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sober lifestyle

Procrastination

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My jogging route includes a few steep(ish) hills that never seem to feel easier, no matter how many times I scale them, so I allow myself a break at the traffic light leading from the park back into my neighborhood. I typically have a gorgeous view of daybreak as I shuffle up the final incline, and on Halloween morning, I lingered a little longer at the stopping point to catch my breath and snap the attached pic.

That sky illustrates how my life feels right now — no matter how you look at it. From the “glass half full” perspective, I’m currently, temporarily, mired in murkiness and doubt, but there’s light, hope, room to breathe and seemingly limitless possibility waiting in the distance. On the other hand, I could say I’m floating around on the light side while the dark clouds of reality are looming, creeping in, getting closer every day.

My grad school “commencement” is May 11, 2024, which I suppose could be the line of demarcation in this scenario. The plan is to cross it, grab that diploma, then take a beat to decide on next steps for my counseling career.

I have hundreds of internship hours to log and research papers/final projects to turn in prior to that date. There’s also the minor matter of passing the National Counseling Exam, which students in DelVal’s program are somehow expected to do during their second-to-last semester in school while they’re trying to log all those required hours and turn in all those aforementioned assignments.

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sober lifestyle

Ecotherapy

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View from my picnic spot in the Andorra Natural Area, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023

The group leaders had “discussion prompts” for us to use in this exercise, but I didn’t wait around to grab the list they were handing out. I heard them say “lunch with a tree” and instantly fled the circle to go explore the surrounding forest and grab a bite with some bark. 😉

It was noon on Sunday, Day 2 of last weekend’s Philadelphia Ecotherapy Fall Training event, and I’d had more than my fill of human contact by that point. I’d signed up (and paid $250 of my husband’s money) to join 15 other trainees in the woods of Wissahickon Valley Park and learn from real therapists integrating nature into their counseling practices throughout the area.

When I first heard the term ecotherapy, I knew it was for me, and though I’m years from hanging my own shingle, my goal in the training was to gain knowledge — What’s the science behind nature’s medicinal effect on our mental health? What does “reciprocity” in our relationship with the environment really mean? How do you say, “I’m from Philly” in the language of the Lenape? — and pick up practical skills and techniques so I can one day help my clients experience nature in a more therapeutic way. 🤞🏻

I also, selfishly, came here craving my own therapeutic experience in the Great Outdoors. There is precious little “eco” in the therapy I’m currently doing as a grad school intern at a drug and alcohol treatment clinic in the suburbs — and I, my friends, am a wild creature who was not built for office, and maybe not even indoor, work. 🐺

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sober lifestyle

Season

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Post-run moon shot on Sunday morning, the first of October. When I learned that the word “lunatic” is derived from “lunar,” so much made sense! 🌚

I don’t really hang around much with other people, or consume any media made in this decade — the radio in my car is pre-set to the Lithium 90s grunge station, and my TV is usually tuned to some black-and-white Hitchcock drama or “Twilight Zone” rerun, when it’s not showing “The Sopranos” on a loop — so I’m pretty much oblivious to current events. Living in my out-of-touch bubble, I’m also susceptible to believing that I’m special. Different. Unique!

Or, completely and hopelessly f*cked up. It depends on the day.

In reality, though, most humans are feeling “it,” in some form. The strange atmospheric energy engulfing our planet as the seasons change is impacting everyone. I see it in my clients at the clinic, my grad school classmates (the ones I still associate with, amid the chaos of Year 3…), and the women in the “Helping Hands” support group I attend every other Sunday for two hours.

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Solidarity

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Some folks at work were talking about the first impressions we give to new people, and I involuntarily got looped into the conversation when one of them spotted me shuffling papers nearby. An easy target. Bullseye! 🎯

“With YOU,” they said, gesturing toward me, “my first impression was, ‘Whoa! That girl is overwhelmed!”

It’s moments like that when I’m reminded why I drank. Call me highly sensitive — no, really, go ahead; the shoe fits — but I think being pinned to a spot where you feel alienated and alone is one of the more excruciating aspects of human life in a civilized society. My instinct in those situations has always been to flee, whether it was lacing up my roller skates or hopping on my bike as a kid, beelining to the office door for a break-time walk every day of my professional life, or downing any “adult beverage” I could get my hands on to free my restless spirit from the anxiety-ridden pressure cooker of social gatherings/interactions.

Of course, when you’re four years sober, starting from scratch on the bottom rung of a brand new career and working in a fast-paced medical facility, all you can do is muddle through — and try your best not to lose your sh*t.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied, a baby deer trapped in a sudden flood of light, “I’m pretty sure anyone in my situation would be.”

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Competence

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Maybe it was too soon. Maybe I didn’t have enough time in sobriety and real therapy — as in, the kind where you’re not sitting there in a fog of denial, willfully spewing lies — before I decided to go back to school to become an addictions therapist.

Or, maybe I hadn’t “worked a program” hard enough in the time I did have, and I had no business thinking I could act like a normal person — much less a competent professional — while starting from scratch in an emotional occupation and getting a bottom-rung job in a high-stress setting.

These thoughts occurred to me this week as I entered my ninth month as a rookie drug and alcohol counselor, feeling out of my depth with no life raft in sight.

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Remembrance

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Denial, with all its cold, numb detachment, naturally came first — and it hung around for weeks.

While I intellectually understood that my great aunt had passed away in the wee hours of July 21, and we’d all more or less braced ourselves for that awful news since she entered hospice care, getting the call from 800 miles away seemed to trigger an old protective reflex: The truth can’t hurt me if I refuse to let it sink in!

(That’s, like, the primary coping tool for addicts, who learn to perform all sorts of complicated mental/verbal gymnastics to avoid acknowledging the obvious fact that their drug/alcohol problem is THE thing that’s driving them to destruction.)

Distance had shielded me from reality, as it pertains to my family, for my entire adult life. Moving away from my childhood home in my early 20s allowed me to keep my Aunt Mickey, my parents, all my caregivers and role models, cemented in my head as they were in my youth.

Auntie Mick (front and center, holding me), whooping it up in the whirlpool at my grandparents’ farm with my dad (back left), mom, little sister, and Grandpa Perz. 😢
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Influence

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My Aunt Mickey wasn’t one to sugarcoat her strong opinions, no matter who she was talking to, and this was her take on my latest blog post: “It just went on and on and on!” 😳 So, when I sat down to write her a letter of appreciation (see above), I tried to keep myself in check.

(Gotta say, it’s a really bad sign for long-form writers when even 90-year-old family members who ate up everything you created since your keyboard was a crayon suddenly throw up a “TLDR” in response to your work…😑)

Aunt Mickey has always been one of my biggest supporters, and given her declining health, I had an inkling that our most recent trip home to Chicago might be the last time I saw her in person.

She was, true to form, treating us to Cubs tickets — in a luxury suite — on our second day in town, and I was pretty sure that would be the last time my entire family convened at Wrigley Field. So, I spent 15 minutes the morning of the game banging out a little recap of her influence on my life.

When I saw a chance to deliver this message, with Aunt Mickey seated in our box at the stadium, staring quietly at the tarped (but still beautiful) diamond through a sheet of summer rain, I plopped down next to her and read it aloud. Really loud. Had to make sure she heard! 🗣️👂🏻

That was July 2. She passed away in the hospital on July 21 and will be buried in her family’s plot this coming Thursday.

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Commitment

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I couldn’t recite them verbatim, if you put me on the spot today, and our wedding video exists on a DVD we no longer have the equipment to play. But thinking back to the evening of July 21, 2007, when we stood in a modest-sized Chicago banquet room exchanging original vows before family and close friends, I remember feeling like we totally nailed it.

He pledged to be there to take care of my needs, running out for early morning Diet Mountain Dews or bags of Snyder’s Old Timey pretzels to dip in yogurt at night (such were my tastes at the time 🤷🏼‍♀️). I professed a desire to be more like him — patient, deliberate, slowing my motor to savor the moment — which marked a full 180 from my initial assessment: “I could never date this guy; he’s always #%^*-ing late!” 🤣

This wasn’t the schmaltzy, rom-com-esque attempt at poetry you might expect from such an exchange; it was the perfect combination of deeply personal and down-to-Earth, emotional and irreverent, sweet and silly. Our words were completely creative and totally us, reflecting the playful friendship and genuine affection around which this new marriage was about to be built.

Of course, like most 29-year-old kids, Hubby and I were totally clueless as to what being married was really all about.

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