Sorrow

I'm taken aback by the death of my father. It wasn't unexpected. We'd talked about it, planned for it. But when it happened last month I was unready for the emotional wham and it has made it difficult to keep up with things. Like this blog.

Terms of love

Tonight's plans include a romantic dinner. It's Valentine's Day after all and a romantic dinner is my favorite way to celebrate. I cook it, because there aren't alot of restaurant options out here in the country. But we can always get a good bottle of wine, which adds to the aura. Picking up that wine, splurging for something extra nice, was so inescapably part of the tradition that I did it by rote. Even after I stopped drinking, I bought a bottle and set it on the table for my "date." I'd look at it longingly during dinner, or give up and have a glass, depending on how strong I was feeling.

Sobriety's like that sometime. It's not always linear. There are events and circumstances we label special. Where we allow ourselves to slip into an old habit -- and wine on the dinner table is really just a habit. We can control it but we don't always.

As women in midlife the decision not to drink is usually a personal one. We were tired of the hangovers, tired of the dullness that followed a night of imbibing. And since the decision to stop was ours, we feel we have the right to name its terms. So we make a deal -- one glass, maybe two. Some of us can do that and then wake up the next day with no desire, no longing. Those lucky ones are right back on their path.

But then there are those of us who have had that switch flipped. That next night we'll find another reason to drink. There's always something special to celebrate. And we tell ourselves this: I can stop again anytime. But anytime is long in coming. Then one morning, with that slamming headache, we wake up to that familiar loathing.

The romance isn't in the bottle set next to the roses. It's in loving yourself enough not to put that bottle there. And if you must, because I know there's going to be an argument, that it's just one glass of wine, then stop at that. One. For one night.

Getting the message out

 I recently signed on as a Women and Addiction in Midlife writer at the betterafter50 website. The amazing women over there are taking on the issue of late-life drinking and its unique set of problems. 

The first piece ran this week and here's a bit:

I do not have a drinking problem. There have been mornings where my head is explosive, barely holding itself. And there have been nights that I barely remember. But there have also been afternoons that were incandescent. Dinner parties that were magical. I’ve seen groups of people who could not be in the same room join together in song (although I have also seen people who completed each other shatter into a million pieces after a drunken battle.)
After a couple of drinks I am as witty as Dorothy Parker and as beautiful as Sofia Loren. When I open my mouth to sing, I wonder why I am undiscovered. And when I type out a message on Facebook, I am a sage who deserves a book deal.
So why am I putting my wine glass down? Because like so many women my age – an age of second chances and encore performances – my problem isn’t so much with drinking, it’s with the reasons I drink.

To read the rest ...

Suicide pony

We had a pony growing up. We lived in the country so it was a thing. I think he came with the house. He did not inspire a child-like adoration for all things equine in me because he hated us. He deceived us. He lured us in with the promise of a sweet ride, a gentle trot around the yard. It was nice when that pony was cooperative. It is the reason people like ponies. But after a few hundred yards, he'd had enough and he'd head straight for the clothes line, hoping to scrape us off his back like mud off a shoe.

Getting on him was flirting with death, but my siblings and I kept getting back on that pony. We'd look in his crazy eyes and talk sweetly, ask him to please be nice. And he'd shake those long locks out of his pony face and allow us to bridle him up, climb on his narrow back and be lulled into complacency before he headed straight for the clothes line again.

In later years, wine became my suicide pony. That was my choice. Maybe you've chosen something else. Oreos, maybe or gambling.  Shopping or smoking. The point is this: Suicide ponies are all the same. We know they're not good for us, but they nuzzle their soft nose into our cheek and we're lulled into believing that this time they'll be nice to us. This time we'll go for a nice little ride around the yard. 

We don't like to say the word addiction because we believe we can stop. Addicts can't stop. But we're different. We look in the mirror and see the woman who we believe we are, not the one we've become. Not the one everyone else sees. You probably don't want to hear that. I don't want to write it, but it's kind of true. One day, instead of looking in the mirror, however fleetingly, I looked at a photograph of myself. Really looked. That was where I started. I saw a woman who could do so much more. I didn't want to be the woman in the picture anymore. But even knowing that, the suicide pony would invite me for a ride and too often I'd climb back on.

This blog is a lot of things, but I'm not sure I want it to be stories about my adventures in drunkeness. If it does come up its because there was a lesson there, one that I hope is valuable to some other woman struggling through midlife. But ultimately, we all have to forge our own path, create our own program. What worked for me might not work for you. If you're reading this, you're probably aware you have a problem, but at the same time, you're hoping you don't. Your call. I learned I liked waking up without the headaches. That it was nice to not have people unfriending me on Facebook for some drunken post the night before. That some of my health problems dissolved when I got off the suicide pony.