Your fear, my fear, our fear: 40 days & 40 nights of AA
Full disclosure: I am not feeling stupendous today — physically, spiritually, or mentally.
I am sad today. Knee deep in grief.
No, neck deep.
Neck deep in grief, and if I’m perfectly honest
(I’ve been practicing “rigorous honesty” since before AA
so you can’t blame my frankness on alcoholism, entirely),
I am full of rage.
Anger + Fear = Rage.
For me, anyway.
And because I am not violent (I get no wicked thrill from hitting/breaking shit or exacting vengeance on individuals),
because I no longer drink away my pain,
because I cannot find a healthy place for my rage
outside of this electronic “page,” I place it here.
For readers. To be read or unread.
See, the reading or not reading of my work
is well outside my sphere of control;
what my sponsor calls my “hula hoop.”
What is in my hula hoop presently?
My body, my computer, my phone,
and Abe. Various pieces of large furniture.
Not much.
That’s all:
not much.
Remember that terrible old song (I think it was a Leslie Gore,
but I could be wrong) “Is That All There Is”?
What a bullshit, whiny song.
PJ Harvey (whom I adore) covered it many years ago
and even in her golden throat, the words were tedious and pathetic.
“Is that all there is?”
What are you talking about?
Yes, fucker, this is it.
Isn’t this enough?
Aren’t cute puppies and art and prickly pears and seas enough?
Isn’t music and literature and lavender enough?
Isn’t it enough that you are drawing breath?
My problem, in large part, is that there is never “enough.”
Never enough success.
Never enough laughter.
Never enough magic.
I am always in the success,
the laughter, the magic anticipating more.
Believing (so, so falsely) that this happiness
is merely the start of some much bigger happiness,
but it’s not.
This is the show, folks.
See, I don’t want my short-lived show (note: this is not a “cancer lady” comment — I’ll be okay — all of our lives, cancer or not, even the long ones,
are far too short) to be bobbing among the refuse:
the murders of citizens — even children — by police,
the ineptitude, the cold disregard of adults toward children,
the complications and egregious, life-threatening errors brought about by greedy individuals in healthcare (be it insurance or otherwise).
I have enough of my own problems, and I don’t want all these fucking shitty “social problems.” I don’t. I really don’t.
I want to think about language.
I want to watch films.
I want to curl up on the couch
and smoke pot and read books
with strong plots and flimsy characters.
I want tacos.
I want to earn enough $$ (ethically, compassionately)
so that my wife and I can take at least one solid vacation a year,
and if we have to travel in a pinch to, say, Chicagoland (where my family lives) we can do that without being afraid:
Afraid of what happens if I get sicker.
Afraid of what happens if Sarah was to get sick.
Afraid of our imagined “retirement” savings or lack thereof.
(I cannot speak for Sarah, but I have no realistic expectation
that I will ever be able to retire.
I will be employed until
I am returned
to the earth.)
We’re all tired. We’re all in pain. We’re all afraid.
You, me, everyone you know.
My Ibrance rolled me flat on Tuesday.
This usually happens around week 3 of an Ibrance cycle
and is fairly normal for me given what the drug is and what it does
(it’s basically diet-chemo-in-a-pill).
Fucks me up mentally to be 44
and to wake up and feel physically unable
to do what I need to do.
Fucks me up fiercely.
My eyesight is shit (will be getting new glasses soon, hopefully)
and my body makes cancer and although my brain and mouth are running fast and furious and (mostly) sharp,
the rest of me just “can’t.”
Especially when I push myself.
I pushed myself too hard on Monday: physically, emotionally, spiritually.
I pushed myself and by this I don’t mean “I simply tried my best.”
It’s bigger than that.
It means I failed to respect my own body’s boundaries and limitations, my heart’s boundaries, my intellect’s boundaries because I somehow (rather insanely) believe that my workplace will positively collapse and my students will lose all knowledge gained if I dare
take
one day
to nap.
This is my madness.
I believe I am in control of things
I am simply not in control of.
My body frightens me.
I cannot lie.
I try so hard to treat it right,
feed it well, give it rest,
but sometimes —
sometimes my crazy mind puppets
my tired body past its limitations.
And then we get a day like Tuesday:
I can’t do shit. I’m in bed. I’m sick to my stomach.
I’m depressed.
Anxious.
Tuesday night,
I went to bed early.
Wednesday morning
I was right as rain. My body and mind
needed rest. They say in AA “HALT” — meaning,
don’t let yourself get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely,
or Tired. I let myself get too angry, too hungry,
too tired. (I am seldom truly lonely.
Quite the contrary.)
Wednesday, after work, we had dinner with a new acquaintance
and then I came home and worked on classroom stuff
until I basically collapsed in bed while listening
to an episode of “Sober Cast”
(if you’re on the AA train, “Sober Cast”
is a lifeline when you can’t make a meeting).
Thursday, I felt mild-to-moderately shitty.
I am, to quote a recent SNL sketch, “Medically upset.” (Check out “Lesbian Period Piece” if you haven’t already.)
In the course of a day, I simply cannot give
ALL my energy to ALL things.
I must choose.
Will I give my energy to my students today?
Or to myself?
To my wife? Or to my boss?
To my colleagues? Or to my sister?
The decision is not always easy nor clear.
Sarah and I need our influx (however modest) of paper money.
This is how we survive.
Many times, my students have come before my actual family
(chosen and otherwise) because
1) as an educator, I have a moral and ethical responsibility to do what I feel is best for my students and
2) if we do not work, we do not make rent on The Spaceship or afford my expensive cancer drugs.
I am lucky that my “work” is something I truly love,
because I really don’t know how you, in your forties and beyond,
can stand it when you’re in a job you loathe. If I am writing about you,
I am sorry you hate your job.
I don’t think I’d be able to stand this.
But maybe I don’t even know
what I’m capable of withstanding.
In my short little life, I have withstood
a great deal. More, even, than most.
Someone recently told me,
“I’m frightened of you.” They were joking,
but I replied, “Yeah, me too.”
Sometimes, I am frightened
of myself.
Forty days sober.
I have deliberately, carefully, thoughtfully
not
had a drink (of booze — I’m well hydrated, thanks)
in forty days as of today.
I am glad of this.
Do I sometimes miss it?
Yes.
I miss the opportunity alcohol gave me to
“feel nothing” or soften the pain of that which hurt most.
When I was drunk everything “hurt less.”
At least until the alcohol wore off. (Fellow alcoholics
will know what I mean, amirite?)
I am having to learn,
in my sobriety, how to
“take life on life’s terms.”
I am not there yet.
I am far from perfect.
I make mistakes.
I am often frightened.
But I’m not drinking. I’m not doing anything to my body
that my doctors would be “concerned” about. Except —
maybe — for the “no sleep” thing. Once, my oncologist
told me that “stress” was “bad for cancer.” Oh. You
don’t say? Tell me, where is my stress-free American life,
as a stage iv cancer patient? Tell me, why do I have to work
myself to the bone for a paycheck when I am literally, actually
fighting for my life. This story is the story of countless Americans —
I just have the time and luxury to afford to tell it.
“Forty days,” I told my sponsor.
She suggested there was some significance
in the “forty days and forty nights.”
Creation of the earth? I asked her.
That was a week, she laughed.
Right. You’re right. What was 40 days and 40 nights?
And neither of us
could remember the significance,
but I do remember now. I mean,
I remember two things. From Catholic school.
I remember Jesus fasted for forty days
and forty nights. And I remember that it was 40 days
between the resurrection and the ascension.
Outside of Catholicism/Christianity,
I don’t know that there’s significance.
Google tells me this is also the name of an “erotic satire” film?
What?
I am unfamiliar with this genre.
Today was hard. Not for any one, specific reason,
but hard because I have been sober for forty days
and forty nights and now I have to feel all the pain
without being able to anesthetize it away.
Nothing can do that for me.
Not even cannabis.
I feel too much.
This is a blessing and a curse.
America isn’t really set up with
us “sensitive” types in mind,
is it?
I mean, if you have half a heart,
good fuckin luck not going batshit insane
in America.
America is not for
the tenderhearted.
At least not now.
Not yet.
I’m now going to hang my fear on that phrase —
and every wonderful and brutal implication:
Not yet
