Sunday has become my day to write. I start at the beginning of my week trying to piece together a specific memory pool of my life and try to make enough sense of it to put it on paper. Most of the time, I have an idea of what it is I want to work on but inevitably the prose is too deep or too much for me to enunciate in a way that won’t be triggering to my audience. Last night I made the clear decision that I was going to finally write about something that made me laugh at myself. Levity in what is a very deep and sometimes dark collection of essays. The plan was to talk about a trip abroad that i took when I was a college student, but every time I came up with the opening paragraph I would instantly flash to a word in my head and be too distracted to start. Try as I may I can’t bring myself to write about that trip, but I promise its catalogued for a later chapter. So no levity today…today will be about; Time

Early on in my decision to stop drinking I couldn’t help but recognize how bored I was. I was gifted with time to reflect on my path ahead but more important bemuse the destruction I had left behind. Not now but soon I will tell all of my truth, the whole reason for me to quit drinking..but I’m not ready. In the mean time I will ask each of you to once again trust me with your precious time.

Back in July some time round about the 17th or so nearly a week after I started on this journey, I had a flash of me…once again losing my temper with my sweet boy. It wasn’t the first time in that week that I had a fleeting moment of clarity that revolved around my kid. After all, more than anyone in my life he was the one person that was left wondering what was wrong with me. Admittedly it had become routine for him to respond to a sharp tongue lashing from me with “maybe it’s time for a vodka” or “why are you so mad at me, are you out of wine?” This from an 8, 9 or 10 year old…to the person that was responsible for his health and well being, his life. I have had a lot of shame in the last decade that has revolved around plenty of mis-givings and bad decisons but in retrospect with nothing but clarity to torture me, my biggest regret is the reality that I hurt the feelings and neglected to place the most priceless gift ahead of all else. Keeping my sweet son in the shadow of liquor was a conscious decision fueled by greed and desire and the guilt of it stares me up and down and holds me responsible and I own it. I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention what I put his other father through. Picking up the pieces of our brokem life on a daily basis also became the norm for him. Sheltering and sheilding our son behind closed doors from the bad guy. As a couple we both played a part in the cat and mouse game of a deteriorating marriage, I know not to take all of the responsibility but I won’t ignore the fact that he was forced to pay most of his attention on our boy and his own mental health. Our marriage naturally became second fiddle. Where else would he have focused his energy? It certainly wasn’t to “talk about last night” when he knew well enough that the converation would be wasted…because you see I had no memory of the night before. His battles were valient, I honor his efforts…I cannot expect him to forgive me so swiftly and I often sit back and whisper my apology without his knowing it because my shame is still raw but I’ll get there.

So time…as a young adult my Mom told me that the older you get the faster time moves but I placed no credence to the statement and find myself brandishing my fists at science angry that I can’t go backwards but mostly wishing for more of it. Time for me these last number of years has been fleeting. When I say I have very little memory of my day to day these last 8 or 10 years I mean it. I would rush through my day, 7 days a week just to get to 5 o’clock. If you recall from my very first blog entry, I was a “classy drunk” so unless it was a weekend with friends or family I never drank before the 5 o’clock whistle. I now know that I was what is referred to as a high functioning alcoholic. In a day I would go through the same routine from my alarm to my first drink in the same order every, single day and tell myseldf I was living in the Groundhog day movie. The part that I keep referring to in my minds eye that dawned on me about 7 days into my sobriety is this. Every waking moment of my day to day, be it a weekend day, a vacation day, in the hopital with another ailment, at a hospital with someone that had an ailment, in the car….every, single solitary moment of my life revolved around when I was going to pour my first drink. Anything in my path that got in the way of my first drink would be annihilated either with threat of anger, raw anger or absolute disregard and that included my son and his other dad. In the moment that I realized my pattern my world shifted a little bit more. It was that moment that I realized I was healing and not just myself and it has been the second most important step in my recovery. The gift of finally receiving that insight remains integral to my journey because you see…It helped lead me to the dissolution of guilt and pain. It afforded me the clarity to check my next move, and respond. It has gifted me the joy of seeing my sons concern when he would make a mistake or interrupt me wash away because my response would be one of patience and care. I am so grateful for time. I now have what I need to look my undoing and destruction in the eye, to say I know I wasn’t perfect but I’m working on it. To be graceful and proud. Time. I feel like I have lost so many moments to my disease, but time is now on my side.