I’ve been in Denver for the past 10 days, visiting family and working on my memoir.  It’s interesting to note the challenge that arises when writing about the past, immersing myself in thoughts and emotions from this time last year.  

This time last year, I was swept up by soul George, swirling about our past lives and our infinite love story, before choosing to dive back into grief and allow myself that human experience.  Here is an excerpt:
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"It was exciting, and overwhelming, and confusing.  I felt George weaving himself into the core of my being, a oneness that I’d never experienced before.  My anger and sadness were gone, replaced by the giddiness of having discovered a long lost secret, a treasure map.  This journey into the metaphysical was something I’d dreamt of for years, for the ability to experience that which I knew in my heart existed, though I hadn’t found ways of seeing it or proving it.  The opportunity seemed to be unfolding in front of me now, beckoning me to knock.  An open invitation to transcendence." 

Ultimately I decided that I wasn’t ready to embark on this journey, and I asked for some space.  

"I knew that I was in over my head with our soul story and with what I was being asked to investigate.  I felt my grief being dissuaded by these magical possibilities, this path of spiritual wonderment; and while the fascination of our never-ending love story was a welcome distraction, it felt like just that -- a distraction.  I knew that I had so much more of George's death to face.  And I wanted to face it.  

I wanted to touch the pain, the suffering, to invite it out into the open, to give it its due respect, and to set it free.  Despite knowing that it would be hard, even excruciating at times, I saw this grief as a rite of passage, something that should not be avoided or denied.  The love that George and I shared was still alive, but our human relationship was over, and the loss of that life deserved a proper mourning.

I believed that George would understand, that he would give me my space and return to me when the time was right.  I didn't consider that it might not happen, or that I would be powerless to summon him back when I needed him."

And so I grieved.  What comes next is a good solid month of weeping, and grasping, and wishing for a different life, which I find myself hesitant to tackle in writing.  In doing so I unleash a fury of emotion all over again; there is no other way to write authentically about the past.  

I am not afraid of this pain, but I am all too familiar with the landscape that accompanies grief:  isolation, self-pity, sorrow.  Not to mention the general fog that descends on the brain, the mind taking a vacation from its seat of productivity, the goal being simply to get through the day, to feed the child, to remember to shower.

And in the wake of everything that’s been happening in the world around us -- the horrific massacre in Orlando, the murder-suicide at UCLA, a British lawmaker slain just days ago, countless other heartbreaking events that never reach our inboxes on top of the 2016 political landscape -- I’m not sure we need to add more grief to the world.  

But I tell myself that I have to keep moving.  Grief can be consuming, but I know that each time I pass through its doors I emerge a little lighter and a little wiser.  My heart goes out to all who are grieving around the world in situations far darker and more traumatic than mine, and my wish for them is to know in their hearts that the light within them is bright.  Martin Luther King said it well:  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

In the end, my wish is to create a work that lends hope and love to those who are, or have ever known, suffering.  Embracing my own suffering is therefore a necessary step, an offering, and an opportunity for growth and continued understanding.  May this continue to propel me forward.  I’ll see you on the other side.

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I am not exactly sure how we got to Thursday.  The last time I remember feeling normal, I was sitting in the sun, poolside, drinking a post-brunch mimosa with good friends while Nova napped in the house.  That was Monday, Memorial Day.  There is nothing particularly damaging about this, in fact it sounds quite fabulous -- a beautiful afternoon with cocktail in hand and our toes in the pool -- but even at the time, I kind of knew that I was pushing my limits.

​Some may recall a post I wrote last October about my unhealthy relationship with alcohol.  I’d had a rather eye-opening epiphany when I realized that perhaps my then- struggles were not all about George's death, but that my continued reliance on alcohol was also a main contender in how I was able (or unable) to show up.  This was a defining event for me -- taking responsibility for my choices, acknowledging my weaknesses, removing George as the crutch and putting my habitual drinking on trial.  Calling the kettle black.

I really thought back then, that I would never have a drink again.  

It’s amazing (and yet entirely comprehensible) how the mind can rationalize itself back to a state of -- Hey, no problem here, as long as we fall into the same pits with eyes wide open, we won’t get hurt, right?

Hm.

Now I’m not saying that the mimosa I had on Memorial Day gave me the stomach flu, but perhaps that on top of the drinks I had at our neighborhood brunch on Sunday, on top of the drinks I had visiting friends in the east bay on Saturday, on top of the beer I had with dinner on Friday and the wine before bedtime on Thursday… all of that on top of the fact that in the core of my being I know that I have ultimately failed in my attempts to either extricate or recreate my relationship with alcohol… I mean, it’s possible that my body was trying to tell me something.

It’s also possible that I just caught the stomach flu.  Regardless, these last few days of involuntary fasting have given me a few things to think about.

What exactly happened there?  Why did I fall back onto my daily ritual with alcohol?  Last weekend was only one of a string of examples.  I had returned to the safety net months ago.  During that time when moving out and moving on and having to make what seemed like a million decisions about my life and the stuff in it, made my brain scream:  Please, turn it off.

I turn off, tune out, with alcohol.  It lessens the overwhelm.  (Of course, I know there are much healthier ways of doing this, but I have neither the time nor the patience to dust off my meditation practice.)  And alcohol is one of those things like sugar, or caffeine, i.e. highly addictive substances -- once a pattern is established, it takes a shit-ton of willpower to cut the cord.

Additionally, my association with alcohol has its place in the happier moments in life -- celebrations, holidays, sunny days, park days, lunch with friends days -- and so it becomes a social staple, making happier events even happier.  But how can one substance be responsible for both decreasing negative emotion and increasing positive emotion?  It doesn’t quite make sense.  Something I will need to dig into when I’m feeling back to my normal self.

But what screams in my head now, is not -- turn it off  -- what screams in my head now, is -- How am I still, at 38 years old, struggling to untangle myself from this attachment to alcohol?

The untangling, I now realize, is more complicated than a declaration of abstinence.  There is something about the way that I use alcohol that is so deep-rooted -- a way to fill in some emptiness within that I didn’t think existed anymore -- and until I expose the truth I will not be free.  Because either that emptiness is false and my brain needs a rewire, or that emptiness exists, and I need to fill it with love.  

Either way, alcohol no longer fits into the equation.  I am no longer that girl who needed alcohol’s social lubricant to have meaningless conversations with strangers, and even friends; whose insecurities ran so deep that I needed a drink in my hand to numb the pain; whose own identity was largely a mystery well into adulthood, masked by the identities of those that I followed, trying to find a safe place to fit in.  I am no longer that girl.  I am a grown woman now, and I am carving out my place in this world.  The excess energy I have spent to maintain this toxic relationship is no longer available.  I have better things to do.

Here begins an investigation within.