If I had to pluck an adjective from the air to best describe me I would handpick “guilty.” Maybe I’d scan the skyline for supplementary modifiers such as “obligated” “overly-responsible” and perhaps “dramatic depressive” if I felt especially verbose and I had really long arms. I certainly would not choose “adventurous,” nor “spontaneous,” and never in a million reaches “carefree.” I’d watch those words float around and land on more deserving people, light and unapologetic upon their broader shoulders.

Tell me, is it a curse or a blessing to know exactly what your problem is, exactly what words in this lifetime you may never reach no matter how high you stretch? Is it better to just wander among them blissfully unaware of their collective presence, or would you rather know them and face them even if it meant constantly cowering in their shadows?

I do not leave. I do not abandon anyone emotionally, my friends steady at my side from the day we meet. I do not leave anyone physically, my hometown mere minutes from my driveway, my parents a sneeze away. I don’t wander dark streets alone at night. I don’t fly off on vacation for a week, with no one to drive my rental car or read the map or lie solid and predictably at my side in my bed. If it was up to me, I’d never leave the house at all and yes I know how unhealthy that is, I’ve seen Oprah. Part of this inertia is born of fear, but a much larger part is straight-up guilt. I just can’t do or say or think a single thing without wondering how it’s impacting you, what you think of me, the gajillion ways I’m so far from perfect. I bear an unbidden responsibility for everyone else’s feelings and it doesn’t matter how often or how sincerely you tell me it’s unnecessary. I smile as quickly as I can so that you will never feel discomfort in my presence. I smile until my cheeks hurt and no one is looking before I drop it like an armload of bricks and always, always a toe or two gets smashed.

I am fully aware of how silly the whole thing is. I get that no one else can make me feel this way, that nobody asked me to proclaim myself Keeper of the Feelings. I get that it’s all about me and no one else. I get that I set myself up for failure on a daily basis. And, yet? I don’t know how to change.

Today I looked up and stared straight into the sun and plucked “Go” from the spot where words think they’re safe from me, the pool of floating phrases I never dare directly face like “Me First” and “Who Cares What They Say” and “Don’t Look Back.” I plucked that unfamiliar word and I slipped it into my pocket and though I feel it pulsing at my thigh I’m ignoring its burn and for once I’m just going. I’m going where it’s above freezing and where the sun isn’t such a snobby bitch and where I won’t be anyone’s wife or mother or daughter or friend. I’m going where I’ve never gone before and if I weren’t as terrified and flayed-flat guilty over the whole thing then there would be no point at all, now, would there.

Would there.

See you in a week.

Since my last post, everything has changed. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed at all.

I thought the big news I’d be sharing was that Dave has lost his job. As it turns out, that was not the big news. That will be fine. Everything will be okay. Trust me on this, please, because I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

The big news, as it turns out, is that a 24-year-old member of our family was in a terrible car accident, and she is paralyzed.

Suddenly, the perceived importance of things like job loss (and good writing) fade.

(poof.)

I will not mention her name, nor her geographical location, nor any incriminating details. This post is not meant to exploit.

I will not wax poetic. There are no lessons here, no silver linings. This is not mine to make into magic, into sermon. There will be no eloquent blog post here.

There are a million things I could say, a million ways I could work out my own turmoil in a space that is mine, all mine, but there’s no way on God’s green earth I will say a word in that vein, in vain.

All I mean to do is mark time.

I know that her parents read this blog, or at least, they used to. They used to before today, when today morphed into a gruesome marker that severed what they used to know from what they know now. Today will forever mean everything to them. Someday, perhaps after they’ve relearned how to breathe and to talk and to shower and to put one foot in front of the other, themselves, they may see this post. They may even seek it out, when they come back to the real world, just to see if anyone else realizes what this day meant, as it occurred. By then they’ll understand that the worst part of this whole thing will be that the rest of the world has moved on like nothing ever happened at all. It’s gonna hurt, my GOD, it’s gonna hurt.

Because here’s the thing: The rest of the world keeps spinning. The rest of the world has no idea that anything has changed today. The cars drive on, the newscasts move on, the people, they go on. They go on, and they have no idea.

But I do. I know. And that’s all this is.

Someday, should you come back to this blog, should you seek out this date, this date that now means everything to you, you will see this post, this message. You will know that I marked time, that I slapped down my palm with a vehemence and a bitterness and an anguish I haven’t known in years, and I said, “LISTEN!”

Listen.

Today, everything changed for you. I know that. I mark it.

And so does everyone who reads this. We mark it, for you.

The day that everything changed, for you.

God help us.

Amen.

Did we ever believe marriage was a sacred thing or is that something we tell ourselves with righteous indignation while warming before easy fires stoked for us by devoted husbands?

We go to such great lengths to protect the idea of marriage. We write hate into constitutions and we spit rage into the faces of human beings and we are so sure, so very sure, that we know what it means. But the honest-to-god truth is we don’t, we never do, at least not in the beginning, and some of us just get very, very lucky or very, very good at pretending; both of these qualities lead to righteousness. Righteousness leads to erosion of the soul. I hate righteous, soulless people.

Marriage is fucking hard and when I think about it I imagine a guard tower, and I know Dave and I take turns being on watch and I know we don’t always punch even time on the clock but you can’t keep track that way or you’re doomed to lose, don’t you see? And ohhhh, God, those moments when you’re both up in there in that tower? That’s when the stars shine impossibly clear and bright and Heaven lifts her skirt and you get that glimpse of Nirvana…. but you also take an oath, swap spit and blood and pledge you’ll never give away the secrets, your loved ones have to find out for themselves or else it won’t mean a thing and it sucks because I have so much to say, so much to share, I do. Because I know things, now. One of the things I happen to know is that the grass is never greener, it honestly never is, it isn’t, why does no one believe this? Nobody thinks about marriage, they think about weddings. They think about parties and ideas and mirages, the end.

Sixteen years with a person buys you a truckload of perspective. It’s not something you can give away, no matter how hard you try. It’s not something you can use to help a brother out, to prevent the breaking of hearts, the breakup of families, the smashup of lives. It’s not something you can use to give a person hope, no matter how hard you wish you could.

Maybe I’m the wrong one. Maybe it’s so very easy for me to say, from here on the buttery-leather couch cozied up to the fire. Maybe I’ll never in a million years understand the path that led you here, and maybe I’ll never convince him that he is better than this, that it’s not too late, that someone, somewhere, will see his special kind of beauty in the same light I do, in the light you apparently don’t. Maybe I’ll never convince him that one day he’ll stoke his own fire for his own family — and who knows, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I don’t know anything.

Maybe none of us know anything at all.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since the Universe roared, pounced, scooped me up in its fat hand, shook me like a rattle, suddenly realized its mistake, and set me gently back down again (shame-faced, muttering apologies, ‘Here, are you hurt, I think you dropped your beer, sorry again.‘)

It’s been one year since my mom was scooped out herself, examined, and cleared. This afternoon she has her one-year follow-up procedure, and I am doing what I do best: worrying obsessively about what is most likely nothing at all.

I mean, even though in the end it was nothing it was still some of the worst nothingness I’ve ever felt, you know? Because really, how much of our reality is what actually happens and how much is how we feel about what happens or could happen or might happen or what? You know??

[sigh]

I am here today to distract myself. You’re stuck with me. Hi.

What should we talk about?

So my blog redesign is almost done — yesterday Pare and I had some drinks, caked on some make-up and took about 800 pictures (just your average Wednesday afternoon) for use in my new blog header and after the shock wore off we got to talking about how much we like it when bloggers relay conversations with their spouses, you know those ones? They are some of my favorite posts, partly for the glimpse into the lives of people I stalk respect, and partly because the conversations generally border on genius.

And so I said to her, I could never do that, even if I wanted to, and she laughed in agreement. And this is why.

****

Me: “Hey hon, how was your day?”

Dave: “………..”

Me: “Don’t forget I’ve got book group tonight.”

Dave: “Brett Favre.”

Me: “Have you seen Gretta’s school supply list?”

Dave: “I saw a deer on the way home but I didn’t shoot it.”

Me: “What should we do this weekend, babe?”

Dave: “Andrew grabbed my butt today — which is totally understandable.”

Me: “Have you given any thought to that birthday party we’re invited to?”

Dave: “I’m gonna go caulk a wall. Maybe a window.”

Me: “What would you like for dinner?”

Dave: “Think I could break our patio table with one chop?”

Me: “You should check out this book I’m reading, it’s so awesome.”

Dave: “Brett Favre.”

****

So you see, I can’t really do those posts, and you’re welcome. [Updated to add: This was not an *actual* conversation with said husband, it's just an example of what one would *probably* look like if I were actually paying attention and documenting it. Thank you.]

(I’m sorry I exposed you in this way hon, you know I’m usually pretty good about not doing that. But today I’m losing my shit (just a tad, nothing to worry about, stay where you are, do not pass Go, do not collect your crazy wife) and I just wanted to babble a bit. Also, I’ve been trying to work Andrew’s name into a blog post for a while now, I know how much you’ll both appreciate that. Hi Andrew. Stay away from my man. I love you.)

(Oh, and mom, I know you said not to freak out and I know you never read my blog (ha!) so you won’t know I broke my word and did you remember to pack that sandwich in your purse? And what are you doing right now, shopping? You’re at the mall or something, right? )

(Oh, and to the rest of you — hi, are you still here? — it’s a good thing I can’t seem to fix that Wordpress bug that’s got my entire posts showing up in your feed readers even though I tell it to only show summaries, huh? So that you don’t have to click over here if you don’t want to (like today, hi.) But fair warning, I’m trying to fix that bug, so enjoy it while you can. But for sure you’ll want to click through when my cool new re-design is finished, right Sam?) [Updated to add: So, really, you wouldn't like it if I fixed the bug? Summaries or full feeds, what's the consensus? Anyone?]

Have I mentioned my mom is totally at a spa right now, reading a great book and sipping chardonnay and eating all the food she wants and she is totally not having any kind of follow-up procedure?

[deep sigh take two.]

Awesome post, huh?

You’re welcome.

[Update: Just took the girls to lunch with Katie, then stopped by a local gift shop. The lady behind the counter recognized us and said, "Hi, how's it going? What's your mom doing today?" And I said, "She's having a procedure" and then we turned around and left. I bet my mom doesn't get me a birthday present this year.]

[2nd update: This is officially the worst post I have ever written. Don't feel bad if it isn't here tomorrow, you're not losing your mind.]

[Most important update of all: Just got off the phone with my mom, after a conversation that I have no doubt she will not remember tomorrow -- but the news is good, all good. All good. I must go now and puddle into a melted mass of relief.]

[Final update: I will never, ever figure out Google Adsense (see below). Feel free to click anyway, though. You could probably sell those pictures on eBay....]

I took my last drink nine days ago. I admitted I am powerless over alcohol, and that my life had become unmanageable.

There it is.

***

I have been silent online. I have been suffocating beneath the weight of my truth, the elephant on my chest, the muzzled agony in knowing that if I can’t say this, I can’t say anything at all. I don’t want to say anything else.

I have written and re-written this post in my head a thousand times. I wanted it to be just right. I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t know how it–I–would be received. In the end, it’s really about that word, powerless; there is no prettier way, no way less shocking, no way more poetic to speak my truth. I choose my words carefully and that right there is the one, the only one I need to know, the only one I have the energy to utter most of the time: powerless. I was powerless. I am steadily reclaiming my power now, one day at a time.

***

I am not one of those tell-all bloggers. I am uncomfortable in the spotlight. I love to write and I relish the community that blogging brings to this craft, the loneliness you break by being here. I do.

But I am not fully honest with you. I still stubbornly believe the people who bring me chicken soup and suffer through my neuroses in person deserve to know things about me that you don’t, and vice versa. I don’t believe in giving you all the details, in telling you the names of my children, in journaling my every move and thought. And you all know that, and yet you keep coming back. You make me feel like I’ve given you just enough of me, shown you just enough, that you find me worth liking and worth your precious time. I sit here behind this screen and think, But they don’t know me at all. Everything I have ever put out into this space is real and true, yes. It’s just that there are so many things I haven’t put out there.

I need to ease up, though, because I now understand I was keeping many of those things from myself, too. And one of the biggest components of my disease is the need to have everybody like me. Impossible, yes, but that doesn’t stop me from reaching, from withholding, from editing, from dancing, for you.

Most of you never saw me drunk. I met my deadlines, I excelled at work, I juggled all of my social and familial obligations well. There was no crazy rock bottom for me, no wild nights at the bar, no sloppy fool-making, no jail time, no apparent loss. You rarely heard me talk about drinking, whether in person or online. I know that. That was on purpose. If any of you are in shock right now, I hope you hold that feeling close. I hope you look around at the people in your life, the women in particular, with a little more awareness. I don’t look like what I thought an alcoholic looked like, and that kept me drunk for many years. Trust me, though, there are a whole lot of us out there who look just like me, and if I don’t say it, you’ll never know. I preach it every day over on Violence UnSilenced, that speaking out will set you free. I am standing here today, shaking, but free.

Up until a few minutes ago I did not know whether or not I would hit publish. I agonized with my husband, with a few friends. I spoke with a family member and asked her to speak for the rest, asked her if they would find it upsetting, or too revealing. She said absolutely not–but that she was worried for me. She worried that a future employer would see these words and judge me unfit for work, that a schoolyard bully might use the word “alcoholic” as a taunt. I felt her concerns deep in my bones and I retreated back inside myself again. I slipped back between the sheets of the fear and settled in to sleep.

And then I woke up this morning and, much like the last nine mornings, this one looks a little bit different. I’m a little bit more lucid. A little bit stronger. A little less ashamed.

I woke up feeling very calm, very peaceful about the decision to go public with this. I thought about my friend Erika, who lives her truth on her blog every day. It dawned on me that a gay person must have these exact same worries upon coming out–surely a future employer, or a schoolyard bully, could and will read her blog and judge her in the same way I will most certainly be judged for this admission–but she does it anyway. She does it proudly, bravely, because it’s who she is.

Why should I be punished for doing the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life? This is not some questionable behavior I’m engaging in, this is who I am. Alcoholism is a chronic, progressive, fatal illness, and though I had no control over its occurrence I have absolute control over taking responsibility for it, over its treatment. If there is anyone out there, future employer or not, who will dismiss a girl for an act of honesty, an act of bravery, well. I’d rather not work for that person. I have also learned over the past nine days that quitting drinking is a very different thing from getting sober, and that most people have something, something, whether they drink or not. Most of us have something we use to disconnect, to zone out, to hide, to run, to stuff away. There’s no shame in facing that something head-on. I am learning that if there is something that knocks my breath away with fear, then that is exactly the thing I now need to move toward, not away from. That is where this lives.

One of the things they talk about in recovery is that you cannot control other people’s perceptions of you, other people’s reactions, other people’s emotions. They talk about making a commitment to live without fear. Even just one short week ago, I worried I would never speak these words here. I worried I would never write anything again because early sobriety has consumed my entire existence and if I can’t talk about it, I can’t talk about anything at all. My words have been stuck behind these other ones, with no dam-buster in sight. I either pull the plug on this blog and quietly disappear, or I face you, it, this. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Today, however, I choose the latter. I choose to stay and fight and expose myself to you with honesty and clarity, unapologetic.

It is the most utterly foreign feeling I have ever felt in all my life.

***

Alcohol is one of my oldest friends, one of my best. She is always there for me, right there, here, her breath hot on my neck, her whispers hissing in my ear. She slides a warm soft hand over my shoulder and down my chest, cups a breast and breathes into my hair You are mine. You are nothing without me. You can’t write without me. You cannot play with your children without me. You are not interesting without me. You are not a desirable wife without me. You cannot meet your deadlines without me. You cannot meet their expectations without me. You cannot carry their stories without me. You cannot cope, cannot deal, cannot face, cannot fight, without me. You are mine and I am yours and it is good, it is safe, it is warm, it is secret, it is ours. Stay. And for some reason I turn into her, not away, even though she cruelly names my biggest fears aloud. Or, maybe, because she’s the only one who does.

***

The amount, the circumstances, the longevity, the history, the escapades, the who what where when why, none of those things are important here today. (Though, if you want these details, I am willing to speak with you privately. I’ll answer any questions you have. Part of speaking this truth aloud is to help others, just in case you see yourself in me, as I finally saw myself in someone else. Someone who is an alcoholic.)

There is a trap in comparing my behavior to others, a voice, her voice, whispering, Well maybe you’re not an alcoholic. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. You’re not like them, after all. Come back. But I can’t compare myself to you, I only know what it was like for me. For me. All those nights of quiet, secret heartbreak. All those times my head hit the pillow and quiet disgust, the self-hatred, the shame that washed over me heavy, pregnant with salt, breaking again and again and again on my battered shoreline where I lay soaking, helpless, broken. My GOD it was exhausting, that secret, private, 24-hour internal battle. All those nights whispering You did it again. You weren’t gonna do it and you did. All those prayers on my knees, my heart on the ground, wailing Please! Help me stop. Please.

It’s just no way to live.

***

I’d reached out to a few people over the past year. Some of them are people you know, some are people you don’t. People I knew were in recovery, or people I knew would love me no matter what I had to say. I said a lot of things like maybe and kinda and sorta and what if and later and who knows but I never once used the word powerless. That came later, in a moment of clarity, a moment of great grace, a moment of tremendous, unexpected peace. It came spilling out of my mouth in a torrent of grief and fear and honesty and shock where it pooled at my husband’s feet and I saw my reflection in it, and I spoke those words for the first time, “I am powerless.” I cried those words ten hours before my very first support group meeting where I learned, to my great shock, that I had just spoken the first step out loud and I didn’t even know it.

From that moment on I have walked toward this beast, not away. I have walked with a dignity I haven’t known in years. I have walked on the backs of hundreds of people who have been there, and for once I have accepted that help without guilt.

And what a nine days it has been. Telling my story, over and over, to strangers, to loved ones in my life, to myself. The reading, the processing, the talk talk talk talk talking, these feelings (at least I’m told that’s what they are, these stealthy little bombs) assaulting me, invading my air space, pounding my former alcohol-fortified no-man’s-zone with bomb after bomb after bomb all day long, my God, my God, I am completely worn out. By 6pm every night my body is one giant ache.

But I’m grinning.

I have logged hours and hours and hours on the phone with my friend Heather, my personal tipping point, the match to my piles and piles and piles of alcohol-soaked shame. Together, we combust. Often spontaneously, sometimes multiple times a day. I have a lot of support in my life, but she is the only person on this earth who knows exactly what is going on in my head and heart right this very second because the inside of her head and heart mirror mine. What a gift. What an amazing, amazing gift.

***

Speaking of gifts, today is my daughter’s fifth birthday. I can meet her eye now, look at her straight as she dances across the room, alight with the pleasure and wonder I crave. All those promises I dared whisper only to my pillow, I can speak them now. I can keep them, I can hold them out to her the way she offers fistfuls of dandelions and crayons to me. I can sit next to her, and her ten-year-old sister, my girls, my daughters, and I can breathe them in and let myself feel it, sometimes terrifying, sometimes panicky, this hot, fierce, unpredictable love I hold so clumsily for them, for us, for this big, achy world. I couldn’t bear the weight of that feeling before and frankly, I don’t know how I’ll bear it now without my sweetest, most awful friend–but I will. I know I will. They are beyond worth it. (So am I, I’m told. I have faith that belief will come.)

I don’t know what’s next for me but I can’t think about that yet. I need to stay right here, sit here, inside this, in the now, soak, just be. Trust in the grace of the universe that brought me to this place today, that it will lead me where I need to go and that I don’t need to know exactly where that is. I don’t need to know. I need to let go.

***

I’ve got this very clear picture in my head, a memory that hasn’t happened yet, a prophecy of hope. I am barefoot on my porch, a summer skirt lapping lightly at my thighs, my arms bare and strong. I am squinting into the brightness. The warmth I feel on my neck is no longer her breath, but rather the sweet sun’s hot prickle. I am free and I am peaceful and I am open to what’s next. I am here.

I am Maggie, I’m an alcoholic, I refuse to be ashamed, and I’m going to say this out loud every day for the rest of my life. Thank you for letting me say it to you.