Slept in my makeup, didn’t get my teeth brushed, slept on the couch and now my mouth taste like yesterday’s news… Wake Up Older by Julie Roberts
It’s been awhile since I was hung over. Today, I am hung over. I wonder if people realize how similar an alcohol hangover can be to a food hangover. My head hurts, my stomach is all over the place, I look like a raccoon because I didn’t go to sleep last night. I literally passed out. I passed out on a recliner in front of the TV, woke up to stumble to the couch before waking up again to finally fall into bed.
I had to drive to get my daughter this morning and of course, God’s flashlight was right there, assaulting me. I know what you did!!! the Sun was screaming at me.
I was out of breath and agitated and tearing my car apart at every red light in a desperate search for my sunglasses. Once I finally found them, I was upset because I had forgotten my phone. And the thought actually entered my mind once I retrieved the offspring, “I should not be driving with my kid in the car…”
Dropped her off at school and went home and tentatively ate a small bowl of cottage cheese and sipped some juice to get something on my stomach. It stayed down. I grabbed an orange and a piece of vegetarian lasagna for lunch, but at this point, still not sure how that’s going to work out.
The elevator’s out at work and I have to climb 4 flights of stairs to get to my office...still not sure how I made it up those steps. My boss appeared at my cubicle to ask me a question and I think I jumped 10 feet. I wish I could keep my sunglasses on all day.
I am still that person. Still the person I don’t want to be. I am still not turning things over. I am still getting buried in everything that gets thrown at me. It’s a lot. I know there are people worse off and there always will be, but sometimes even my sponsor admits, “I wish you could get a break!”
And I knew it was coming. Screaming “Mother fucker” when I drop my spoon, rather than picking it up and rinsing it off, that means something is coming. Impatience, anger bordering on rage which I usually don’t get…it means that it’s all building up inside me and at some point it’s going to blow.
I want a solution to my situation with my ex-husband. I ask friends, I ask family, I ask my therapist, my counselor…and no one can give me the answer I want. I don’t want to know how to change my behavior. I don’t want to know how to disengage myself. I don’t want to learn how to accept that he won’t change ever. I want to know how to change him. I couldn’t make him the husband I needed (and the husband I needed was basically a guy who needed to just not treat my like crap! Tall order I know!). I’ve truly accepted that. Now, my energy is focused on making him the ex-husband I need. Someone who is working with me to raise our kid, who communicates and who listens and respects my opinion but I DO NOT want to wait 14 years to get the message that this man is incapable of being that person.
Living with my mother is pretty much what I expected. Some days I measure the success of this arrangement by the fact that I haven’t pushed her head into a wall, and some days its fine. I’ve accepted that she’s not going to change.
40 is coming. And I don’t know what I wanted it to look like. Maybe my usual, unrealistic delusions of grandeur whereby things were all in line, I was at a consistent level of peace and serenity, dealing with all things as they came.
Why do I keep doing this? This is a life. It is never going to be consistently anything…consistently changing maybe. That’s the human condition, for everyone. It’s time to stop waiting for everything to be different and start working with what’s in front of me. And I keep making these promises to myself and never following through on them.
I used to love playing Russian roulette. I love seeing how close I can get to the edge and still pull myself back. My brand of Russian roulette were things like seeing how close I could get to the cancellation date of my car insurance policy without paying the bill. Seeing how many work projects I could put off before anyone caught on. Seeing how much food I could steal, hoard and binge on without people noticing. And I’ve really turned a corner in all these things. Now, apparently, I’m just playing it with my life and with my health. I’m not 22 anymore. I can’t even sleep on my couch without waking up having lost complete use of all my neck muscles. My cholesterol is up. It’s not the end of the world and probably easily rectified but maybe it’s a message. These things are only going to get worse. Your body is not going to hold up forever. I am getting older.
But I think I can dodge the bullet some more. And I can’t. I may live to be 90. I may keel over and die tomorrow. I have no idea and would go completely insane if I did know. Today. Today. All I can worry about is today. Not my birthday. Not next Christmas. Not my daughter’s graduation or wedding. Not even tomorrow. The ONLY thing I know about tomorrow is that I am supposed to have my daughter’s sleep over guest home by 11am. That is it. And for all I know, my car will break down, so I can’t even call THAT a certainty.
I am going to be abstinent today. I have no grand plan for my entire life. Today the Universe loves me…good and bad. Today, I am going to turn it all over because I still feel like crap and am incapable of doing anything else apparently! Today I am going to do the next right thing and deal with tomorrow…tomorrow.
The Seventh Step Prayer
My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen
It’s been awhile since I was hung over. Today, I am hung over. I wonder if people realize how similar an alcohol hangover can be to a food hangover. My head hurts, my stomach is all over the place, I look like a raccoon because I didn’t go to sleep last night. I literally passed out. I passed out on a recliner in front of the TV, woke up to stumble to the couch before waking up again to finally fall into bed.
I had to drive to get my daughter this morning and of course, God’s flashlight was right there, assaulting me. I know what you did!!! the Sun was screaming at me.
I was out of breath and agitated and tearing my car apart at every red light in a desperate search for my sunglasses. Once I finally found them, I was upset because I had forgotten my phone. And the thought actually entered my mind once I retrieved the offspring, “I should not be driving with my kid in the car…”
Dropped her off at school and went home and tentatively ate a small bowl of cottage cheese and sipped some juice to get something on my stomach. It stayed down. I grabbed an orange and a piece of vegetarian lasagna for lunch, but at this point, still not sure how that’s going to work out.
The elevator’s out at work and I have to climb 4 flights of stairs to get to my office...still not sure how I made it up those steps. My boss appeared at my cubicle to ask me a question and I think I jumped 10 feet. I wish I could keep my sunglasses on all day.
I am still that person. Still the person I don’t want to be. I am still not turning things over. I am still getting buried in everything that gets thrown at me. It’s a lot. I know there are people worse off and there always will be, but sometimes even my sponsor admits, “I wish you could get a break!”
And I knew it was coming. Screaming “Mother fucker” when I drop my spoon, rather than picking it up and rinsing it off, that means something is coming. Impatience, anger bordering on rage which I usually don’t get…it means that it’s all building up inside me and at some point it’s going to blow.
I want a solution to my situation with my ex-husband. I ask friends, I ask family, I ask my therapist, my counselor…and no one can give me the answer I want. I don’t want to know how to change my behavior. I don’t want to know how to disengage myself. I don’t want to learn how to accept that he won’t change ever. I want to know how to change him. I couldn’t make him the husband I needed (and the husband I needed was basically a guy who needed to just not treat my like crap! Tall order I know!). I’ve truly accepted that. Now, my energy is focused on making him the ex-husband I need. Someone who is working with me to raise our kid, who communicates and who listens and respects my opinion but I DO NOT want to wait 14 years to get the message that this man is incapable of being that person.
Living with my mother is pretty much what I expected. Some days I measure the success of this arrangement by the fact that I haven’t pushed her head into a wall, and some days its fine. I’ve accepted that she’s not going to change.
40 is coming. And I don’t know what I wanted it to look like. Maybe my usual, unrealistic delusions of grandeur whereby things were all in line, I was at a consistent level of peace and serenity, dealing with all things as they came.
Why do I keep doing this? This is a life. It is never going to be consistently anything…consistently changing maybe. That’s the human condition, for everyone. It’s time to stop waiting for everything to be different and start working with what’s in front of me. And I keep making these promises to myself and never following through on them.
I used to love playing Russian roulette. I love seeing how close I can get to the edge and still pull myself back. My brand of Russian roulette were things like seeing how close I could get to the cancellation date of my car insurance policy without paying the bill. Seeing how many work projects I could put off before anyone caught on. Seeing how much food I could steal, hoard and binge on without people noticing. And I’ve really turned a corner in all these things. Now, apparently, I’m just playing it with my life and with my health. I’m not 22 anymore. I can’t even sleep on my couch without waking up having lost complete use of all my neck muscles. My cholesterol is up. It’s not the end of the world and probably easily rectified but maybe it’s a message. These things are only going to get worse. Your body is not going to hold up forever. I am getting older.
But I think I can dodge the bullet some more. And I can’t. I may live to be 90. I may keel over and die tomorrow. I have no idea and would go completely insane if I did know. Today. Today. All I can worry about is today. Not my birthday. Not next Christmas. Not my daughter’s graduation or wedding. Not even tomorrow. The ONLY thing I know about tomorrow is that I am supposed to have my daughter’s sleep over guest home by 11am. That is it. And for all I know, my car will break down, so I can’t even call THAT a certainty.
I am going to be abstinent today. I have no grand plan for my entire life. Today the Universe loves me…good and bad. Today, I am going to turn it all over because I still feel like crap and am incapable of doing anything else apparently! Today I am going to do the next right thing and deal with tomorrow…tomorrow.
The Seventh Step Prayer
My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen
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