my first day sober, and, I didn’t know what else to do. I could not sit or walk or make calls or cook or watch TV. Most importantly — I could not drink. I could only do this one thing — stare at my shelf full of books. And then, I sat on the stoop outside my tiny kitchen, my elbows pressed into my knees, and I smoked an entire pack of Parliaments. A lonely skeleton.
Days and weeks past. Then, months. Now, years. And, where substance is concerned — I am human again. I can see myself in the mirror without having a drink. I have created something. That old skeleton — a spine, made up once from those of my books and my rib cage, made up once from twenty premium cigarettes — is now covered with flesh. I made matter with which to cloak myself. And, with practice, I learned how to uncover meaning in my own assembly.
Meaning will come and go. But, one thing is sure — Time will always create new bodies for us to build. And I have come to believe, despite the hardship, it is important we continue the difficult work. Unending. Tedious. Painful. Slow. Rewarding. Beautiful. Unexpected. — Grace.
We sew our veins, organs, and muscles into place. We cover ourselves in this — our skin. Unique. Never again to be duplicated. We all start out with these bones. And, at the end, which is never really the end, we are something we weren’t before. Original in our effort. We are our own life’s work. — We become our willingness to begin.
In the New Year, cold descends. We feel it. The work commences.
I think about the lessons I learned as a child I wish I could erase. And, of all the things I’ve inadvertently carried with me through the years, the need to wait has proved the most stealthy of my childhood foes.
As children, we are constantly waiting on our adults. To wake, to prepare us meals, to take us places, to do things for us. We learn without ever having been taught the lesson, that — time is not our own. We internalize the notion that, if we just wait for it, we’ll get what’s coming to us. And, as children — that’s often true. Eventually, if we’re fortunate, our needs are met.
In our adult-ness, we draw on our childlike expectations. We wait for the job, the man, the money. And we are surprised and disappointed when they never show. Or, they do, but in a cruel turn of events, it turns out — they’re hardly worth the wait. Good things don’t fall into our laps. We re-learn: Life is work. We make our own breakfast. And, while it isn’t always hard, most of the time, our dream — requires waiting. And, when it does manifest, if it manifests, it’s never what we expect. — The love of our life leaves. The pancakes come without syrup. — More often than not, our expectations turn out to be a colossal waste of time.
Oh, sweet, sweet expectation. The root of all addiction. It’s no wonder we seek comfort in the steady, reliable things that we can count on — things that kill our pain, things we don’t have to wait on. Drugs and booze, baby. Because, really, who wants to wait? — No one. That’s who.
The older, angrier, and more jaded I become, the more I start to think that our inclination to do what we want, when we want — isn’t so reckless. I spend all this time, certain that I am “adult-ing,” convincing myself of my maturity, letting time pass me by and “seeing what happens.” As I revel in my stuck-ness, I begin to grapple with the idea that — the waiting game is just a nice way to frame our fear.
Fear of losing. Fear of failure. Fear of being alone. And, while fear’s expression is perhaps the most central of all our innate human instincts, I’m beginning to wonder if is isn’t the least evolved. It’s antiquated. And, it’s fucking up the whole shebang.
Here, I’ve been crawling around in circles — waiting for something to change. The pity party’s long over. I stare a plethora of excuses in the face — Why can’t I and I’m sad and I’m stuck and I’m old and I’m too much of this and I’m not enough of that. But, — Wait for it. And. No. Just wait. And. No. Wait. Wait. Wait. And. No. — Fuck it.
I’m tired of waiting for IT. What is IT? Who is IT? Is IT coming? Does IT cost money? Is IT a place? — I don’t care anymore.
I surrender. And, my forfeit isn’t a pittance. It’s a declaration. I’ve tired of listening to the shrill hiss of my own misguided anger. It’s an unwelcome guest, slithering, just below the surface of my thick skin — ready to snap its jaw. But, I can’t wait any longer.
So, I train for a 5K. I pull out my banjo when I have the house to myself and I reallyfucking wail. I crochet little-white-snowflakes to hang up in the coffee shop. I buy a new Kindle book, and — I actually read it. I watch Master of None and I let big-belly-laughs escape me, even though my laughter still feels like some sort of betrayal. But, I decree — There will be no more waiting.
The time for being pragmatic has passed. After standing on the edge of the bridge and looking down into the black water — it’s do or die. Sink or swim. And, as the last of the yellow leaves blow off the tree outside my bedroom window, I decide I won’t wait for the buds of Spring to remind me I’m still alive.
Question: What is the difference between a teacher and a guru?
Answer: A teacher points the way. The guru is the Way. In the course of your awakening you will have thousands of teachers. Throughout all of this teaching, the guru waits, beckoning from beyond.
Be Here Now, Cook Book For A Sacred Life; Ram Dass, Pg. 6
I think we’re all waiting for the payoff.
The big reveal. — The moment of release. The summation of all this pain and toil. An unveiling of some blessed reason for the world’s continued suffering, and, what is certain to be, its ultimate demise.
We seek the guru because we tell ourselves it can’t be this. This place. This time. This cast of characters. This. It just can’t be. In our denial and disbelief, we gloss over the thing we know to be absolutely true. We beg answers of the teachers before us — but to truly know — we must go within. It’s clear to me now more than ever — relief is not around us. It is inside us. — Good lives within. — We must find it there and draw it out. A spiritual revolution.
I read the work of Baba Ram Dass daily. I love him. I’d love for him to be my guru. But the truth is, in my seeking him, I become more lost. What’s even more hilarious? — He taught me that lesson. Teachers are funny like that. They shine light where you’d rather not see, so, you go to another teacher, then another, then another. Soon you’ve seen too much, but really, you haven’t seen anything at all. I like to think you know what I mean, because I like to believe that we all are seekers.
I’m still in this funk, so, I’m stuck. I sit patiently and wait for instruction. From anyone, really. A customer. A coworker. A song. Sun glinting off the choppy waves of the water in the bay. — All messages from the Guru.
Recently, a few important people have drifted, unexpectedly, from my life. Teachers. — The best teachers. — And, watching them go has reminded me that there are new lessons I’m meant to learn. It’s not by my design. But, I must remind myself that if I allow myself to be stuck here, then I will continue to be just that. — Stuck here. Any design requires movement. Patience. Love. — Revolution.
Before my eyes, big cities have become incredibly small.
I turn off the television to avoid making myself sick. I embrace and abandon my own sense of place. I wait for healing. I look for apartments in Southern Vermont. I stare at a picture of a covered bridge surrounded by falling leaves, and, in another photo, the same bridge covered in snow. Different seasons. Each lonely and quiet. Isolated and still. It looks like a place my guru might wait for me. I feel myself moving closer to something. — We are all moving closer to something.
But life isn’t about moving. It’s about being. The most sacred lesson, more than any other lesson I’ve learned from my Baba, is the lesson of being. Not thinking, or seeking, or seeing, or knowing. It’s not a tangible trip. It’s not something you can destroy or embrace or free or trap. It’s not something you can kill. No amount of violence, inside or outside of us, can unsettle it.
It’s something we know because we are. All of us. Each one of us.
And, that’s the grist for the mill, Baba would say. — Becoming ourselves is the trip.
This moment, is a moment for the guru. — This moment, is the guru.
At the coffee shop, after serving an assembly-line of customers their coffee-crack, each falling in line, decaffeinated, our hands exchanging paper-cup-currency — I looked up from the cash drawer to see an unknown face. He was standing there, looking at me. No, staring. — And, not at the frames of my glasses or at my little, silver pendant-necklace. At me. This stranger’s eyes, with tiny black pupils, bore little holes right. into. mine.
This look. — It wasn’t creepy. It wasn’t romantic or sensual. It wasn’t inappropriate or uncalled for — it just was. He was unabashed. Eyes set. Dead-on-straight-on-spot-on. A portal into me. Into my soul. Perfectly still. Seeing me.
And, in an odd act of defiance, I fought the intense urge to immediately sever this strange bond.
I held his gaze. I let it happen — even though it was terrifying and strange. And, when he finally broke away, he sat down at an empty table with his lap-top and his coconut doughnut and his medium cup of coffee, and he got on with it. — His day. His moment. — He was unaffected by having seen me.
But me? I stood there undone. Feeling naked in the middle of the shop. It occurred to me that this guy sees people all the time. He is decidedly unafraid. He knows where to look and he is un-phased by our contents. He see us, and then — he returns to his doughnut. That’s who he is.
It made me wonder — what was I so afraid he might discover? Why I had been so uncomfortable?
I thought about how I’ve felt recently. — Withdrawn. Disinterested. Tired. Sad. — In my various states of dissatisfaction, I’d rather fade into the woodwork than be seen. The feeling reminds me of early sobriety. Hiding in plain sight. — I didn’t want you to see me int that state. — Vulnerable. Beaten. Broken. Alone.
With years clean, I still look for places to hide. Avoiding help, even when I could really use some. — There’s something to that admission. Something about other people knowing you’re not OK. — It’s hard to let yourself be seen in that way.
But, this guy — this customer — he just took it. He looked in and saw my sadness and my fear and my defeat, and then — he ate his doughnut.
In doing so, he brought me back to myself. He humbled and surprised me. He reminded me that I’m not as wretched as I sometimes think myself to be. And, in recognizing this, I was able to locate some compassion. In the women’s room mirror, I met my own reflection.
Vulnerable, beaten, broken, alone. — But, still here.
I haven’t had a cold-flu-bug like this in ages. Apparently everything was milder in Portland — including viral illness. — Meanwhile, back in New York…The weather. The people. The attitude. Not one thing is laid back. Not one. Even influenza cannot be bothered with a “mild” setting. Here — it’s all or nothing.
And, maybe that’s what I missed so much about this place. The limitless energy. New Yorker’s don’t have to gear up like we did back on the West Coast. Because, here, there is only one gear — Badass.
I remember when I first arrived in Portland, how people were taken aback by my candor. I said what was on my mind. To the point. I never pussyfooted around. That bothered a lot of people out West. They expected something more dilute and demure. They also thought that I walked too fast. And, even though we adjusted to each other, I missed New York City’s edge. Its speed. — Its sense of urgency. — There’s nothing quite like it anywhere else.
I’m considering moving up to New England, or at the very least, a bit further out of the city — maybe the Hudson Valley. I need an in-between-speed city. As much as I love the hustle, I also feel worn down. I want something easier. Quieter. I try to plot it out sensibly. But it’s difficult. What criteria should be used when selecting a home? I evaluate how I arrived at all the places I’ve been and the things that made me want to stay or go. It seems easy. But, it isn’t really. There are a lot of variables. And, while nothing is permanent — it’s still a big decision. Place can be everything. Mean everything. Place can define you. And, place can make or break your sobriety. — I’m starting to feel that as I slip here in Brooklyn. — I have to be careful.
What does my heart say? I wait to feel the pull.
I know it will take a special place to set my heart ablaze again. I guess it’s just a matter of time.
So, in the interim, I nurse this badass-East-Coast-cold and I tell people it like it is and I walk to work at record speeds.
The last time I felt like I was on fire — I was bonafide crazy.
Holy. Hotness. Boiling over. And, that’s how I know things have gotten bad. — The heat.
It’s been building. Pressure. But, I’ve been preparing for this moment. — The moment where I miss Portland. The moment where I wonder if I made the right choice. The moment where I have my doubts. And, I knew, I knew this moment was on it’s way — so, I readied myself. And, when it arrived, as planned, I embraced it like a lost child, dropping everything to find a place to go cool down with it.
When the hot iron of crazy strikes, and, it’s happened to me several times since getting sober — I know that I have to stop everything. Completely cease. Mentally rest. I tend to run on fumes. In this state, my mind will go ape-shit and find itself creating the worst possible outcome — every time. I let small obsessions take over. I’m curt and angry. And, I show it. I hate showing it. I feel like I might lose my mind. So, this time — I was ready. And, when the moment hit, I made a beeline to the nearest place I could be alone. To sit in it undisturbed. — Silent. Silent. Silence.
The church was empty. Marble echoed the squeaky sound of my black Vans. I looked up at the alter. And I let Jesus know — “I’m back.” But, I’m not really here to pray. So, I tell Jesus that too.
“I’m not here to pray, Jesus. — I’m just crazy.” And, I’m pretty sure, he’s heard that line before.
The last time I sat still, with intention, was back when my ex was kicking heroin then using heroin then kicking heroin then using heroin then kicking heroin. I felt like I was hanging on for dear life. So, every night, I lay in my Portland bathtub and I waited while the water turned from scalding to tepid. My mind, still. I’d be hot and then I’d be cold. And, so, so still. I’d move the water back and forth slowly with my shriveled fingers — but everything else would remain — calm. I let all my thoughts go. I allowed my sadness and my confusion and my pain and my fury and my forgiveness and my hope to coexist in that white, rectangular pot — all of it, just steeping in the water. I let it come to a boil, and then, I let it cool. I let it cool down until it was just so. Just bearable. A temperature that I could live with.
I sit in an empty church pew because I don’t have a bathtub anymore. I explain this to Jesus. And I apologize for using his space. I tell him how I just need to let the water cool. And, then I let him know that I might need help with that, “you know — if you have some time.” And then, I feel like I need to explain that it’s not about my junkie ex-boyfriend, or anything super serious like that. It’s just me. Me and my shit. I had to clear all that up for Jesus. So, I told him about being homesick. And, — “I know, Jesus, I know — that sounds funny, because I was just homesick for home and then I moved home and now I’m homesick for Portland — which was home — but wasn’t.” And then, I apologize again, because, — “I know, Jesus — it’s fucking confusing.”
After about a half hour, I realize that I’ve asked Jesus to assist me with quite a few things. I wonder — were those prayers? Did I just pray to Jesus? Nah. I turn my head around and, behind me, I see there’s another man praying now. He’s on his knees about ten pews back. I whisper to Jesus — “Help that guy first.” After all, I’m just here to cool off. “Really. Don’t worry about me. I’m good.” — It’s quiet here. That’s all I need.
Cool air blows in from the side door when a little, Latina woman shuffles in with a black and white shawl wrapped around her shoulders. I watch her shove a few dollars in the copper collection box and she lights two red candles. A chill creeps up the sleeves of my hoodie. Cools me down. I feel my blood go from boiling to tepid.
On my way out, I genuflect and, then, I stand in the aisle and tip my black-knit-beanie up to Jesus. “Yeah. So. Thank you, for the space and the air, I mean, for everything. Amen.”
And then, I try to begin again. — With a brisk walk back home.
saucysobriety 