When we are "seen"
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
Originally Posted by heartcore 
And I also am in my dream, living in this extraordinary & beautiful place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dgrMSTalZ0
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Deep in the heart of Texas
Posts: 1,736
Originally Posted by FreeOwl
...I really appreciate your heartful contributions and presence in the core of this community, Heartcore...
...But seriously, You've been an inspiration and a comfort and a comrade-in-arms around here and while you're feeling a downswing, I hope you take a little bit of comfort yourself in knowing that you're cared for and appreciated and you bring something to my life that is very positive and valued.
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who feels that way.....
...But seriously, You've been an inspiration and a comfort and a comrade-in-arms around here and while you're feeling a downswing, I hope you take a little bit of comfort yourself in knowing that you're cared for and appreciated and you bring something to my life that is very positive and valued.
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who feels that way.....
The wise, old Owl said everything I want to say to you after reading this thread. You mean so very much to me & I can't tell you how much I value your contributions to SR.
With regards to this thread, what kept coming thru for me is what you have already recognized. You said of your daughter: "It is in her 'best interest' to convince both of us that sobriety is stupid and boring and meaningless."
Heart, I would hate for her issues to begin co-mingling with yours. Let her keep her AV. You've (we've) got enough with your (our) own. There's no reason at all the 2 need EVER to meet - let alone start conspiring with one another. If you want my opinion, it sounds to me like your issues are more about where you live rather than how you're living. Just a thought...
Finally, this is probably one of the most thoughtful, thought-provoking, intellectual and kindest threads I've ever read on SR. This thread, to me, is the epitome of this community. I'm so grateful to be a part of it. Thank you for allowing me to participate on your journey.
Hugs & love always.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 169
Same same and same...
I too am in the August group, and find myself stifled by frustrating emotions which seem ready to spit on the one hand, and sadly complacent on the other.
I am a single mom with a 20's daughter, too... My daughter scrutinizes all that i do, too, and the snappish part of me is not taking kindly to any forms of advice. Our disagreement day before yesterday (and rare) was over something different, but the corners were the same. I called tonight, and thought to myself, "best, is to be honest and kind, and that's it. no one has to be right." (Worked)
I too am in a low level friendship of convenience,(and no offense meant) walking the dogs and preparing food is a common thread, I find myself thinking, "this time next year, I will be hanging out with intelligent, thoughtful, wise people, capable of debate and lively conversation."
a part of this boredom, is maybe a settling point before striking out and doing what you/I/we love, having the courage to identify, and not kill it by means of drink or safe living shuttling about. My thoughts were precisely the same, "this not drinking thing feels tons better, but it's kind of boring." But I really don't want that other "excitement" back either, it comes with so much pain.
Excellent writing, excellent thoughts...
Where is the Tolstoy thread?
I am a single mom with a 20's daughter, too... My daughter scrutinizes all that i do, too, and the snappish part of me is not taking kindly to any forms of advice. Our disagreement day before yesterday (and rare) was over something different, but the corners were the same. I called tonight, and thought to myself, "best, is to be honest and kind, and that's it. no one has to be right." (Worked)
I too am in a low level friendship of convenience,(and no offense meant) walking the dogs and preparing food is a common thread, I find myself thinking, "this time next year, I will be hanging out with intelligent, thoughtful, wise people, capable of debate and lively conversation."
a part of this boredom, is maybe a settling point before striking out and doing what you/I/we love, having the courage to identify, and not kill it by means of drink or safe living shuttling about. My thoughts were precisely the same, "this not drinking thing feels tons better, but it's kind of boring." But I really don't want that other "excitement" back either, it comes with so much pain.
Excellent writing, excellent thoughts...
Where is the Tolstoy thread?
Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Central America/Florida USA
Posts: 4,064
You've lived in Africa, you've traveled, you live in Alaska...wow! You're certainly an explorer like me! I wonder if sometimes, we don't pressure ourselves too much? Instead of searching frantically for something to ACHIEVE, maybe a simpler approach is needed? What I've started doing is simply seeking peace. Seeking serenity, not metaphorically either. Eliminating worries, one at a time. You might have a few of those to work on. Surprisingly I've found this to be a very engaging hobby. There are many adventures to be had along the way.
Sobriety is a wild ride, and the type of questions you're asking yourself are a great example of why. We never, ever asked ourselves these things when we were drunk. And if we did, we simply had a few more drinks to forget them. The fact that you are even engaging in this discussion is indeed part of sobriety's rewards. You are beginning to "do something" with your sobriety by simply posting this thread and wondering these things aloud.
Sobriety is a wild ride, and the type of questions you're asking yourself are a great example of why. We never, ever asked ourselves these things when we were drunk. And if we did, we simply had a few more drinks to forget them. The fact that you are even engaging in this discussion is indeed part of sobriety's rewards. You are beginning to "do something" with your sobriety by simply posting this thread and wondering these things aloud.
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Location: canada
Posts: 7,242
heartcore,
yes, the seeming fact you were okay until your kid made her pronouncements on your life...and the concept of the "grand" life...those struck me, too.
(i have kids who occasionally make pronouncements on my life, too)
i wonder if some of the reason what she said hit you like a brick is because it is so generally valued/highly approved of in general society? a life full of dynamism, activities, socially "out there", creativity, networking....
and that fed into the things that you do miss out on that you like to do; museums, performances et cetera?
i don't want a "grand" life. i don't need one. but then, i consider the idea of "grand" to be externally driven. what i personally need, what makes my life "grand", is to be of use. which goes to "meaningful" for me.
my dreams are small. to get better at not judging quickly. to be kinder. less criticizing. and to truly "be" like that instead of just acting like i am.
but my post is all over the place and mostly responding to your OP whereas it looks like you've moved on a bit from there....
yes, the seeming fact you were okay until your kid made her pronouncements on your life...and the concept of the "grand" life...those struck me, too.
(i have kids who occasionally make pronouncements on my life, too)
i wonder if some of the reason what she said hit you like a brick is because it is so generally valued/highly approved of in general society? a life full of dynamism, activities, socially "out there", creativity, networking....
and that fed into the things that you do miss out on that you like to do; museums, performances et cetera?
i don't want a "grand" life. i don't need one. but then, i consider the idea of "grand" to be externally driven. what i personally need, what makes my life "grand", is to be of use. which goes to "meaningful" for me.
my dreams are small. to get better at not judging quickly. to be kinder. less criticizing. and to truly "be" like that instead of just acting like i am.
but my post is all over the place and mostly responding to your OP whereas it looks like you've moved on a bit from there....
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: New Orleans, LA
Posts: 985
Good morning beloveds,
Thank you so much for all the input. I feel full and sated with your friendship and wisdom this morning.
What I recognize after letting it sift...
I have always been deeply impacted by the "pronouncements" of my children. I am sensitive to their opinions - partially because I love them and value their observations and partially because they are the two people who have known me longest in the world. I have a very small and scattered original family, no siblings. I live in a "new" place, far far from long-time friends. My adult children, who both live in the lower 48, thus become my historic touch-stones. They are my shared memory. My daughter's memory of "who I was" vs. her observation of "who I am now" in relation to that were the impetus for the original post.
Because I've been inside my quiet sobriety journey, it has been a slow, winding, subtle change. For my daughter, she is trying to identify and "sort" who I am right now. Diplomacy has never been her greatest strength. As she "sorted" out loud, it triggered my own insecurities about what aspects of myself I have released or put on hold.
Part of what it comes down to is that for every dream or intention we undertake, there is a concurrent and necessary loss.
If I love this person intimately, I am giving up the possibility of loving that one (well, unless I'm poly, but that's not me). If I choose the wild North as my place of adventure, I've shelved the tropical beach fantasy. If I devote myself to political work, I've used up time that could be spent on art.
We (or at least I) tend to think about sobriety as though we are substituting the spacious possibilities of sobriety for the dark brooding sadness of our alcoholism. But - for me, anyway - it is not a straight across time-trade. In choosing sobriety, we are remaking our personalities in myriad ways. Alcohol fueled big dreams for me and also made some very difficult things bearable. In my sobriety, I find myself very fragile and vulnerable. I don't like being either of those things. I like being swaggering and confident.
What I do know is that when someone pushes my "sensitive buttons" it means that I'm hearing something which I am already trying to push away out of my consciousness. Working it through with all of you yesterday on-line, I realize that I am very uncomfortable with this "being" phase of my life. I am typically "throwing myself in" to projects and people and plans. To just be here, learning myself, working at my job, existing in my community, without a romantic prospect or any future plans beyond where I am right now - this is what makes me so uncomfortable.
No matter what I have been doing at any given moment in my life, I am always planning what is NEXT. Right now, I have no NEXT. This is an unrecognizable me for my daughter (and she does have her own agenda, and I understand it).
I think what happened is that the initial challenges and project-ness of sobriety are wearing off; it is just becoming part of my nature and my lifestyle. There is no hurry to figure out "what is next." But dreams do propel us, they give us energy. It was 5 degrees below zero this morning when I headed out to work. It is dark, dark for most of the day. It is the cold center of winter in Alaska. I need a warm dream - whether that is a place or a project. I need to wait for it and not force it. It is okay not to be constantly inside challenge, to take a breath, to just hang in there.
There are rhythms to sobriety. Pushes and pauses.
The addict in my likes my privacy, doesn't want to be seen. Not while using, not while recovering. I don't like commentary on my life, no matter how loving the carrier. I don't like sharing or opening or being vulnerable. But that's what we do in recovery. And the only way to grow is to take risks. And the only point of sobriety (for me) is to EXPAND my energies in the world, to refine them and aim them and bravely sow them.
But I need to remember that one can live in an isolated place, alone with her dog, and still expand her energies across the world...that's what we're all doing here, really. Finding each other over great distance. Becoming the community that we've always sought. Opening, reaching, responding, asking.
Thank you so much for all the input. I feel full and sated with your friendship and wisdom this morning.
What I recognize after letting it sift...
I have always been deeply impacted by the "pronouncements" of my children. I am sensitive to their opinions - partially because I love them and value their observations and partially because they are the two people who have known me longest in the world. I have a very small and scattered original family, no siblings. I live in a "new" place, far far from long-time friends. My adult children, who both live in the lower 48, thus become my historic touch-stones. They are my shared memory. My daughter's memory of "who I was" vs. her observation of "who I am now" in relation to that were the impetus for the original post.
Because I've been inside my quiet sobriety journey, it has been a slow, winding, subtle change. For my daughter, she is trying to identify and "sort" who I am right now. Diplomacy has never been her greatest strength. As she "sorted" out loud, it triggered my own insecurities about what aspects of myself I have released or put on hold.
Part of what it comes down to is that for every dream or intention we undertake, there is a concurrent and necessary loss.
If I love this person intimately, I am giving up the possibility of loving that one (well, unless I'm poly, but that's not me). If I choose the wild North as my place of adventure, I've shelved the tropical beach fantasy. If I devote myself to political work, I've used up time that could be spent on art.
We (or at least I) tend to think about sobriety as though we are substituting the spacious possibilities of sobriety for the dark brooding sadness of our alcoholism. But - for me, anyway - it is not a straight across time-trade. In choosing sobriety, we are remaking our personalities in myriad ways. Alcohol fueled big dreams for me and also made some very difficult things bearable. In my sobriety, I find myself very fragile and vulnerable. I don't like being either of those things. I like being swaggering and confident.
What I do know is that when someone pushes my "sensitive buttons" it means that I'm hearing something which I am already trying to push away out of my consciousness. Working it through with all of you yesterday on-line, I realize that I am very uncomfortable with this "being" phase of my life. I am typically "throwing myself in" to projects and people and plans. To just be here, learning myself, working at my job, existing in my community, without a romantic prospect or any future plans beyond where I am right now - this is what makes me so uncomfortable.
No matter what I have been doing at any given moment in my life, I am always planning what is NEXT. Right now, I have no NEXT. This is an unrecognizable me for my daughter (and she does have her own agenda, and I understand it).
I think what happened is that the initial challenges and project-ness of sobriety are wearing off; it is just becoming part of my nature and my lifestyle. There is no hurry to figure out "what is next." But dreams do propel us, they give us energy. It was 5 degrees below zero this morning when I headed out to work. It is dark, dark for most of the day. It is the cold center of winter in Alaska. I need a warm dream - whether that is a place or a project. I need to wait for it and not force it. It is okay not to be constantly inside challenge, to take a breath, to just hang in there.
There are rhythms to sobriety. Pushes and pauses.
The addict in my likes my privacy, doesn't want to be seen. Not while using, not while recovering. I don't like commentary on my life, no matter how loving the carrier. I don't like sharing or opening or being vulnerable. But that's what we do in recovery. And the only way to grow is to take risks. And the only point of sobriety (for me) is to EXPAND my energies in the world, to refine them and aim them and bravely sow them.
But I need to remember that one can live in an isolated place, alone with her dog, and still expand her energies across the world...that's what we're all doing here, really. Finding each other over great distance. Becoming the community that we've always sought. Opening, reaching, responding, asking.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: East Coast USA
Posts: 120,872
You are so very wise and insightful, Heartcore.
I definitely do not 'see' you as boring or stagnant. In your posts, I see growth and energy.
There are definitely stages to our lives. This stage has as much value to who you are and are becoming as those stages who are or were 'seemingly' more exciting.
Perhaps you are exactly where you need to be now; it may be where you need to be next month or next year.
If and when you need a new environment or a new stage, you will know it and you certainly have the intelligence and ability to be able to pursue and accomplish another dream.
I definitely do not 'see' you as boring or stagnant. In your posts, I see growth and energy.
There are definitely stages to our lives. This stage has as much value to who you are and are becoming as those stages who are or were 'seemingly' more exciting.
Perhaps you are exactly where you need to be now; it may be where you need to be next month or next year.
If and when you need a new environment or a new stage, you will know it and you certainly have the intelligence and ability to be able to pursue and accomplish another dream.
Sober Soldier
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: U.S.A.
Posts: 1,911
heartcore,
Your thoughts are nothing short of fascinating and the way you communicate them is nothing short of poetic.
You seem like a very introspective and philosophical, and I must say, beautiful human being with so much to give.
Perhaps you were meant to share these thoughts with the world.
Your thoughts are nothing short of fascinating and the way you communicate them is nothing short of poetic.
You seem like a very introspective and philosophical, and I must say, beautiful human being with so much to give.
Perhaps you were meant to share these thoughts with the world.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 169
Good Evening Friend!
Thank you for sharing your beautifully written thoughts.
I too am trying to understand what quiet, alone time, without obvious achievement, means.
(is there growth? does growth always look like growth?)
While at the laundromat this morning, I realized it is a dull, boring task, best achieved on hyper-speed. I don't look people in the eye, or cozy in with the crossword, or read, to me it is purely utilitarian and meaningless. If the wash cycle is 29 minutes, I can run across the street to the flooring store and arrange to have samples sent to my business, drop stuff at Goodwill, check the children's book section, and be back to haul the clean mountain home to spread around everywhere to hang dry before ferrying my doglets to work.
I then remembered two years ago, when with my partner, it was an entirely different experience. We bantered, discussed the subtleties of washing techniques, time and temperature and his load time versus mine. It felt mundane then, too. In hindsight, it wasn't. It was perfect and patient (even sunny in the PNW) and joyful.
Laundry was a thousand times better in that memory, only I just didn't know it at the time.
Which brings me to my point...i mostly don't know when what i am doing now will really be of emotional significance turning around and looking back.
i don't have the capacity to deeply appreciate the now, now, most of the time.
Thanks for identifying the loveliness of the SR community, it really is something special, rooted in the quest for sobriety & also tickled with clever people and friends not afraid to share their feelings.
p.s. any thought with regard to spirituality in all of this? this aspect of my life is reviving in pushes and pauses (your phrase)
Hugs XXX
Thank you for sharing your beautifully written thoughts.
I too am trying to understand what quiet, alone time, without obvious achievement, means.
(is there growth? does growth always look like growth?)
While at the laundromat this morning, I realized it is a dull, boring task, best achieved on hyper-speed. I don't look people in the eye, or cozy in with the crossword, or read, to me it is purely utilitarian and meaningless. If the wash cycle is 29 minutes, I can run across the street to the flooring store and arrange to have samples sent to my business, drop stuff at Goodwill, check the children's book section, and be back to haul the clean mountain home to spread around everywhere to hang dry before ferrying my doglets to work.
I then remembered two years ago, when with my partner, it was an entirely different experience. We bantered, discussed the subtleties of washing techniques, time and temperature and his load time versus mine. It felt mundane then, too. In hindsight, it wasn't. It was perfect and patient (even sunny in the PNW) and joyful.
Laundry was a thousand times better in that memory, only I just didn't know it at the time.
Which brings me to my point...i mostly don't know when what i am doing now will really be of emotional significance turning around and looking back.
i don't have the capacity to deeply appreciate the now, now, most of the time.
Thanks for identifying the loveliness of the SR community, it really is something special, rooted in the quest for sobriety & also tickled with clever people and friends not afraid to share their feelings.
p.s. any thought with regard to spirituality in all of this? this aspect of my life is reviving in pushes and pauses (your phrase)
Hugs XXX
No pity. No remorse. No fear
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 183
When I feel this way, I remind myself of Bilbo Baggins' words from the start of the film "Fellowhip of the Ring" - "But today, of all days, it is brought home to me, it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life."
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 8,637
Originally Posted by LaVallette
When I feel this way, I remind myself of Bilbo Baggins' words from the start of the film "Fellowhip of the Ring" - "But today, of all days, it is brought home to me, it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life."
Guest
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 7,097
Originally Posted by heartcore
Right now, I have my adult daughter staying with me, and yesterday she commented that my life was incredibly boring - just work and recovery and the puppy (ok, she approves of the puppy). She's right. I'm usually content inside that, the quiet rhythm of my life, but with an outside set of eyes seeing it for its smallness.
But that is what others think. To me, my life is peaceful, serene and full of contentment. It beats the drama, trauma and upset of drinking anyday.
It doesn't matter what others think about your life. Of course, if YOU want to do other things that's great but if you are happy the way you are don't let others diminish that
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
