A Kind of Tale

Through years of step work, I am usually in a place in my life now where I am once removed, even if only by a short distance, from becoming enmeshed in family system drama. This is by far one of the greatest blessings of recovery. My history is so fraught with pain regarding my family of origin, largely around the enduring feeling on my part of adoring my family members in an idealized way and not having that adoration returned. And of course this tale is neither "true" nor "false," it is only true to the way I experienced the dynamic for much of my life. I lived within an unrelenting context of what felt like unrequited love, of the most intense kind. (So, of course, when I first experienced love returned at age 16, it hit me like a fucking bus, but more on that later). 

I have gradually, especially through painful trial and error, come to accept that I am simply a lover. Love is the context as well as the whole story that happens within the context for me. It's the beginning of the tale, the middle of the tale, and the end of the tale. My first sponsor, more than a decade ago, used to say to me "Love is, and it is the only thing going on." and I'd be all, wut. Blink blink. But over the years I have begun to understand what he was talking about. I am at my very best when I am open-hearted, like some kind of wild-eyed goddamned Sufi madman. I have been dark and dismal, cynical and hateful, bitter and ugly of soul, incomprehensibly demoralized, hardened by terror and jealousy, but I always feel like, when I open to love again, I come home to a hearty welcome. 

So one of the interesting things about having love as one's home is that a kind of unconditionality begins to become possible. Look, I am no fucking saint. But being one step removed means I can hold space for people, let go of fear, arrive with an open mind, refrain from judgment and breathe deeply whenever I feel I am getting snared in nets of nostalgia, regret, remorse, envy, abandonment, superiority, inferiority, you name it. Instead of *going toward* I can be mindful enough to *step back* and instead of *getting hooked* I can be mindful enough to *let go*. This is one of the greatest gifts of recovery for me, definitely. In fact I think a shit ton of my goal in drinking and drugging was to be able to "de-cathect," to protect myself from the immolation of love. But I've discovered two things in sobriety: thing the first: there's nothing to protect myself against. Thing the second: I can experience safe ground for love without defending. In fact, I guess "being able to experience safe ground for love with one's defenses down" might be one way to describe a spiritual experience. 

It's getting close to Julian of Norwich's impossible vision, locked away as she was in her box, nothing but prayer and meditation and more prayer in the solitude. It is one of the most fundamentally radical and difficult to digest statements I've ever encountered. 

But even with the dimmest comprehension of what that means, if I recall the saying, I am set free in ways that go deep and are dissolving of the armor I otherwise can so easily don when I am headed into a fraught situation. 

It made a loving and peaceful encounter with my brother and his wife and my parents possible, consistently, over the three days that I was there. A kind of spiritual and emotional independence on July 4th. And it's not as if there is no feeling, far from it. There's just a kind of tenderness available that holds space and asks nothing. 

“When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality." Pema Chödrön, from When Things Fall Apart

It has also been helpful to get a hotel room when I visit, simply because I need intervals to recharge. One of the hallmarks of our family visits or collective trips to the beach in the summer, and, come to think of it, our family home, was that we were all pretty much on top of each other 24/7. The house was small and there were 6 of us for about 8 years there at least. It is not a custom of the Hades family to take space, to take a time out. Except via a few less than ideal means, such as stepping outside to have a cigarette, drinking too much or eating. But most of the time, for whatever reason, we were all up in each other's grills all the time. It still seems to rankle a little bit that I get a hotel room, but that's another part of being one step removed-- it doesn't matter to me if it breaks the family custom. My needs come first. And the retreat makes the approach with openness possible. 

Of course, limiting visits to 3 good days is smart also. Ben Franklin was right. 

Finally, a whole other angle on step work also comes in handy. Namely, to let go of and grieve as dead the hoped-for relationships with siblings and parents, and simply radically accept exactly the relationships I have. In the present. The whole story of "not having the father I wanted" and all those other stories just vanish once I can grieve the loss and find myself in the present. When my father kindly took me out to get a haircut and buy me lunch during my visit, I was able to be mindful of just being with him in the here and now. He was a human being sitting across from my own human being in this very present moment. 

The whole rest of the story was irrelevant.

This is a profoundly liberating, opening and loving space for me to be in. The trip was continuing to turn in unexpected ways, and I was experiencing increasingly more open and unexpected spaces in myself. 

 Washington Rock State Park, Watchung Mtns near New Brunswick, NJ, July 7.