I can list three major times in my life when I've been rendered audience to the happenings around me. The first time was when my family and I moved to Ireland. I was young and naive in a very complex land. I never really knew where I was, what people around me really meant by their words and gestures, why my family struggled so much, and what I even wanted from the journey. I spent my days exploring, with my mom or alone, just seeing. I didn't handle this time well; I tried too hard to make it what I thought it should be, and in the end we returned to the United States more self-aware than ever before.
Then there was my study abroad in India. I signed the dotted line to a contract with the unknown and never looked back. I wanted to be shown a new dimension of the world, an audience to a Shakespearean reality. It worked. Yet, again I committed that constant error that haunts all of my undertakings: the error of trying to smash every one of my life's lemons into lime-ade. Rather than let Ireland and India grace me with their lessons, sitting on the boat as it sailed down the river, I took up a paddle and tried to go upstream. I tried to control the situation as best I could, subsequently suffering the consequences of missed expectations for years to come (read: I became a total control freak and landed in treatment. C'est la vie).
The third and final time (to date) that I've become a 5-year old on the first day of life's Kindergarten started last Thursday night. I'm positive that I will wake up to a new dawn of lessons from this experience for years to come.
On Thursday night I threw a "Totally Rad Females Idea Party." It was TOTALLY RAD. The most TOTALLY RAD part was when all the incredible women that I invited rallied together to explain to my grandmother what the term TOTALLY RAD meant. I invited as many impressive women as I could, including Heather*, a friend from treatment from a city on the East Coast. Obviously, treatment is an experience of immense bonding, and I really felt like I knew her. In fact, I do believe I know her; what I didn't know was the depths of her diseases: alcoholism and anorexia/ bulimia. At the party Heather told me that she was allowed a glass of wine. She got drunk but it was okay, because all of the other women were letting their guards down too and she just kind of blended in. Heather and I had an awesome Friday planned, but she started acting weird when I called in the morning. When I arrived at 10:30, her teeth, face, and shirt were stained with red wine. I called her mother and eventually convinced her to spending a sober day with me. It was my first day off in 3 weeks and I wanted to enjoy it with my best friend. That evening I left her at the loft for a couple of hours. When I returned, she was wasted.
That was when things started to get real. Heather was intoxicated on wine or hand sanitizer and Listerine until her mother finally came to pick her up on Tuesday. The whole experience has been utterly surreal. Watching someone self-destruct is like standing in an invincible protective bubble while a Mach-5 tornado swirls around you. What I'm most thankful for is the fact that the Totally Rad Females Idea Party the night before had endowed me with an invigorated sense of self, key to weathering this storm. Once I became cognizant that the beast was not Heather and that her demons were much larger than the situation, I was able to act moment-to-moment and garner the support I needed to ensure that she did not die on my watch. I called in the troops (my mother) and moved her out of my grandparent's loft and into a hotel (word to the wise: don't let an alcoholic drink red wine in a modern white loft. Word to alcoholics: if you're trying to hide your drinking, don't drink red wine).
Heather swore she'd stay sober enough to catch her flight home, then ordered two bottles of wine as soon as we'd left the room. Heather tried to lock us out of her room, so we had to have the hotel remove the lock. Heather ran the bathtub and passed out naked; luckily, my mom came to check up on her just in time. Heather threw up all over the hotel room and slept in it. Heather awoke before the liquor stores opened and was cut off by the hotel bar, so she bought Listerine and hand sanitizer and mixed it with juice for a new type of cocktail. I don't think that one will hit mixology menus any time soon.
And, somehow, I was working 10-hour days, cleaning the loft and house-sitting, and trying to maintain my new job while thinking incessantly about the thing that used to be my friend. I didn't try to understand. I didn't cry. I didn't smile. I just watched and reacted in as stoic a manner as possible.
Truth be told, this has been a Godsend. I have never found prayer so naturally, hearing my mind utter hopes and thanks without willing it to. As I mentioned in my last blog, this new job has tried my path to recovery, but Heather's disorder provided the slap in the face that I needed. I've been so self-absorbed these past few weeks that I disconnected from all that was real in the world. Heather brought reality crashing back to me. Heather also reminded me how invaluable my family is, how lucky I am to have a support system like them, and how important it is to be honest with myself and those around me.
What emotions I've experience (some anger, some hatred, a lot of gratitude) have been secondary to that primary emotion of awe. It was like learning about sex for the first time: I had NO IDEA that this was even a possibility. Learning what it means to be an alcoholic has altered my world-view in so many ways; I can no longer laugh at the drunks on the street because I wonder if my friend might one day join their ranks. I know that my friend will die if she stays in her disorders. I know that I will, if not physically then physiologically, if I live in mine.
Right now, I am proud of one thing: I did not squish lemons into lime-ade this time. I didn't even have to tell myself not to, actually. Evidently, I have internalized that seminal lesson to let life run it's course and use my natural instincts to operate within it. I didn't try to control the situation and didn't form silly expectations about it. I dropped into cruise control, embracing whatever tools God blessed me with (internally and externally) and can now reflect and learn.
Nothing of everything makes no sense. Thank the Lord.
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