The Kradle Will Not Fall...
I have been thinking today about what it is that I have done thought my entire adult life that has landed me where I am....
There is an old saying, ' if you want to know where you are, just look at where you've been.
That may sound trite but I find it deeply meaningful if not disturbing.
Well, I know where I've been and I know what I've done and I know where I am...but I was thinking about today is the why...I'm sure lots of us do...
Well, I believe I have a more succinct answer for myself than ever before- I got here through the childish belief that my family knew absolutely everything there was to know...especially mom and dad....what's not to believe, really? They were extremely successful physicians, big houses, big cars, big friends. And my sisters...Well! New York, Tokyo and Paris all the way! Harvard and Columbia and dinner parties to die for!
And then there was me...Not so pretty; not so smart; sort of a cusp like place in the sibling line up. We all talk about gratitude here. Well, I can't tell you how deeply grateful I was to be an automatic member in the club. But after awhile it became pretty clear that I was winging utmost of the time. Treading water, trying to keep up with the talk and the grades and the dreams and promise. But in realty, every time my family got together...which was pretty much ever day, they turned into the Burmuda And - I just completely disappeared.
And so all my actions, all my movements through the day to day became honestly based on simply reacting or molding to what I believed would let me stay in this exclusive club.
It wasn't an action based life it was a 'reaction' based life.
There wasn't a relationship I got into or i got out of, not a job choice, a career move , an apartment choosen, a ficken diet plan in which I somewhere, someway, somehow didn't consult my little red book of 'My Family'...
For the most part it didn't look that bad. I was in school...I could get a job....I ad relationships...I had a cat...But it was always just as I said before: always on the cusp never in the middle....so to speak.
And for the most part for me - it was awful and secretly I knew this.
I heard that little voice too that kept saying, 'what the hell are you doing?' You are completely screwing up...' of course a smooth Chardonay or a few White Russians will shut the front door on that little voice...unfortunately.
And by the time I figured out or suspected that Alcohol might be moving into the Crutch Category of coping Tools....well...why would I really care? It could let me keep running down that road forever, lazy and hazy and endlessly optimistic...Why would I look for an exit? I mean how completely contrarian, cometlely unnesecarry that would have been. I was still looking at the world through the fluffy eyes of a six year old. Shit...
But it was all a lie. A complete and deranged lie.
Even when it became clear how dysfunctional and crazy my perfect family was, I couldn't stop. How could I stop? Truth be told, I had no idea I was really supposed to stop.
And Alcohol allowed me to maintain that great fiction. Let me continue to steer my course down that dried up and pathetic river bed.
But I can't blame them. I can't stand here and accuse them of deliberately being big so I could be small. That's absurd. It's not as though they sat me down and advised, "Honey...we think it would be a really good plan for you to look at the world like a I'd year old for the rest of your natural life- where mom and dad can take care of all the monsters under the bed, every problem is solved in 30 minutes or less and you'll always have a roof ver your head and food on the table...
25 years almost - completely basing every single decision on a complete fucking lie....
I tell you, if I hadn't stopped drinking, I'd be completely shitfaced right now.
But instead I have to go pick up the girls and take them to Dance.
I love you for listening. :h
:l
I have been thinking today about what it is that I have done thought my entire adult life that has landed me where I am....
There is an old saying, ' if you want to know where you are, just look at where you've been.
That may sound trite but I find it deeply meaningful if not disturbing.
Well, I know where I've been and I know what I've done and I know where I am...but I was thinking about today is the why...I'm sure lots of us do...
Well, I believe I have a more succinct answer for myself than ever before- I got here through the childish belief that my family knew absolutely everything there was to know...especially mom and dad....what's not to believe, really? They were extremely successful physicians, big houses, big cars, big friends. And my sisters...Well! New York, Tokyo and Paris all the way! Harvard and Columbia and dinner parties to die for!
And then there was me...Not so pretty; not so smart; sort of a cusp like place in the sibling line up. We all talk about gratitude here. Well, I can't tell you how deeply grateful I was to be an automatic member in the club. But after awhile it became pretty clear that I was winging utmost of the time. Treading water, trying to keep up with the talk and the grades and the dreams and promise. But in realty, every time my family got together...which was pretty much ever day, they turned into the Burmuda And - I just completely disappeared.
And so all my actions, all my movements through the day to day became honestly based on simply reacting or molding to what I believed would let me stay in this exclusive club.
It wasn't an action based life it was a 'reaction' based life.
There wasn't a relationship I got into or i got out of, not a job choice, a career move , an apartment choosen, a ficken diet plan in which I somewhere, someway, somehow didn't consult my little red book of 'My Family'...
For the most part it didn't look that bad. I was in school...I could get a job....I ad relationships...I had a cat...But it was always just as I said before: always on the cusp never in the middle....so to speak.
And for the most part for me - it was awful and secretly I knew this.
I heard that little voice too that kept saying, 'what the hell are you doing?' You are completely screwing up...' of course a smooth Chardonay or a few White Russians will shut the front door on that little voice...unfortunately.
And by the time I figured out or suspected that Alcohol might be moving into the Crutch Category of coping Tools....well...why would I really care? It could let me keep running down that road forever, lazy and hazy and endlessly optimistic...Why would I look for an exit? I mean how completely contrarian, cometlely unnesecarry that would have been. I was still looking at the world through the fluffy eyes of a six year old. Shit...
But it was all a lie. A complete and deranged lie.
Even when it became clear how dysfunctional and crazy my perfect family was, I couldn't stop. How could I stop? Truth be told, I had no idea I was really supposed to stop.
And Alcohol allowed me to maintain that great fiction. Let me continue to steer my course down that dried up and pathetic river bed.
But I can't blame them. I can't stand here and accuse them of deliberately being big so I could be small. That's absurd. It's not as though they sat me down and advised, "Honey...we think it would be a really good plan for you to look at the world like a I'd year old for the rest of your natural life- where mom and dad can take care of all the monsters under the bed, every problem is solved in 30 minutes or less and you'll always have a roof ver your head and food on the table...
25 years almost - completely basing every single decision on a complete fucking lie....
I tell you, if I hadn't stopped drinking, I'd be completely shitfaced right now.
But instead I have to go pick up the girls and take them to Dance.
I love you for listening. :h
:l
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