New Year 2022

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