There are a lot of infomercials on in the night. Every channel it seems. I’ll be up in the night with Elsie, either pacing the floors to lull her to sleep or nursing her in a sleepy haze. And someone is always trying to sell me something if I turn the TV on. When I was up nursing Miles I remember watching Little House on the Prairie a lot. I think there were marathons every night. With Asher I remember watching televangelists a lot. I don’t even like televangelism…at all, but there I would be, zoned out and strangely fascinated. Now, when I’m up with Elsie, I do more reading on my phone than TV-spacing. I read blog posts mostly, and a reflection of the day for we recovering alcoholics. It’s a good start to the day-night. Sidenote: I’m going to just go ahead and point out that I tried to discreetly erase […]
My Dad asked about postpartum depression yesterday. He asked when it usually sets in. I couldn’t clear my head to answer the question because I don’t sleep enough to have normal conversations. I don’t know exactly what I said, but what I meant was something like, “as soon as the baby comes out…or anytime after that. Or even while you’re still pregnant.” I don’t know if it’s happening to me. Again. Maybe it is. It’s hard to tell without sleeping much at all. What I do know is that this is hard and that I cry a lot. As much as I don’t want to cry, as much as I just want to constantly feel joy, that’s not my reality. Sometimes I cry because I sing to Elsie when she’s crying and I just can’t hold it back. I’m a horrible singer and I really really mean the words… There you go with […]
Lately, every day starts very early in the backyard. I sit on a yellow patio chair and I read and then a little later, I write. I sip coffee (yes, I have one cup of coffee while pregnant) and later Ryan joins me with the newspaper and I’m not even kidding you, there is a hummingbird right over there just now; a few feet from me, no lie. It is sticking its nectar syringe in tiny pink flowers with tiny wings batting in front of a red throat. I’m trying not to move. Maybe if I sit still long enough this beautiful moment won’t pass. Oh. There it went. Bye Bye Birdie. I think the same thing about my motherhood life right now–maybe if I sit still long enough, this moment of it will stay just as it is because it’s so good. Of course, that would mean staying pregnant forever and I’m not up […]
It was pretty ironic that on a day when I really needed a mental health break, I got an email saying that The Extraordinary Ordinary has been nominated on Circle of Moms for the Top 25 Mental Wellness Blogs Written By Moms. I’ll admit, I chuckled. I said something to myself about my own current mental health and I chuckled. Don’t get me wrong, it’s truly an honor to be nominated…I’m just being honest. I mean, after all, I did leave Ellie a message yesterday that said that I was sitting on the couch eating marshmallows and had absolutely no desire to move. Then I asked her voicemail, Is that so bad? I was simply practicing self-care, of course. Having a rest. And some sugar. My boys and I have had a solo week and I’m really pregnant, what can I say? (I am always thinking of single parents when Ryan is gone […]
It’s been so long since we could open the windows and leave them that way. It’s been so long with no clear sounds from outside. No birds. No breeze. This stagnant air is suffocating. This Minnesota winter is long and relentless. I want new air in my home, tinged with warmth…oh, how I want it. I want it so much it hurts. I want to go outside without a coat and walk through the trees and put my fingers to new leaves and feel that little prickle of nature’s energy flowing up my arm, making my eyes wider and brighter. I want to feel better. It’s so hard to feel better without spring, without the new air, the new grass, the new leaves. I suppose the human spirit was made to overcome winter. So, either we do or we don’t. Maybe it’s a choice. So I will stare the stagnant air in the […]
Sometimes I have these epiphany moments that aren’t even really epiphanies but I don’t know what to call them. Then later, when I try to tell someone or think through my “aha moment” again, it just falls flat and I’m all, well that’s really nothing new. But sometimes the epiphanies that are set on repeat, the ones that come over and over again because I have to learn them over and over again? The ones that seem so simple and plain a little while later?They’re like an old hymn or a favorite movie I’ve seen a hundred times, the way that parts just grab a hold of me and feel new. Maybe because I forget so easily, but my heart remembers and so it sends a ping! to my head. Yesterday I was thinking about how strange it is that I knew anything at all Before (Before motherhood or marriage or sobriety), but […]
I’ll feel a little bump or rumble or slipping and sliding, something low on my belly and then I’ll reach there and wonder, was that you? who are you? maybe it was the buffalo wings… but I think maybe it was you. Before long you’ll be unmistakable. You’ll thud and thunder, roll and push. And I’ll know it’s you and I’ll start to know some things about you, just by the ways that you move in me. ::::: I can say that about me too, one year later.I’ll ask myself, was that you? who are you? Because all these months I’ve only been just a start, just a small thud, slipping and sliding, finding my way to growing my heart and mind and discovering what they were made to know and be.Not just being a bundle of a thousand mysterious things that are only there for the trying to be somebody else. Before […]
I walk with my Dad, around the track, lap one, lap two, lap three…but we don’t keep track. We get lapped by the runners and we lap the slow-walkers. One of the slow-walkers says, Good morning! like it’s the first time we’ve passed him, every time. And then sometimes he breaks into a run, his bent back and knobby knees pushing forward in short bursts, like he just can’t help himself. Like he’s racing and trying to win in the last seconds. I want to be like him. I want to be content going my own pace, surrendering to what passes me by and what I leave behind. I want to burst forth, breaking into a run every once and a while, when I have the energy, only when I can. It has taken me until age 35 to even begin to understand when to walk–when to wait and see and feel, and […]
So there I was on the TV. That was surreal. It was all a blur and then it was done and I whispered, I hope it helps. I didn’t know if it would…I’m just me, it’s just a few moments in time, but I hoped. Even if it was just one person, sitting on the other side of the screen, ready to see themselves in my story and feel less alone, I wanted something new for them. I wanted the mom or dad out there who feels stuck and alone to know that I was living it too and I didn’t believe in living in any kind of new way and today, I’m okay. I mean, I’ll always be a work in progress and this is in no way easy, but I’m okay, I’m better than okay. I am somehow living something new. I wanted that person to know that they can do […]
Miles had a paintbrush but no paint, and he painted anyway. He moved that little hand back and forth and back and forth, imagining blue for his playhouse. He was the only one that knew exactly how it was turning out. He had the whole big picture up in his adorable noggin. He always does. He sees it all, that boy of mine. He was working very hard. I watched him while his brother watched him and it was such a perfect fall day and I can’t believe they’re mine. There are things a mom just can’t describe. These feelings we have for them, they are just too personally rich, too much at the center of us to be pulled out. Maybe that’s good. We honor the intimacy of family that way, even while we touch on universal truths and nod our heads in recognition. I hope one day my boys read my […]
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself. – MontaigneHer teenage son was trying to pour her booze down the kitchen sink’s drain. She was drunk and desperate and she wrapped her arms around him to pull him away, to save herself from having none. They both fell to the floor, wrestling and tugging and pushing and pulling. He was stealing from her and she was stealing from him. She had carried him and brought him to life and now she felt like she was killing him with herself. The arms that once held the soft weight of his infant body, the hands that gently ran over his newborn skin, had turned on her. She was broken and he was breaking and then she got help. She is sober one and a half years and he is still angry. He sees the monster more than he sees the miracle. Sometimes […]
I am pushing a cart, rushing from aisle to aisle getting milk and nutella and even juice boxes for a fun surprise when I get home. I see him rounding the corner in the frozen food section and my heart lifts. I join him, pulling off to the side with a hearty, Hi you! Hey stranger, how ya been? I’m doing well, how are you? Good. Good. I might get my license back this month. Alright, that’s great! It would be a long winter without one. Well, I do make it to the casino sometimes because there’s a bus. I figure it’s the least I can do. I mean, we stole their land and their buffalo, so now I give them my money. He smiles wider and his eyes do that bright and twinkly thing. A thing they didn’t do when I first met him, the first night he joined my chemical dependency […]
I did some writing for a while in my favorite coffee shop today, but with my boys out of town for a couple of days, I felt the pull back to the quiet house. I looked around and knew there was too much mess and dirty for a clear head, so I cleaned for a while and then I played Super Mario Bros and then cleaned some more. My head is clear now. And so is the counter top and even the under of the couch. My friend came over and we sat on the patio and talked about things that matter and when I look at her I see this beautiful person that reflects me and I feel better about who I am. We are both so broken and so fixed. I made her late for dinner because of stories. Then I got in the car and drove to the grocery store. […]
The red wine is for the skillet, for cooking, for mushrooms, for steak. It is not for me. It is not for me. I am standing and pretending I’m unaffected, handing out bread next to the skillet and its chef, downwind of the smell of the wine. To the people who curve in a line like ants, coming for food, I repeat, bread? bread? bread? would you like some bread? bread? bread? And I’m thinking, wine wine wine, even while I try to focus on other things, like the serving gloves I’m wearing, my hands sticky and hot, and the faces smiling and thanking me. For the bread. wine wine wine… Of course there is irony here. The bread and the wine, this doesn’t escape me. This thought reminds me to beg for serenity. This thought, of bread and wine together, not alone. So I say the prayer and kick at the dirt […]
I was thinking about how many things I bring up in this space, never to revisit them again (ahem, thoughts of homeschooling? Wanting another baby? Other stuff I can’t think of right now?) And then I thought about how writing about recovery and sobriety and addiction has sort of taken over my blog. So that means that the tone is often…heavy, man. Then I thought, I hardly ever update on Asher’s health anymore and I rarely do “From the Mouth of Miles” posts these days. The thing is, it all happened naturally. Asher is doing really well, and when Miles talks about things that I want to share with the world, I censor myself a bit more because I don’t want him to look back on these pages and wonder why I made every stinking little thing public knowledge, you know?There’s a huge difference in life these days. When I compare last year […]
I read something last night. It was written by a woman who struggled with alcoholism like I do and it said that when she drank to enjoy it, she couldn’t control her drinking, and when she tried to control her drinking, to drink less, she didn’t enjoy it at all. Seems kind of obvious that this would be the case for an alcoholic, but it takes most of us a really long time to recognize this reality. I thought about all the times in my life that I could, for one reason or another, only have a couple of drinks at a time. Maybe it was in the presence of non-drinking people, or we were about to go to a movie, or any number of things. And I realized how true it was, that I would get so uncomfortable with only a couple of drinks. I didn’t see the point in that at […]
It’s been nearly five months since we moved. Five months. This has been the very most surreal five months of my life, I’m pretty sure. I stopped drinking not long after we came here so everything was literally and figuratively new for me, for us. Today, when Ryan finished building a fence for our backyard, I thought about it all, again. The fence means that our boys can run in and out without so much worry and checking. And it also meant so many other analogous things, and I really liked that it also means that our dog can finally be free of this… In our previous fenced backyard, our Tia Maria dog had free reign within the parameters of the fence. She was just fine with that. It was as if she knew the fence was there to protect her, to keep her home. Every once and a while she would get […]
I am on a flight where you choose your own seat and this is new to me. At the same time that this empowers me, it also makes me feel like the unpopular kid in the lunch room, searching frantically for one of the last spaces and a welcoming face. Much like the last four and a half months of sobriety, I think, because I always think in analogies. I can’t help it. I spot the middle seat in the exit row and ask the Aisle Man if it’s taken. He kindly says it’s yours and I slide in and stretch my legs and start to realize he’s been drinking. He makes jokes that aren’t funny, loudly, trying to entertain the whole plane. Some people chuckle softly, a courtesy laugh. Others shift uncomfortably in their seats, trying to ignore his volume and obvious drunkenness. He orders a drink and then another on a […]
I am currently eating a bagel just as fast as I can. Dear Digestive System,please don’t be mad, I’m in a hurry.Love,Overwhelmed I leave for Utah in just 2 days. There I will be attending the Casual Blogger Conference and also doing a little speaking. Today I am kidless and working hard at preparing for the speaking and whitening my teeth. Because, you know, people might think my teeth are yellow while I’m waxing philosophical about blogging in front of them. Or something. I’ve printed out my itinerary and the conference agenda and tickets for this and tickets for that and apparently this is really happening. I shall now sit back and tell myself (burp) that everything is going to be just fine. Yesterday I went to get loads of groceries in an effort to continue my job as wife and mother while I’m away. I was starting to feel the stress of […]
The last time I drove byit hurtto think back on her,on menot so long agobut so long ago I came that way againturning my eyes to the laketo see the changesthe new housesthe remodelsthe spaces wherecabins once stood In came a hundredmemoriesof a twenty-somethingparty girlwho lived on the great wide andgreen lake What would she ask me?I thoughtWhat would she want to knowabout who she would become,who she would be becoming? You’ll be okayI’d tell her,then. now.but you are taking a terriblylong wayto okay.It’s starting nowand you knowbut you don’t know You will have a new lifewhile you’re still both youand a wife and a momand you will feel like bothand carry too muchof the now with youthen The pit of your stomachmay never forget thisversion of yourself,brokenby yourself,and not yourselfby he and themand her and him But your heartwill start to heallong from now,the nowon the lake,and you will seesomehowin the blue […]
UPDATE: I fixed it-it’s full length now!Color me proud. Except now I’m not that proud becauseWOW, wait until you get to the end and I do a random and disturbing impression.Seriously. WHAT is wrong with me? I really can’t believe I did this. I’m so not a vlogger.You can tell by the horrible lighting and all the fidgeting.I must really love you.Here goes…nothin‘… Thank you from Heather King on Vimeo. I know. I know. That thing at the end. I don’t know…And what? You callin‘ me a sappy sapperton?Well…yeah.Word. The Maggie I speak of is Maggie Dammit, of course. Just sayin‘. And the post I speak of is here, at Missy’s place. The End. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
A fellow Minnesota blogger, Missy the Marketing Mama, is doing a health and wellness series on her blog with all kinds of information on varying topics. Today’s topic is motherhood and addiction, and when Missy asked me to share my story, I was happy to do it and I’ll tell you why in a sec. If you’ve wondered at all about what my drinking was like (as in, the details) and what happened to get me to stop, I’m over at Missy’s place today sharing the specifics of my story. Please know that I agreed to do this because I think Missy is doing an amazing thing with this educational series, not because I want you to sit riveted in front of my sad addiction story. Actually, I don’t. I hesitated before saying yes for that very reason. I don’t want this to be about me. I wanted to do this because it’s […]
I had to take deep breaths and put my head down, waiting for it to pass. I could feel it coming, the panic. The need. I thought about how I need to be stronger to handle this. I can’t do this, I thought. Who am I doing this for? I think I’d be drinking if I wasn’t worried about what people think. Ugh that’s awful, I thought of me. You’re so selfish, I said to me. You would drink even though you have these two boys who are being so good to you and this husband who patiently understands you. Really? Who are you doing this for if not for them and you and God? And you’re not. You’re doing this because you said you would and you don’t even want this. In that moment I hated me. And I put my head down and I was gasping for air and I just […]
I finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller on Friday. Then on Saturday I went to pick up his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. As Anne Lamott says, “I love Donald Miller. He’s a man after my own heart.” I’m going to have to paraphrase a line from Blue Like Jazz because I’ve already given my copy of the book to a friend. There is no more powerful drug than the addiction to self. (Sorry, Don. I probably butchered that. That line I’m remembering was probably more poetic and profound and probably hilarious, because that’s just you.) Anyway. Of course I thought of this line on Saturday when there I was, with myself taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror for myself’s profile pictures on the world wide web. Ouch. The thing is, I wasn’t taking those pictures because I think I’m hot. Actually, it’s more that I […]
The next morning I woke up to a small finger tap-tap-tapping my arm.Mommy, he said, Is it Mommy and Miles Day again? No sweetie, it’s our whole family’s day today, but that sure was fun, wasn’t it? Puppy dog eyes. And it was. It was so good. We boarded a bus in the morning and bounced our way to St. Paul for a day at the Children’s Museum with other families from Miles’ preschool. We even got to see Uncle K for a while. When Miles ran to hug him I thought, I haven’t seen him that excited in a really long time. He misses living by Uncle K. We explored inside the museum…always really quickly, from thing to thing to thing. I tried hard to fight the Mommy Fears, the ones that rear their ugly head and make me think of injuries and kidnapping. Seriously. Motherhood is hard on a girl’s brain, […]
“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand-in-hand.”{Emily Kimbrough} Motherhood has shown me how little I know about much of anything. It started right away. I thought I would know exactly what to do {pffft}, but I second-guessed everything. So much of the time, this unknowledge loomed over me, past and present and future. I knew instantly that I desperately wanted control of everything and I had control of nothing. It was terrifying. To fiercely want to protect while feeling so helpless. Sometimes it feels like all I’ve done since we had our boys is stand in one place trying to figure things out. Thinking about how to do right by them or fix this or that while all the clashing thoughts bounce around my head and heart. Most often, by the time I work through the mess and come up the best possible response, […]
A person in love with wine like me asked how I’m doing this,this not drinking,HOW? How did you break up with her? How do you hit 3 o’clock in your day and not have 5 o’clock to look forward to?HOW? The truth is, most of the timeI have no idea.Yes, I talk about a new calmpeacesurrenderbeing present, and that’s all true. But that peace and calm comes without getting to take the edge offand that is hard work, yes.My life, like anyone’s lifeis filled with angst and questionsand hurt andyesterday was filled withpoop and barfand whiningand disappointmentsand sadnessand snotty nosesand we need groceriesand there’s always someone climbing on me. But I don’t know. I guess sobriety teaches you that you have no other choice. I guess it’s like anything else you have to do. You just do it. You simply don’t go to the liquor store. When thoughts, when wine knocks on the […]
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” –Cesare Pavese I had some time alone at home and was spending it catching up. I hurried through Miles’ room with an empty laundry basket bumping my leg as I walked. I bent to throw the dirty clothes from the floor to the basket and was hit with his smell like a bump to the head. It stunned me with its goodness and I was surprised to miss him even though he’d just left. I was there with his smell, one that’s all boy and just this boy, my boy, all heavy with earth and fresh air and his hair. Oh, that hair that grows to a thick and careless mop and then transforms to a short faux hawk per his request because it looks cool, he says. Either way is fine with me, I think, as long as it keeps its smell. And then […]
I was thinking about everything, the fact that I found myself in the vice grip of alcoholism, and the fact that quitting is good and hard at the same time. I was thinking about remorse and regret and redemption. It is all so big. And then I just set it down. All the thinking, like a stone I’d been lugging around. kerplunk. There is no figuring it all out in one day, I said to me. So I played myself a song and I sat with it. Just sat with it. The next thing I knew my arms were above my head and I was dancing a bad 80’s dance right here all by myself, stomping and even spinning. I shook it and I sang louder and louder and I didn’t care about anything. It wasn’t until the song was done that I thought even one insecure thought like, This must look […]
At a time when my life isless about mebut more about meblogging can be confusing. The egobad selfish The healinggood selfish The bloggingbothif I’m not careful. For now I think I’m doing alright.I’m not sitting here thinking that people who read my blog are dying to know what I’m doinghow I amtheir world revolving around my every word. I’m not. I just love to writeand my journey into recovery is theinevitable story I have to tellnow. But not the only story. Sometimes my stories are just aboutfur and feet… I’ve been looking closely at these little feet, They are Asher’s feetand they are long with many linesjust like mine. And then down here,that’s Tia in the sun.She drives me crazybut I still love herand she photographs well, And as I look over that picture I rememberhow Tia is largely the reason I quit drinking that nightbut that’s yet another story about addiction and […]
