Most people I hang around with are very familiar with having a busy mind. The busy mind has a tendency to appear about 15 minutes before I am trying to fall asleep. Depending on the topic of the day, I can usually shut down and drift off to sleep. Other days, I get locked onto something and start thinking....and thinking....and thinking..... Most of what I am thinking about, especially if it is keeping me awake since I love sleep, is not all that helpful. Usually, it is about something I can change or fix. Or something I don't understand but want to. 

I started watching The Good Place on Netflix about 6 months ago. It's only 4 seasons and the episodes are 22 minutes long. One of the main characters on the show is a professor of moral and ethical philosophy. He spends much of the show identifying the decisions of others, pointing out the ethical flaws of their thought processes. He is an enjoyable character. What I have appreciated about the show is that it has reminded me that I have always enjoyed philosophy. The academic advisor of this character states at one point that philosophy is an emotional discussion and argument about how the world ought to be. I remember so many of this types of conversations when I was in college. I loved that part of my college life. Having intense debates about approaches to life that made the most things "right" and it challenged my viewpoint a lot. I did take a few classes. I remember getting a paper back "A- I wish you would show up to class. I think you would be very fruitful in class discussions." I didn't like getting out of bed then, either.

When I think about the emotional argument with regard to how I think the world should be, so many things come to mind. I would love to see suffering end (think BIG, right?). I think about the factors that have led people astray in life: trauma, poverty, abuse, generational conflict, mental illness, substance use, racism, sexism, extremism, etc. This list could go on forever and ever. If I were handed everything I needed to make my vision come true for how the world ought to be, what would I change? Would it take education? Enough jobs? Destruction of the internet? More compassion and  less anger? In reality, all of these things are just thought experiments. I think that is why it is easy for me to get lost when I think about what kind of legacy I want to leave behind or how I want to engage the world today. Small gestures and tokens I have made don't ever seem like enough. I am inspired by people who were able to shrug off criticism, make bold choices, and run with a dream for the world to be a different place. 

This topic of grief really has me captured right now. The news is heart wrenching to watch - fires, environmental destruction, shootings, car-jackings, car accidents, serious illness, a pandemic running wild, severely divided politics, etc. Again, another list that can go on and on. When philosophy and grief intersect in my mind, I think about what grief can motivate people to do - good or not-so-good. Some people are called to activism, others to teach, others to raise awareness. Some people are motivated to engage in vigilantism, move hundreds of miles away from anyone and anything, become self-destructive and dive into the world of addiction, severe depression, and develop a will to die. If the world were the way I would want it to be, I would love for people to cruise right past all the negative stuff and channel the emotions into the greater good. I don't know that many people would argue you against that. That thought experiment aside, grief is everywhere and every day. One of the lines from The Good Place from the central character: “Every human is a little bit sad all the time, because you know you're gonna die, but that knowledge is what gives life meaning.” 

I have argued in at least a few of my blog postings that I am, in some ways, grateful to be an alcoholic. Don't get me wrong, being an active, using alcoholic was minimal fun. Constant physical and mental sickness, despair, self-inflicted loneliness, isolation, mood swings, on and on.....My sponsor, along with some others from AA groups, have told me that they have learned to accept what happened by understanding that it is a part of who we are. I lived that life. I know how miserable I was. I also had to work A LOT to find recovery and THAT is where I found me. I also found out what I was capable of. I know I grieved a lot when I first got sober. The number of "friends" (I use that term very loosely now) who bailed on me was staggering. It was one of my worst fears of mine getting sober and it drove one of my first relapses after treatment. I also grieved for the life I could have had if I hadn't wasted 18 years drinking. I wonder if I would be smarter? People don't drink like me and not realize some brain damage has likely occurred. Would I have found a life partner and had kids? Would I have gone to nursing school right away and not avoided it to go off and party? Thought experiments. I don't know. And I won't.

I am often reminded of the importance of being present. I try not to linger on the choices of the past, other than to know what I don't want to do going forward. I try not to get stuck in the future. The future isn't here yet, I tend to be more future-oriented these days - always thinking about the next big adventure. For the past 10 or so years, it is has been school. Nearly half of my time sober has been spend in school! It's an expensive hobby. However, the process of learning and being about to assimilate new information into my life makes me happy. It offers be more clarity and hope to figure out how I want to contribute to the world to make it a better place. I still remain on that path of figuring that out. Heck, I may never find it completely. That being said, I will never regret having tried. There will be no time to grieve a life I didn't try to lead when I wanted to. 

So, I still have a lot to say about this topic. Thank you to all of you who sent me messages about my last post. It was one of the most highly read entries I have had in the 10 years of writing. I post this blog to some recovery sites as well and responses were touching. I guess my 2022 will be to reconcile the grief I experience of the world being the way it is and celebrating that parts of the world that do exemplify how I think the world ought to be.

Hope everyone is having a good New Year so far!

J

The beginning of a new year often gives us pause to reflect on the year past and to think about the year to come. I have to admit, I am pretty happy to see 2021 exit. It was a stressful year on many fronts. Remaining mostly distanced from family and friends was a huge part of it. Not to mention, the personal losses I witnessed and experienced contributed to this year of chaos. While I like attending school, school was a challenge on many fronts. Because of the lack of flexibility with my school schedule, 2021 brought yet another job change. It was a rough start; however, as my assignments continued, I enjoyed where I landed, much to my surprise. School was a whole other kind of stress. Most days, I was left wondering if I would ever successfully complete the program. The requirements and rules changed more frequently than I ever imagined on top of test after test after test. 

As I look back on the year, I can't seem to grasp how the year is over "already," yet feeling like 2021 lasted forever. It was sort of one chaotic moment after another. And just as things started to slowly drift back to "normal" (by my standards anyway), a new, unexpected wrench would be thrown in. I felt like I had so much to write about. Every time I sat down to do so, my mind would just go blank. Writing has become my way of processing feelings. During this year, I would have thought I would have written more, given the emotional nature of the 2021 life. I couldn't help but ask myself if I "had the right" to say what I wanted to say. Here is what I mean by that.

I saw people post about experiencing unbelievable losses from suicide, substance use, complications from Covid-19, strokes, heart attacks, etc. I spent a lot of time figuring out how the people closest to these individuals were getting through these losses. I was having a hard time with these losses, and I would say in most of these situations, I was merely an outsider looking in. I wanted to offer something. I wanted to talk about the dark place of not wanting to live anymore and how the decision to end life is not a spontaneous, selfish act. I wanted to be mad at alcohol and drugs for taking another person in my life. I wanted to talk about what it is like to be sick with addiction. I wanted to talk about grief as if I had any idea how to really discuss that topic. I think in my heart of hearts, I wanted to fix something. Each of these situations evoked a pretty strong response inside of me. What was it like for those losing a sibling, best friend, or spouse? I could only imagine the process to be infinitely more painful than I was feeling, and I just didn't want the survivors to feel that way.

To get into recovery, part of the process is looking at and dealing with events of the past. Many of us who turn to substances use the drug to escape or avoid feelings/situations that are uncomfortable. What I think I learned this year is that grief makes me uncomfortable. Other people's grief makes me doubly uncomfortable. One "skill" that became quite well-honed was avoidance. I avoided everything - feelings, taking responsibility, owning up to mistakes, apologizing, admitting defeat, and so on. I haven't been able to avoid grief in recovery, but I have been playing a different card - rationalizing. Instead of sitting in the emotion and admitting to myself and others that I am hurting, I flip on my intellectual rationalization skill. "Loss is part of life." "At least, {name} isn't suffering anymore." "It's a sad situation." Using an "I" statement when I think about grief is nearly impossible. Intellectualizing or rationalizing is basically what I substitute substances with to avoid dealing with the powerful emotions that are triggered at a loss. For whatever reason, 2021 hit me like a brick. Trying to whole intellectualize and/or rationalize wasn't effective. It just didn't work. 2021 gave me the opportunity to start digging deeper into grief. I wanted to understand it. I wanted to figure out how to be with grief instead of avoiding it. 

This process is ongoing. Learning about grief opened up a lot of doors I wasn't expecting - some of those doors offered a bit of freedom from the heaviness of the topics. Other doors reminded me that despite having over 11 years of recovery, this particular topic is a heavy and awkward piece of luggage I carry around despite my desire not to. Also, I feel like I discovered that grief is a process, not the feeling. The feelings are highly individual to each person. So, no matter what I find or figure out in this exploration, the conclusion and understanding only belong to me. I can't fix anything for anyone else.

Ultimately, I feel powerless. I hate that feeling. I mean, really, who likes it, right? If recovery has taught me anything, it is that there are things in life that I will never have control over. I can get upset about that, fight against it, get resentful, or whatever. It does not change the fact that I am powerless over someone else's process of grief and loss. I can't fix it or make it better. I have to learn to be with grief even if the grief is not my own. I don't want to avoid the person because s/he is experiencing grief. To be there for the person, I have to be with grief. 

 When I look forward to 2022, I am not exactly sure what to think about. Life has changed in so many ways that I dare not expect much of anything so that I don't have to deal with the inevitable frustration or disappointment. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I really need to sit for a minute. Do nothing. Just have one (or two) jobs, no school, and have some fun. Engage in all of the normal fun stuff that either got canceled with Covid or put on a temporary delay because of school. I am honestly not sure if I can do it. I always have something cooking in the back of my mind. I can tell you with the utmost certainty, I have minimal clarity on my "end game," so to speak. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up other than I want to be in nursing. What I want to do in nursing is a whole other "I don't know." I am doing my best not to get ahead of myself and stick with the plan to slow down for a bit.

I hope to write more often now that some of the chaos in my life is finally over. As always, I appreciate all of you who take the time to read!!!

​Julie