A Full Life

On the micro level I would consider myself prone to existentialism in that my daily life is often wrought with anxiety, a struggle to reconcile the suffering of humanity – the apparent meaninglessness of such suffering and the proceeding determination that there may be no divine order – and that it is my responsibility alone to discover meaning for myself through my waking existence. To follow my very human heart. On the larger level, though, the aerial view, I might be a believer. Though prone to doubt and skepticism, the undeniable comfort of faith and believing that there is a purpose to all of this, no matter how difficult to discern or make sense of, that I am a child of God living in this earthly realm that is inevitably plagued by evil, an earthly realm that can never be made wholly good, and that the belief in the transcendent the way. Wiser people than I have stated that sometimes acting as if you believe – a leap of faith if you will – creates miracles. And I would say too, that trusting yourself despite the chatter of others and the personal moments of unbelief, creates miracles as well.

In smaller ways I have attempted to trust my shaky gut when making important decisions throughout my short time on this earth. I often had an insecure identity growing up, prone to the influence of others opinions or simply caring too much what I perceived others to think. Sometimes people were thinking no such thing at all. But other times I was told that choices I made were foolish or impulsive or strange or dangerous, and though their opinions caused me pause and nervousness, after a time of integrating internally and learning to trust myself even in the midst of paralyzing anxiety, I chose anyway.

At twenty-five I quit drinking completely, as well as got off a dependence on painkillers and other substances. I was only fourteen when I began experimenting quite heavily with drugs and alcohol, and it was certainly an activity that drifted more into self-medicating than having fun. By eighteen I knew that there was a problem, that my susceptibility to depression wasn’t being supplanted by getting black-out drunk night after night. I knew that my life would be better if I cut it out completely. I landed, like young and people do, in the realm of rehabs and sober livings and twelve step meetings, and for a very long while, that realm became the center of my life. I’d get sober for six months or so, sometimes a year, then drink again, get back into drugs, grow miserable, and decide to stop again, sitting my butt in a metal chair in a church basement to begin the sober process once more. This went on until I found myself ingesting up to thirty Norcos a day just to feel well, drinking cheap wine and expensive gin, and pondering suicide. At that time I believed all the AA rhetoric that I was a hopeless alcoholic, selfish and self-centered in the extreme, who had no other choice but to commit to a lifetime of meetings and sponsorship and have a spiritual experience. And at the time, hopeless and desperate and deeply depressed as I was, that was alright to me.

Getting and staying sober wasn’t so hard – coping with my internal garbage was the real work, as is often the case for anyone in their mid twenties just trying to muddle through. But many old friends along the way, since I started that twisted recovery journey at eighteen, thought I was overreacting, that I was weird, dramatic, and need not take it all so seriously. Perhaps a less sensitive person than I could have done so. I do believe a better path for me at eighteen to get out of the trouble I was in shouldn’t have consisted of high doses of SSRI and chain-smoking cigarettes with the rehab gang. But whatever depths of suffering could have been avoided with a more lighthearted spirit and a different approach to alcohol, being someone who doesn’t drink is by far one of my favorite choices, something that continues to impact my life in positive ways.

Some friends warned me that going to Chicago after knowing someone for less than three months to move in with him and likely marry him was far too risky. But I just completely and wholeheartedly knew, and even though I was frightened and didn’t have much of a plan, off I went. We got married and now have two children together. We are more in love today than the night we met. He’s the stable rock to my neurotic what ifs. And I have softened his midwestern stoic sensibility. I was judged my many for choosing to be a stay at home mom instead of returning to teaching or some other career. It was my choice from the beginning, and one that ended up being imperative for our family and the dynamics of my son, who has needed extra support throughout his developing years. It was my choice not to force my son to wear a mask at school or anywhere we went, despite the ongoing shame and fear-mongering of society. It was my choice to carefully discern who would evaluate him for his delays and what the diagnoses and treatment plans would be and that we would be both proactive and patient. All of this in the midst of lockdowns, morning sickness, crippling doubt and fear and days of hopelessness. Was this all meaningless? Why are we suffering? Why is this so hard? I could no longer weave a sense of meaning into my daily life, through my will alone. Fall back on the aerial view. Life is hard for everyone, here we are, act as if you believe in God. Staying single in Los Angeles would have taken less effort. Meaningfulness requires determination.

Much of learning to discern my intuition from the noise of the world came in fact from leaving the twelve-step world behind. I had had my troubles with it over the years, but I was usually committed. As Einstein stated, blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth, and when it began to feel like a loathsome burden, I wrote and I wrote, and I saw what it had become to me. After years within those rooms, I had been taught not to trust myself, that I had to rely on the opinions of others who had stopped drinking longer than I had even if we had nothing or common beyond that, that I was doomed for a quite a fall if I strayed. It was a fraudulent bully in my head that I had to get out. It created more anxiety and pressure than was necessary. I felt I had been slightly brainwashed. So I left. And nearly four years later, here I am, still deciding I’d rather not drink, free to explore religion, philosophy, and spirituality all the same, far more open. God is not so small. But it is an ideology that warns against critical thinking and questioning, implying such observation and introspection is the very reason one drinks to excess. The existentialists would have much to rebut against twelve step dogma. If we are inherently free, we are inherently responsible, and that we means we get to make our own responsible choices – to drink, not to drink, to trust that not complying with flawed ideas is not a crime or a death sentence. To imply that one suffers only because one does follow some arbitrary system is manipulative. Even the religions don’t say such a thing. We are not promised utopia or any kind of permanent freedom from negative emotion, even if we do believe in God. We can hide and shield and distract and we can take care of ourselves and hunt for the joy, but loneliness, fear, the awareness that there may be something missing is part of being human.

And believers understand that – this is a fallen world. There is something missing that is difficult to make whole. We are flawed creatures. Do I take the leap of faith? As much as I can.