Disease Model

One of my best friends thinks her cancer is back. She would know.  She's technically a "Cancer Survivor", she made it to the five year mark.  It was five years of a hell filled with chemo and recurrences and twice a day radiation marathons.  I used to voice useless platitudes to patients with the same diagnosis as my friend's while at the same time I was speaking out the side of my mouth in my all-knowing callous nurse voice to my cohorts in the health profession.

I would say, "It always comes back." And they would nod in that smug way nurses have.

I don't want it to be true. I want her to keep believing, to keep fighting.

She won't talk about it. I think she's finished fighting.

I hate this fucking disease.

I used to roll my eyes when someone called alcoholism a disease.  "It's an addiction," I argued, again all knowing.

A friend of mine quit drinking several years ago, he had to if he wanted to get on the liver transplant list.  So he quit and he got the transplant and he stayed quit through organ rejections, and multiple complications and several near death experiences.  And very few good days.  The last time I saw him he was riding one of those motorized scooters, he had no teeth, and his belly was swollen to about a nine month pregnancy size. I didn't recognize him.

When he quit drinking everybody said he would start drinking again.  I told them I didn't believe he would.

I talked to one of the friends from my home town last night, she said she had seen him at the VFW and he was drinking.

My first thought is, "Who could blame him."

I hate this fucking disease.

Stayin' Alive

Day 241 of Sobriet (8 months WhooHooo!!)

Follow my one simple rule and you too can be an aging, totally jive talkin' Disco Queen! The rule?  Don't Drink! Rinse and Repeat! Yeah, that's your's truly above but in my defense it was taken at a Disco theme birthday party Saturday night.  Maybe I should be cringing in mortification but I'm not and here's how come.

A couple of weeks ago my brothers-in-law showed me some pictures they took at this very same bar a year ago, one of them showed me obviously very drunk with a sullen look on my face and the cap'n obviously very sternly telling me it's time to go home.  In the background is my bouncy friend Karen singing away with a mike in her hand obviously oblivious to the scene playing out in front of her. La la la!  My brothers-in-law think the photo is very funny, I think it is repugnant, repulsive and very sad.

Also, this photo is taken in the entrance to the bar I have stumbled out of, been dragged out of, and bodily carried out of.  Saturday I left the same way I came in, on my own two feet and 100% sober.

Also, several people came up to me during the evening and told me how great I looked and then, of course, regaled me with humorous/pitiful stories of how I "used to be".

Oh well.. Here's my anthem!

.

It's Going To Be A Long Night

Where to start... I went and got a tooth pulled this afternoon, it took an hour and a half of wiggling and pulling and yanking.  I got out of the dentist at 6:00 pm, it is now 11:15 and it hasn't stopped bleeding.  It's okay as long as I leave the pack in and bite down but the minute I take the pack out the blood wells up.

Then.... I went up to take my shower at about 8:30 pm and I get out and dry my hair and put on something fishnetty and sexy for my Skype video call to the cap'n who is in the states. I come out of my bedroom and start down the stairs and right in front of me is a gaping wide open window.  This is a stained glass window that is never open and it doesn't have any protectores on it (steel bars).  I run back up to my room and slam and lock my door...except my phones are downstairs.  I grab the airhorn I have by my bed and blast it out the window but a lot of good that is going to do me since I already have our roller gate down and locked and no one could get in to help if they wanted, unless they scale the wall and climb in through the window like my would be intruder must have.  They could come in from the beach side but they would have to break the sliding glass doors because I've locked them too.

I finally get my nerve up to go downstairs (I change my clothes first, I don't want to give the intruder any illicit thoughts. I save those for the cap'n when he is thousands of miles away and I am safe from him acting upon them.) and everything is untouched.  The computer is still where it belongs, my purse was in my bedroom with me, and all the doors are closed and locked.  Mr. Stanley, the blind killer bichon, is wandering around bumping into things as usual.  I grab the phone and call my neighbor, no answer.  I call another neighbor as I make my way to the roller gate to unlock and open it.  She answers and says she'll be right down, I then call the police officer that speaks English whose # I have programmed into my phone.

Long story short, there is no one in the house and there is no sign of any disturbance in the sand outside the window, they would have had to use a ladder to reach it.  The window must have popped open somehow and it was a false alarm.  But still, I'm sleeping with my bedroom door locked tonight.

I think I did good. I didn't panic.  I don't feel overly scared right now.  Being sober has given me a sense of calm and an acceptance that there is only so much I can do to safeguard my well-being, the rest is out of my control.  I am so glad I'm sober.

I'm still worried they may find me in a pool of blood in the morning from this damn tooth.

6:20 am update:  Alive and well and no pool of blood. "Well" is a relative term this morning, even though I slept better than I expected, I am still tired and cranky.  It's amazing how common feeling "perfect" everyday has become.  I get up every morning feeling rested, I go about my days in an unencumbered state, I eat regular meals and then some, I laugh, I cry, I sing, I cuss, and when I feel tired at night I turn out the light and roll over and go to sleep.  How freakin' normal is that?  Tell me again why I chose to live "abnormal' for so long.

I guess normal is a somewhat relative term also, I keep wondering what my would be intruder would have thought when I came downstairs in my sexy lingerie, torn fishnets get-up.  I need to get on Google translate and practice saying, "Welcome, I've been expecting you." Ja Ja Ja!

Just Hit Play

Day 234

I should have put  a warning label on that picture for any of you that might be hungover this morning.  That is actually my breakfast this morning and not last night's dinner revisited.  Oh the good old days!
It started out as an omelette and ended up as a scramble, as usual.  It aptly represents my thoughts this morning.

Yesterday I went into Merida for mass, as usual, but this time I did it on my own because the cap'n is up NOB (north of the border) working.  I managed to get over to Progreso on time to catch the bus, I got off at the correct stop, I made it to mass and was able to take away what God wanted me to hear, I went to breakfast with some of the women from church and then we parted ways.  I meandered through the Sunday market on my own and haggled with some of the venders and I parted with a few pesos.  I got my usual helado de coco and made my way back to the bus station and home.

I won't go into the dismal details but I couldn't have done that a year ago, I couldn't have done it 10 years ago without the fortification of booze.  20 years ago?  Maybe, but I would have been hindered by the after effects of the night before and hurried by the anticipation of my next drink

So this morning I was sitting on my patio partaking of my desayunos and marveling at the Mexican people's gift for infusing their usually tranquil and placid life with color and pattern, and fretting over some nagging problems whose answers haven't presented themselves yet when the following two songs came on my sirrius radio in quick succession.  In recovery we frequently use an expression when we are overwhelmed by...well, just about everything, we say, "Just do the next thing."

So I did the next thing.  I got up and danced.

I wish I had the words, I wish you would believe me, I wish I could convince those of you still struggling, to give yourself the gift of a few months, or maybe forever, to let yourself dance through life.

Just hit play and do the next thing. Dance!

Running Into Myself

“Study the past if you would define the future.”

― Confucius

Day 230 of Sobriety

I went for a long overdue walk on the beach this morning, it was virtually empty but several casas to the east of me I ran into a man combing the beach.  He was wearing sunglasses and that made it difficult to tell if he was a local or an extranjero. 

“Buenos dias,” I said.

“How’s it goin?” he replied.

Ah, a furiner for sure.  We exchanged pleasantries and he told me that this was his fourth trip down here.

“I’ve never made it this far down the beach,” he said, “I usually can’t get anybody to hike that far down with me.”

“Well,” I said, “it can be kind of difficult to navigate the rocks just past my house but if you take the beach road into town you can hit the beach there and pretty much walk all the way to the inlet in Chuburna.”

“Town? What town?” 

“Chelem,” I replied, perplexed.

“It’s still Chelem clear over there?”

“Yeah, there’s a square and restaurants and a market and people,”  I replied, even more perplexed that a guy that had been down here four times didn’t know there was a town of 5000 people about 2 kilometers from where we stood.

“Do you know Buddy’s?” he asked, hopefully.

Ah, that explains it.  Yes, I know Buddy’s.  Any expat that lives down here knows Buddy’s, it is the favorite watering hole and gathering place of many of them.  For some, Buddy’s is just about the only place they do know. It is in the other direction, in Progreso.

That used to be me, different places, different watering holes, but so wrapped up in where my next drink was coming from, I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the world that was passing me by as I made my way there. 

“Have a good one,” he said as I turned to make my way home.  

As I neared my casa I saw a couple I knew heading my way.  I waved and they waved back, instead of taking a few steps down to meet me, the woman turned sharply up my entrada, her husband lingered for a minute as if he thought he should stop to talk to me but then he turned and followed his wife.  They used to stop and chat with me, one day when I was out watering my flowers they stopped in and we were chatting about Greta, they were asking about her welfare, and I shared that I hadn’t drank in 100 days, he quickly came back with the information that he hadn’t drank in six years.  She was quiet.  

 I’ve run into them a couple of times at the local drinking establishments and she has come up to me after she has had a couple of wines too many and told me how she quit when he did but then she started again.  She tells me how badly she wants to find that peace again.  She has that look of pleading in her eyes that I remember.

I guess she doesn’t want to be reminded of those times, not that I ever would, but just seeing me must remind her.

That’s okay.  That used to be me, too.

Used to be.

Someone To Watch Over Me

I feel that there is an angel inside me whom I am constantly shocking. ~Jean Cocteau

Day 229 of Sobriety

Barbara saw her first and pointed her out to me, at first I didn't recognize her and then I noticed her halo and wings and knew that I knew her.

Barbara wanted her for her own but she wavered for just a minute too long and I stole her out from under her nose.  Don't you hate friends that do that?  Lo siento, Babs, but she belongs to me.

My poor Guardian Angel, I've certainly given her a run for her money.  She must be plumb tuckered out from swooping down to keep me from falling off leaky old boats or wobbly old docks, or from sitting on a bar stool cringing while I regaled the crowd with another dirty joke or from holding my hand during the long nights of withdrawal.

So now she hangs at the side of my bed looking down at me and looking....bored.  Too bad!

Hey! What does that say about my sex life? Ja Ja Ja!

Welcome To Stepford

Joanna Eberhart: How do I look?
Bobbi Markowitz: Can I be perfectly honest?
Joanna Eberhart: Mm-hmmm.
Bobbi Markowitz: You kind of look like Betty Crocker.
Joanna Eberhart: I know.
Roger Bannister: At Betty Ford. 
--Quote from the movie: Stepford Wives

Day 227 of Sobriety

I just finished knitting a super cute scarf for one of the Elves to take to the owner of a Bed and Breakfast that donated a stay for one of our toy drive raffles.  She wanted to take the owner a bottle of wine but I chirped, "No, let me knit something up, it won't take any time at all." 

  

I fear that I am becoming some freaky Stepford Wife, the Recovering Alcoholic Edition.  I've noticed that people I used to party with have started avoiding me and refuse to meet my perky, zealous stare.  I think they are afraid I might try to convert them or knit them a turtle neck dickie or toilet paper cozy on the spot. 

When my friend introduced me to her new clients the other night she said, "This is Kary, you should buy some of her peanut brittle tomorrow at the funky market, she's a wonderful cook.  You should see her flowerbed, she really has a green thumb.  Have you read her blog (the other one)? I love the way she writes."

Squirming and wanting to throw a little tarnish on my shiny new reputation, and not wanting to run off a perspective new friend, I said, "Yeah, but I really suck at blow jobs."

So this morning I am feeling a little defensive, petulant, and ridiculously sorry for myself. My two year old self has been whining all morning, "Why does everybody like "so and so" better than me, why does she get more comments?  How come "so and so" and "so and so" don't follow my blog?  Why didn't anybody comment on my excellent comment on the message board?"

Wah! Wah! Wah! So childish and so not the purpose of this blog. Please push the Ignore button.

P.S. Linda B, Thank you for your kind comment this morning.  As you can tell, I needed it.  Thanks to all of you that take the time to comment.

P.P.S.  T, thank you for being my friend, in good and bad.  Have you made any chocolate chip cookies lately? Bring 'em over, I'll knit you something.  And, OMG! Don't you think I resemble Bette in that picture?