New Year’s Resolution: Being able to bend over and put these on (tightening the laces might be too ambitious a goal at this point). Maybe by spring I’ll actually be able to use them for their intended purpose. 🤞🏻
I have this Thanksgiving tradition where I design myself a brand new pair of running shoes — technically, they’re “bought” by my in-laws, the Christmas gift I tell them they got me during our annual Exchanging of Receipts ’round the tree — and then, I run myself straight into the ground before they even come out of the box.
The universe has sent me the same lesson for multiple years now, on the same threshold between fall and winter seasons. Is this time THE time I actually learn?
I thought maybe sitting down to flesh it out was a step in the right direction, even though I can’t sit, or step, or do anything without pain crackling through my lower back, stabbing at my SI joints, throbbing in my hips and shooting down my hamstrings.
I mean, screw custom sneakers; the real gift would be household appliances I can operate entirely above the waist, you know what I mean? 😬
The first thing I stopped consuming was social media content — outside of Instagram and Threads, which I’ve unapologetically curated into echo chambers full of pro-recovery/therapy profiles and fellow blue hearts. I went and deactivated Twitter, which should’ve been done 10 years ago, but I digress…
The first thing I started creating (before this post) was a plan to GTFO of Pennsylvania. I mean, not permanently, though my hubby did come downstairs early on the morning after, talking about Canada and going to live on a lake (he’s a keeper, and the only thing keeping me from going full 4B 😉). I asked if Vermont would be a good compromise.
But what I actually did was book a round-trip flight to Chicago for the upcoming holiday. I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving since I lived at home, which would’ve been prior to my Northwestern graduation in…shoot, 1999? While I made a life for myself out in the world, after much wandering in the wilderness, my first instinct in times of crisis has always been to get my ass immediately back to my parents’ house.
All you folks in 12-step programs might recognize this as “pulling a geographic.” And yeah, guilty as charged! Running away is still my go-to self-soothing strategy, even though the lesson of “Wherever you go, there you are” has been hammered into my brain by the school of hard knocks over 20 years’ time.
The difference now, at 64 months sober, is awareness. And clarity. The understanding that each action/reaction is a choice, with consequences, and I am fully responsible for the choices I make and the consequences that come. Whether I weigh pro vs. con or act impulsively, whether I consciously break cycles or continue dysfunctional patterns, obey the commands of old programming or resist that pull and do something different — that is up to me. Each moment of my life presents a new opportunity, and sobriety equips me, empowers me, to seize it.
Last Thursday, I ran through the pitch dark woods, guided only by a headlamp and my memory of the trails, and serenaded by a spooky-themed playlist I put together just for the occasion. (Not that you asked, but selections ranged from “Thriller” and “Zombie” to half the original “Crow” soundtrack and tracks from both of the first two “Ghostbusters” movies.) And I finished devouring the latest Stephen King novel I had added to my Audible library. (Maybe it goes without saying, but I much prefer fictional horrors to the real ones all around us.)
I’m not “into Halloween,” though, in the sense that I put on disguises and go to parties. I haven’t “participated” in the “holiday” since my sewing whiz of a mom was dressing me — and my Cabbage Patch dolls or little sisters — in painstakingly constructed companion ensembles that dominated the elementary school costume contest nearly every year.
A rare advantage for the firstborn daughter: not having to play the pet/sidekick, or “be the boy,” as my childish mind would’ve framed it. Continue reading “Fear”→
My eyes take in some version of the above scene once or twice a week. It flashes before me about a half-hour into my morning jog, just a minute or two after my turnaround point on the Delaware Canal towpath, and then vanishes behind a line of trees within five or six steps. My brain barely has a chance to process anything beyond “Wow,” before my focus has shrunk from that beautiful big-picture perspective to whatever granular “real-world stuff” I’m going to have to face a couple miles down the path.
The other day, I forced myself to stop — OK, slow, not that I ever move particularly fast — long enough to snap a quick picture. Guess you could say I had the presence of mind to realize how seldom I’m truly present in the moments of my life, and here was a perfect example.
(Of course, my intention all along was to use the example in a blog post, in the future, so…maybe that doubly proves the point? 🤔)
See, the human tendency to time travel is truly torturous. We know our time here is finite, and fleeting, and all we really have to work with/revel in is now, and yet our brains insist on ruminating or rushing ahead. Or they immediately conjure up some distraction, usually involving a cell phone, like how I’m currently standing on the deck of this amazing log cabin in the Poconos at 5AM on a Sunday, under a glittering canopy of stars, playing an episode of “Better Call Saul” on the Netflix app while typing in WordPress and posting a new cover photo on my Facebook profile, for some unfathomable reason…
The farther I get from my last drink, the closer I feel to the human race — and that does not mean that I’m actively seeking out opportunities to be around people, outside of work. It doesn’t even mean that I really like people, in general. No; I’ve actually been struggling lately with giving in to my natural urge to isolate, maybe (sigh) a little too much. And it’s election season, and I live in a (gulp) red patch of Pennsylvania…need I say more?
The closeness I’m talking about comes from finally connecting to my basic humanity, underneath it all. Dialing down the frantic cycle of self-medication that snared me back in my late teens has led to a greater understanding of how that happened, or what the hell was really going on with the eating disorders, the overexercising, the alcoholism, the…how shall I put this?…attention-whoring? Swimming in the social media cesspool?
In any case, things finally got desperate enough for me to grab a life raft, and over the past five years, the “addiction” layers of my onion have gradually peeled themselves back, stripping away the most intense and extreme of my all-or-nothing tendencies and anxiety-driven coping mechanisms. The urgent, surface craving that once drove me to grab out for any kind of symptom relief has muted, morphing into a much deeper, sustained sort of internal longing for whatever life’s supposed to be about. And in turn, my body has, amazingly, settled into a kind of homeostasis — at least for that “one good week” each month before the perimenopausal tornado blows in and blows it all to bits. 🌪️💥 🥵
I think we’re in that week now, folks, given the fact that I’m able to sit still and willing to exert the effort it takes to herd the cats in my head into a reasonably coherent self-reflective essay.
It’s times like these, fleeting though they might be, when who I am, where I’m going, how I “relate to the infinite” or fit into the grand scheme…it all starts to make sense.
On the way to the running path early Saturday morning, with dawn breaking in brilliant pinks and purples and Road Trip Radio pumping Kenny Loggins through my car speakers — the song was “Danger Zone,” which in hindsight is so appropriate — I drove by a place from my sordid past. My brain did a quick calculation: It’s been six years. And out of my mouth shot a short prayer: THANK YOU SO MUCH!
There have been so many topics on my mind lately that I started and stopped writing several different blog posts over the past month. Finally, I just decided to focus on how I really feel at this moment in time. Which is…well, grateful, yes, of course. But overall, just very pleased. And to channel the sentiment in Dr. Doyle’s lovely Instagram post, this good feeling comes without any real “worthiness” qualifications, or reasons why.
I mean, it’s awesome that fall is nearing and for the first time in three years, I don’t have to go back to school. It’s equally awesome that Fall 2024 finds me working in private practice, the job I dreamed of when I decided to enroll at DelVal, study counseling psychology, earn my Masters and become a therapist who helps people with substance use and eating disorders.
Can you frickin’ believe it, y’all? I actually am that.
Our annual reminder that it’s so much cheaper to go to MLB games when you don’t drink — and your family has a ticket hookup at the league office!💰 S/O to Chris for the sweet seats!
“Bring it in; I need something for the blog!” I directed Hubby as I pulled out my phone, flipped the camera and “cheesed” with the souvenir cup of Coke Zero he had just brought me from a Wrigley Field concession stand.
This was a few days before my 5-year sober anniversary, and true to form, my brain was whirring away, jumping ahead, scheming and plotting and writing checks it was far too cluttered and chaotic to actually cash.
Case in point: It’s two weeks later, and I can’t even type one paragraph without my own words sidetracking me off onto a random tangent. 🧠🔃
Warning: You will not have any earthly idea what I’m talking about on this blog if you’re not acquainted with HBO shows.
There’s a lot going on right now with my transition from the Class of 2024 to working as a full-time therapist in a private group practice, which is turning out to be equal parts “dream job” and “be careful what you wish for,” in the sense that great freedom brings great Imposter Syndrome. Cutting through all the anxiety to form coherent thoughts, much less sitting down to craft them into sentences, much less imbuing those sentences with wisdom, is proving exceedingly difficult as of late. 😰
🚨 SPOILER ALERT: THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT DETAILS FROM THE NEW MOVIE “INSIDE OUT 2.” PROCEED AT YOUR OWN PERIL — AND DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU! ⚠️
When I saw that Anxiety was the new cast member in the “Inside Out” sequel, the feeling in my gut driving me to go see the thing immediately overrode my Anxiety about going to a crowded public movie theater in the summer when school’s out.
That’s not easy to do, in general, because Anxiety (yes, it warrants continued capitalization) has been my most powerful driving force since birth. And these days, during my “time of the month,” it’s basically my entire personality.
I joke that I’m going through “second puberty,” though the hormonal mayhem of perimenopause has hardly been funny. You have to understand: I only recently started feeling my feelings when I stopped drinking to self-medicate Anxiety just under 5 years ago. So while I look mature, I’m kind of a combo teen/toddler when it comes to emotional regulation.
When we walked into the theater last Wednesday, my period was due any minute; consequently, the vigorous heartstring-tugging I expect from all PIXAR movies completely rocked my world this time around. The crying babies in the audience had nothing on me; I had to physically strain to keep my visceral reaction in check. It was so strenuous that I left with a splitting headache.
To quote the Disgust character: “Overreact much?”
“Inside Out 2” review: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 (that’s 8) out of 10. It wasn’t a perfect movie, but its representation of Anxiety as a rabid, relentless go-getter that can completely hijack the personality and dismantle the sense of self (if we let it!) was 100% spot-on. 🎯
Jen Wielgus Journalism 