A Survivor's Story

I remember my parents pulling up to the drive-through window of this state line bar, it was the last day of our vacation and we were on that endless drive home, forty miles left to go.  They bought a six pack and then sat in the parking lot drinking beer and smoking cigarettes while we whined in the backseat about the heat, the drive, the smoke, our siblings' encroachment on our space.  They drank two beers each and then they started the car and drove the remaining bone weary miles home.  It was the 70's and our parents remained doggedly uninterested about the effects of  drinking and driving and second-hand smoke. 

I always wondered about the why of those beers in that hot dusty parking lot. Why didn't they just keep driving and wait until they were in the swamp cooler comfort of our own home?  My best guess is that my parents were bidding a last sad farewell to the carefree, careless days of vacation, or maybe they were drowning their sorrows of leaving the cool, verdant mountains for the vast stretch of nothingness in which we lived.  They needed that one last taste of sky blue waters.

I rarely remember my parents going to a bar or beer joint in our hometown, there were the random and sparse evenings out with friends and maybe an occasional Friday night at the VFW, but, by no means, would Mom and Dad be considered regulars at any of the local watering holes.

But vacations were different.  Every day when the heat descended and the fish quit biting the Hickey clan loaded into "Old Blue", our station wagon, and headed to town where Mom and Dad would settle into a duct tape scarred vinyl booth at a local beer joint and us kids would hit the nearest general stores with our sweaty, stink bait scented dollar bills burning holes in our jean shorts.

Eventually, money spent, we slunk back into the beer joint and threw ourselves, one by one, into the booth and commenced pouting the appropriate amount of time required to drive our parents to the desperation of throwing coins at us for the pool table or pinball machine.  They gladly paid the ransom for just a few more minutes of dark, smoky respite from the endless tangle of kids and fishing lines that defined our family vacations.

Scarred floors.  Barmaids with terrifying hairdos and sassy mouths.  Sitting at the bar with my ice cold bottle of Dr. Pepper.  Spinning bar stools. A painted lady on the floor at Joe's Place in Cimmaron, New Mexico.  A creepy  two-headed calf with beady wall-eye stares in some nameless bar in Red River.

My parents kicked back in a booth, laughing over cold beers and a smoldering ashtray.  My mom with a bandanna in her hair and rolled up jeans.  So young.

I treasure those memories, they are as much a part of me as blonde hair, green eyes and my inbred, deservingly under appreciated, Hickey sardonic drollness.

I miss those places.  I can't but help miss them.

 But miss them is all I can do.

When I rolled by that bar on my own last stretch of vacation a few days ago, I felt a rueful melancholy smile lift the corner of my mouth.  I had a kid stretched out in my backseat asleep, my grandchild, and I would no more think of pulling into that parking lot and drinking beers than driving on home...not lately, any way.

I drove those remaining empty miles to my hometown to drop the grandkid off and to spend the night with my oldest son.  Later that afternoon I headed to Walmart to restock my supply of Diet Pepsi.  As I was pulling two liters off the shelf by the gross, an older woman turned her cart into the aisle.  We glanced at each other and then took longer looks.

"Mary Kay, isn't it?" she asked.

For my whole life I have been running into this woman and she always calls me by my "baby" name and she always says the same thing.

"I remember when we lived across the street from your parents.  Your mom and I were both pregnant with you girls.  Such good times."

I nodded.  I've heard it so many times before but I never tire of hearing it.  We exchanged the usual.
"Where is ?"
"How is ?"
"Can you believe how this town has changed? And not for the better."

Skirting, skirting, skirting.

Finally,

"We lost Jolene, you know?" she asks.

I nod.  I did know.

"She drank a lot."

I nod again.

"I did too.  For a long time," I say.  It is the only meager comfort I can offer, my clumsy attempt to tell her she wasn't the only mother who lost a daughter. It wasn't her fault.

She patted me on the shoulder.

"It happens."

Getting Closer Every Day

When they were little boys, my boys thought I hung the moon and dipped it in sprinkles just for them.  And I would've if I could've.  My favorite Mother's Day Memory is the Mother's Day that they all jumped on their bikes early in the morning and headed over to the nearby miniature golf course and returned with muddy bouquets of iris's that they presented to me with pride, like future car thieves handing their momma the keys to a pink cadillac.

Then things happened.  They became teenagers. I got divorced. They became resentful. I became swamped with guilt.

So I left.  Not physically, not at first anyway. I dove into a bottle of Jack Daniels and didn't emerge for 20 years.

My boys no longer think I hung the moon and dipped it in sprinkles just for them.  But I would, if I could.

I came across one of my many sporadic journals that I kept before I started blogging here.  I thought writing down all those arguments about why I should stop drinking myself to death and keeping them to myself would help, but it didn't.
In one of them, written in 2009, I believe, there is a Mother's Day Entry.

I cried when I read it.

It must have been written early in the morning because I was still boosting myself up and making excuses about why my kids might not call me, how difficult it is to get hold of me, how they're boys and boys just don't think about those things...blah, blah, blah...But I wasn't in total denial, I knew that booze was the captain of the ship that was steering a course further and further from my kids.  I could see that I was totally losing sight of land and them.  They wouldn't be able to throw me a lifeline, even if they wanted to.

I don't remember if the oldest and youngest called me or not that Mother's Day.  I know the middle one did not because he did call me a few days later to apologize about not calling me, he had a good excuse, he'd been in jail.

That Mother's Day was the turning point for me.  I made a vow, that no matter what, by the next Mother's Day my relationship with my kids would be better, I would start doing the necessary legwork and healing that was required.

Was I sober by the next Mother's Day?  No.  But I'd started this blog and I was heading that way.

This is the message that I received on fb today from that middle child.  He doesn't have an excuse this year, he's in a much better place too.

Hey mom thank you for all the love that u have gave us as kids and u continue to give us as adults. And all the patience and understanding that you showed us.. no matter what direction life may take us you will always be our mother and i know im not alone when i say i take great pride in calling you my mom. I love you mom. Happy mothers day!

I called all of my boys yesterday to let them off the hook, I am still hard to get hold of, one more barrier I need to break down.  Am I where I want to be?  No, I've let myself chicken out of facing the hard things with my youngest, we're still skirting around the issues, keeping our coats buttoned tight. (Thank you to Amy, my friend, over on Soberbia for that image and a great book recommendation)  But I'm heading to his house in Texas to dig up some bones and rattle them as soon as I get back to the states in a few weeks.

Again,

Am I where I want to be?

Again,

No.

But I'm closer and that's a hell of a lot better than farther.

(BTW, Paul, if you read this, that middle son is the one that landed in my lap all of a sudden.)

 

Ten Things You Gotta Love About Sobriety

The cap'n has been buzzing around all morning.

 Busy, Busy Bee!

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

I want to swat him, because I'm still all fuzzy headed and laying about in bed and just spent 45 minutes looking up Foghorn Leghorn quotes so I could write something really snappy to one of my friends on the Moderation Management List.  I came up, I say, I came up with nothing, so I wasted, I say, wasted 45 freakin' minutes!!  Why in the hell did I go looking to Foghorn Leghorn for inspiration this morning?

"Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!"  Goes the cap'n.

"It's amazing what you can get done when you're not hungover," says he.

"Preachin' to the choir," says I.  (And what the fruck do you think I've been trying to tell you for the last three years. But, oh yeah, I forgot, you were never hungover.  That's what you kept telling me anyway.  I guess now you know the difference)

I guess you've figured out that the cap'n is behavin' lately (a week) and that we must have had a "come to Jesus" meeting. (Yes, we did).  But more about that later.  He's decided to "essentially" quit drinking. (Can I get a collective eye roll on that?).  But he's doing pretty good so far.

But..

But..

But...

Buzz!

Buzz!

Buzz!

He's out there digging up Coconut Trees and I'm still laying in bed.

He reminds me of what those first sober mornings felt like.

Like a Fucking Miracle.

And then I wandered over to Mrs. D's Blog this morning between my Foghorn Leghorn expeditions, and she's yammering away, lah-di-dah, zippity do-dah, and all that shit, about why she loves sobriety. 

And I said, "Fuck it, I say, fuck it, if you can't beat'em you might as well join 'em. Now listen up, ya hear, listen up."

Why I Love Sobriety:

1.)  I'm still alive.

2.)  I'm laying in bed all fuzzy headed and lazy and I can't blame drinking.  I haven't been able to         blame my drinking for anything for almost 3 whole years.

3.)  I'm a damn inspiration.  Yep, I can't deny it, I am.

4.)  There are now people who know me who never saw me drunk, they don't even know that I used to drink.  They just think I'm an uptight sober person.  Hallelujah!

5.)  I remember every single thing that happened last night.

6.)  I haven't vomited in almost 3 years, which means I haven't had to look at, smell, or clean up vomit in 3 years.

(The cap'n just reported that he's already dug up 9 Coco Trees.  He's a regular Johnny Coconut Tree)

7.)  Sober sex.  It's just easier, quicker and cleaner and a lot less theatric.  (Addition to today's "To Do" List:  Burn all those old videos.)

8.)  I can make plans for later on tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month, Christmas...because I can depend on me to be present and accountable.

9.)  I'm no longer worried about qualifying for the liver transplant list.

Drum Rollllllllllllll!!!!!!!

10.)  I love myself and life again, with all of our foibles, ups and downs, ins and outs, darks and lights, hards and easy's, goods and bads, happy and sads.  I love that I feel it and live it.

Thank you, I say, thank you, God!

Word!

Resolve: firmness of purpose or intent; determination.

 to convert or transform by any process

Music. to progress from a dissonance to a consonance.

 I've had my word for 2014, resolve, picked out since way before New Year's.  I guess you can see how much resolve I've had for writing about it, I still struggle with whether I have enough left to say on this blog.  But then today I was visiting the mmabsers message board and a friend of mine there had copied and pasted an old post of mine from early 2011, All Out War when I was still struggling and I didn't think I was strong enough, or smart enough or anything enough to win the war.  She said, and other members chimed in, that it was an inspiration to them to see where I'd been and where I am now.  

Well, golly, I guess I better keep writing.

  

I've had this post planned out for weeks, I was going to explain how having resolve or employing resolve was different than just making a  resolution, how I wasn't going to get bogged down in goals and accomplishments.  I just wanted to have more resolve, dammnit!

Then I went to look up the definition of  resolve, yep, those first two are exactly what I wanted, then I got hung up on the third one, the one that defines  resolve as a musical term that means the transition of dissonance to consonance.  Wouldn't it be great if I could find a song that sounded exactly like what I wanted my whole year to look like?  Something with just a little dissonance and long periods of consonance, or something that started out with a short prelude of dissonance and then segued into a long ballad of consonance.

I have spent, I'm not kidding you, six freaking hours looking for that song.  I started out with the Stones and the Beatles and ended up with Sebelius Symphony #7.  I don't know why I didn't think of it right off the bat. 

Not!

I'll admit it, I googled the "best example of resolution of dissonance."

  

Is it what I was looking for? No.

It's perfect.

It is a symphony of life.  It has dissonance through out the whole freakin' twenty-five minutes.  But with the flick of a wrist, a single breath,  a slide of bow across string, the harshness transforms to deep beauty,  strife builds to glorious triumph, and the deepest sorrows give way to frivolity and carefree joy.

I'm still listening and I don't know how it will end, but it doesn't matter.  A baby will cry, a leaf will turn,  a star will fall and it will all start over again.

Such is life.

Such is life.

Happy Belated New Year, Amigos! 

Summer Child

My mom always called me her little hoyden.  I was never a tomboy, I was much too uncoordinated for that, but I was a little kid that bounced out of bed on summer mornings and was out the door in my mismatched plaid shorts and daisy print shirt before mom could holler, "Would you please brush that rat's nest out of your hair?"

A child of the sun. Skinny brown legs pumping, handlebar tassels flying, off in search of new skinned knees and bug bites and whatever adventure those summer days held for me. Cannonballs into flimsy backyard swimming pools, Miss America with a sprinkler ring perched on my head as my crown, slip-n-sliding on smooth wet sidewalks (ouch), kool-aid stands...What more could life have to offer?  Falling in bed at night, feet black from my staunch refusal to wear shoes, skin itchy from sunburn and tumbles in freshly mown grass, my mind racing with the promises of tomorrow.

I looked in the mirror yesterday, my cheeks slightly sunburnt, my legs brown and freckled, my hair a wild, brittle tangle from too much chlorine and sun, a rat's nest, as my mom would say, my tummy protruding over my bathing suit bottom. "Kary May, if you're going to wear shortie tops at least suck your belly in," my ever mortified older sister, Kathy frequently admonished my ten year old self.  I didn't care back then, why should I now?

I looked into cloudless green eyes and saw that summer girl again.  The girl I fought so hard for.

Hi, there. I remember you.