I was desperate to get to my class, but every path I tried was blocked, so I ended up cutting through the pool — as in, a fully-clothed plunge and doggy-paddle — and climbing a steep staircase around the natatorium rafters to a window, where the only option appeared to be wriggling under an open crack. And just as I was about to shove my head between pane and sill, like Wendy Torrance clambering to escape the Overlook Hotel bathroom, a loud voice boomed over the PA system, dripping with contempt:
“JENNIFER WIELGUS, GO IMMEDIATELY TO THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE. YOU ARE BEING EXPELLED.”
It was then that I realized…this wasn’t real! I could just open my eyes and be free! 😅 Relief was followed by bewilderment, which quickly turned to frustration.
I didn’t realize how hard it had been raining until we finished hiking one gorge (Taughannock Falls; pictured above) and got in the car to head to the next (Ithaca Falls; see below). I plopped into the passenger seat, and all at once, I was forced to feel my soggy jacket and leggings clinging to my limbs, my soaked hat/hood weighing heavy on my head, and my tangled hair clumped against my neck.
For the previous two hours, I’d been completely unbothered, my personality split off to its “pleasant” side as my three favorite elements of the universe — my partner, nature and movement — converged in/around one gargantuan hole in the Earth. I found myself feeling grateful for the weather, because despite it being a Saturday morning at a high-traffic tourist attraction, my husband and I barely encountered any other humans on the trails. It was a cleansing rain, from that point of view, washing away both the residue of the week and the weight of the world.
But then, we stopped, and sat stewing in our respective puddles, and I felt my mood instantly turn irritable. Every inch of my body was antsy, to either get where we were going, stat, so I could move again, or get on back to our AirBNB so I could change into cozy pajamas, stuff (burn) my mouth with freshly-baked frozen pizza, and dissociate to Netflix by the fire.
“What were you just cackling about?” my husband asked as he entered my lair, aka our bedroom, where I was hunkered down behind the blackout blinds at 4PM on a beautiful summer Friday, looking like Charlie in “Always Sunny” writing his Dayman song.
No, I wasn’t in there huffing paint, but I had just popped a melatonin gummy and settled into my usual routine: burrowing into bed, flipping on one of my crimey comfort shows, and scrolling Instagram to numb out after another week white-knuckling it as a mental health professional who’s not exactly, like, the gold standard of mental health herself.
I squinted at his silhouette, backlit by “Law & Order,” as my foggy brain sputtered (*old school computer noises*) to translate silly —> sane. The man I married is a “normie” in every sense of the word, and bless him, after two decades together, he continues to seek logical explanations for inexplicable phenomena — such as, WTF I am doing or saying and why.
“Uhhh…” I stalled, swiping at my screen. I tossed him the phone. “This?” 👀⬇️
People, Places and Things: My best guy (JP) and my sacred nature spot (Tyler State) were huge factors in helping me earn my six-year chip. 😍
My husband and I went on one of our walks Monday morning, getting a later start and moving slower than usual after spending 12+ hours in the car the previous day, and five whole days in the Central time zone prior to that. We’d both taken an additional day off to recover from our annual Midwestern vacation — and to celebrate another recovery milestone.
July 7 was my six-year sober anniversary.
This, naturally, was the topic of discussion as the two of us set off for our local state park, slogging through oppressive heat and soupy humidity, each carrying a hand towel to wipe sweat and shoo bugs.
I admitted to feeling kind of numb, or neutral, about the day, as I typically do about these “big” days. After six years, alcohol-free living is just regular old life. No big deal. But I was curious what he thought, since our lives are intertwined, and of all my loved ones, he’s the one who’s been with me the whole time in the trenches of addiction and recovery. He goes to 12-step meetings and therapy and really “gets” what’s going on.
“It’s impressive to me,” he said, swatting his towel at buzzing sounds in the air around his head, “because I think about how hard it is to do something consistently every day for six years.”
Is it? I’ve always been a determined and disciplined person for whom “hard” things seemed like requirements if they led to my chosen goal. Sadly, in my transition from adolescence to adulthood, the “goal” I chose was, “check out of reality by any means necessary,” and no one can deny I went HAM in chasing that for 20 years! 😳
Snack break between therapy sessions in the Doylestown Cultural District, where it’s possible to imagine for a moment that the world is not completely on fire. 🌿
It’s been about a year since I started working full-time as a therapist. And these days, whether it’s because the mental health field can be incredibly intense and all-consuming, and/or I’m starting to feel my age, and/or the world seems more f*cked-up with each passing minute, my concept of time is really slipping.
I have trouble remembering what day it is, especially during the week; they all blend and blur together as I shift from appointment to appointment, then zone out watching Hulu before falling into bed. I’m able to focus solely on the individual face in front of me, then the next one, and I move through my waking hours with a jumble of clients’ words, gestures, facial expressions, heavy experiences and perplexing questions — not to mention cringey things I said or did in session — endlessly swirling through my head. An occasional “doomscroll” through IG Threads only adds more chaos to the mental clutter.
So, the reason I’m aware of this professional anniversary is that my boss used the final five minutes of our monthly meeting to congratulate me.
Monday morning: My eyes darted upward at the pale blue, predawn sky as I jogged through my neighborhood, and I was struck with a bolt of inspiration. Or maybe it was a jolt of caffeine from the BCAA+Energy drink I’d mixed and guzzled as extra oomph to help force my ass out the door.
Either way, I felt a euphoric mix of emotions — joy, relief, gratitude — course through my body in that moment. I was back on track!
I was out doing something I love! I mean, I was doing something athletic that I love, because I also love to sleep, but I’d just done that on and off for the past 48 hours straight. I had trudged back upstairs shortly after breakfast on Saturday and Sunday, to yank the blackout blinds and burrow into my blankets while munching a melatonin gummy to self-medicate a mental state the AA folks would describe as “off the beam.”…and all my perimenopausal pals likely know as “the norm.”
It had been, more or less, a lost weekend. But moving toward the state park at the start of the work week, I felt reborn as a fully functional human! My heart was pumping, creative juices flowing, brain whipping up ideas I couldn’t wait to share in my blog…
A familiar scent hung in the frigid morning air, and it grew stronger as I traced the usual path from my neighborhood to the state park. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, and it took a while to ascertain that no, my coat hadn’t fallen into a dumpster full of trash juice; there were tractors out fertilizing the fields. But it worked the old magic that smells always do, shooting through my nasal passages straight into my memory bank and time-machining me back to childhood on my grandparents’ farm.
Manure never bothered me anyway. 😉 And my Midwestern blood feels right at home in the cold. Just as I recall bundling up to seek adventure in the frozen Wisconsin woods, dragging my sled on a search for the slightest elevation or white-knuckling rocket-speed snowmobile rides with my dad, I hit the trails of Southeastern PA for daily 4- or 5-mile nature walks, come teen temps or bitter windchills. What was true in ’88 remains so in ’25: Being outside keeps me sane.
Well, sort of.
This winter season, traditionally a minefield of mental health triggers stretching out from January all the way into April, has been fertile ground for my anxiety in the early weeks of this new year. A Thanksgiving back injury, followed by a respiratory bug that hit right after Christmas, has forced me to slow down, pull back and sit still longer than any anxious person would ever voluntarily choose. Particularly an anxious person who’s sober, possesses a social conscience, and is responsible for helping others with their mental health.
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.
Jen Wielgus Journalism 