There is a lull, this settling in me at the same time as I float, all while striving.I don’t know how a lull that brings a settling and its opposite–this floating like transcending, can equal balance, but they do. Somehow they do. I’ve never understood math, anyway. Life is always both settling and transcending, floating while in a lull, pushing and pulling, sad and good. I don’t know what to make of it, this freedom in the balanced place between, the place where I stand, in the middle, believing the striving and the pain and the hope and joy are all acceptable at the same time. Today I’ll have the literal sense of floating, up there in a seat in the clouds with my nervous butterflies of insecurity and hope. And while I fly toward a new adventure, I will feel the pull down and back, to home. To my two small boys […]
Modern June Cleaver, no? We’ve been busy with birthday parties over here, one last night for my mom, as she turned 60 (and holding, as she likes to say) and one for our boys, because their birthdays are just two weeks apart. I’ve got some great photos for sharing here another day. Tonight I’m just too exhausted for the uploading. In the past I handled the stress of having company, lots of company, and trying so hard to keep everything impossibly perfect, by drinking. Sometimes I’d drink sneakily, and sometimes I’d drink right after the sober company left, to cope with my insecurity and need to people please. Without that option, I’m learning not only new ways of coping, but to accept and relax. To expect less of myself and simply live the moments, believing it’s all good enough simply because my intentions are good, even if there’s nothing close to perfect.I cleaned, […]
We sat at the parade and my friend said, “Yes, you’ve lived a lot of lives.” And I answered, with a lump in my throat, “Oh yes, I have.” ~~~~~ I grew up in a town where the 4th of July is a really big deal. If it falls on a weekend, it’s an especially long party complete with red and white and blue and a whole lot of people, and even more alcohol consumption than on the average summer weekend in Midwestern Minnesota. It took me until the 3rd to realize that this year would be different. In the years before marriage and children, I would go to the parade, hang out on the lake, and drink, and then go to the bar and drink some more. After meeting Ryan and having our kiddos, I would spend the day with my family and then always be sure to have plans with friends, […]
I need willpower. I’m hungry and thirsty and looking for a place to sleep. I know what I need. I can rise up in the morning and tell myself, today I will do the right things, and then I believe I will reap the rewards of self-discipline and self-control. My intentions are so good that I believe I’ll do it all (and more) and then maybe I’ll feel more peaceful. As if everything works like checks and balances and tit for tat and punishment and reward. Do ‘A’ – Get ‘B’ I need to believe in grace because I can’t believe A gets B because so often I get a really good B without finishing my A, without following through or doing my good-intended right thing. Grace isn’t fair in the best possible way. Grace does not fit in a box, but it remains in all things even though it blows my mind […]
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 […]
(Grandma, I’m about to make no sense to you. So please don’t feel bad if you don’t get what I’m talking about. I love you!)~~~~~ “Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside-down, now I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I’ll tell you how I became The Prince….” Oh wait…I love that song, but it’s just (sadly) not my story… Actually, this is a story all about how The Serenity Suite at BlogHer ’10 came to be. It’s actually more exciting than “shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school…”Maggie and I were talking about BlogHer ’10 on the phone one night right after we quit drinking, “when a couple of guys who were up to no good, started makin’ trouble in my neighborhood….”Or wait….okay, um…we started talking about how Maggie is speaking at the conference this year and then I was being […]
The roads are the kind that dip and swirl, pulling your stomach with them. My iPod was on shuffle and the songs matched this experience and I knew that was grace. I was keenly aware of grace. I listened to an entire audiobook about grace on my seven hour drive, and I thought, it’s everywhere I look. I can see it. This is what I mean by extraordinary. It was in the stacked green trees on the hills and on the cows in the fields, and my heart started revving up when I looked at the GPS and saw I was only a mile away. I knew I was about to see one of my life’s most treasured grace faces, smiling at me in a deeply rooted recognition of soul. I’m not making it up when I say that the sun peeked through the clouds right in that moment, and then disappeared for […]
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 […]
I’m a big fan of owls. The other day, my friend gave me a big fat owl to sit outside my front door. He greets people.(He’s not a real live owl, he’s a decorative one.) I would have taken a picture of him to show you, but it’s pouring outside right now, so he’s busy. I don’t know what I mean by that.Owls can turn their heads all the way around, isn’t that mind blowing?They’re like mothers. I’m also a big fan of garage sales. Yesterday we found an area rug that’s just perfect for our family room. It has orange and gray in it, and so do our family and dining rooms. So it matches.But my socks don’t.I’m not a fan of matching clothing. Ryan is not a fan of germs and so he’s a bit concerned that something horrible is lurking in this garage sale rug. He just told the boys, […]
You know that rumbly sound of slurping the last of your drink through a straw?I can’t decide if I love or hate that sound.Maybe I should decide to like it because it’s a satisfying sound of finishing, being sure to get every last drop of something tasty. And maybe I should hate it because it’s a belchy kind of irritating satisfying sound. I feel this way about sobriety. Some days I’m absolutely in love with its satisfaction, and other days (ahem, yesterday) I hate the itchy irritation of it. When I was drinking I was trying to take the edge off. What I’m learning is that it wasn’t working, not at all. My edges are more rounded now than when I was pouring glass after glass night after night. I’m softer and lighter and different. The thing is, sober or not, alcoholic or not, life is covered in itchy irritation. So when I’m […]
“I didn’t want to get well, because if I got well, nobody would come and save me anymore. And I didn’t want to get well, because while I could not control my happiness, I could control my misery, and I would rather have had control than live in the tension of what if.” –Donald Miller in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years(This post is brought to you by the fact that I finished this book last night and my mind is reeling with good thoughts to think. Thank you (again), Donald Miller.) _______________ We need breath-taking stories in our lives. We’re made for these stories, and too often we don’t choose them. We don’t write the book or apply for the job or propose or adopt that child or take that trip or dance because we’re scared. And then we stay just where we are and wonder why life is boring and […]
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 […]
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, […]
This really is a whole new life and it feels both wrong and right to write that. It started with the quitting of the drinking and it just snowballs and snowballs and sometimes I feel like I’m just rolling downhill with it, completely out of control. I’m gone five nights a week to learn how to get a handle on this sobriety thing and that’s good and that’s hard. It feels both wrong and right. It feels busy and overwhelming and yet I know it’s right. I’m reading little booklets given to me by my chemical dependency counselor with titles like, Intimacy and Understanding Emotions. Identity. Trust. Insecurity. When I’m reading, it all seems so obvious, but I’ve never really let the knowledge of how to live these things get from my head to my heart. It’s overwhelming too, and you guessed it, it feels both wrong and right. In her book Drinking: […]
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 […]
