Morning thoughts: the value of being unavailable
I have been sober for 121 days.
Last night my wife & I started watching I May Destroy You which is fantastic storytelling, but at times, just so damn hard to watch. I cannot say I have lived the main character’s life, but I do know what it is to be a woman & a writer with a substance abuse problem. When I was actively alcoholic, my life in general & as a writer was a lot tougher. The truth is this: since I stopped drinking & entered into a 12 step program of recovery, my life has gotten infinitely better. & in this process (I swear I sometimes feel my ampersands are an act of violence against my beloved friend Jeremy — I am sorry, friend. It’s just a language phase I’m going through) I have changed. A lot.
I am less angry & when I am angry, I am in control of my anger.
I no longer operate from a “me against the world” frame of mind. That no one & no thing could ever be trusted was a defense mechanism that probably served me well in my teens & 20s, but really doesn’t serve me so well anymore. Sometimes, I must be vulnerable & trust that I will be cared for with compassion & care.
I am no longer afraid to say what I mean & mean what I say & I am less afraid of being clear about my personal boundaries. (I say “less” and not “unafraid,” because I still struggle with articulating my limitations/lines-in-the-sand, but I’m working on this.)
When people set down boundaries, when women set down boundaries people are often perplexed (men especially so), sometimes people are angry, sometimes people are hurt by women’s’ boundaries. Women are supposed to have no boundaries. From the moment a girl baby is born, she is steeped in patriarchal fallacies designed to prevent her from ever really thriving: selfless, limitless, available to all at all times . . .
One of the most difficult things I practice in sobriety (& that I May Destroy You deals with very well) is making myself, when I need to be, unavailable — to family needs, friends’ needs, doctor’s offices, student needs, to take space for oneself & simply be in one’s own body & life
. . . this is not a thing we women are encouraged to do, & in this way, I regard my sobriety as an act of rebellion against a misogynistic world that would rather I spend my entire mortal life bleary with booze & sick than awake & well. Though many feminist men pay great lip service to a just world for both sexes, often this is neoliberal regurgitation of basic, second wave, feminist principles of which they have only the vaguest grasp (sorry, fellas — you American men need to work on the depth of your feminist history & philosophy) & at best only the vaguest of intentions of ever seeing these principles enacted in society.
So my morning thoughts are these: 1) take time — each day — to make yourself unavailable, 2) refraining from alcohol is a Feminist act in a world that wants us to be sloppy, sick, & cloudy, & 3) when at all possible, Sunday brunch with a friend who has a really good laugh, like my friend Ignacia does, is a must.
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