Freedom's Just Another Word

At a meeting today we talked about freedom and how freedom was for us and how it is today now that we are clean and sober. I actually took notes because some of the comments caused goose bumps to rise up on my arms. I chose to go first because one of the on-line chat rooms I belong to posed a question to us this week-end asking what we had given up to be caregivers. I did not give the question much thought at the time but the moment I heard freedom was the topic of our meeting today I knew I had my answer.

But first I want to share with whomever reads this blog when I post it to Facebook a little of what I heard from other people. Keep in mind that we are from all walks of life, varying ages, no commonality other than we are all going through this day without drinking or taking a drug. Wisdom, in that environment, can come from a person who would qualify for "least likely to succeed" in the high school year book. 

A gentleman I have never met showed up today and talked of freedom. He spent time in prison. He said freedom was being able to have cold orange juice in the morning. He went on to say that he had always wanted a home to call his on and he finally achieved that goal and had been living in that house in Florida believing he had found freedom. But the house became a rock around his neck because of taxes and insurance and he began to see the house as a prison. Someone, through a long set of circumstances, asked him if he would like to live in a house they have here in North Carolina and he said he did not think twice. Now he is living here with a rent he can easily afford and has his stuff in Florida but doesn't know if he wants to go and get it. He said he now knows freedom and he knows that he is free to drink or not to drink, free to live here or in Florida, free to ruin his life or to learn to live a new way and he is happy. Very, very happy.

Another man shared that when he used the information we provide in our group he was able to admit that he had compulsions he could not control and that he could not control them by himself so he hooked up with us and life has become kinder and gentler. He said he is learning to be free of self-reliance and free of doubt. I have seen this man from time to time and I remember when he was full of anger and resentments. It is clear to me that he knows a new freedom. 

Another person spoke of being free of the need for justification. and being free to love God.

Each person spoke of having been in bondage to their own selves and of how they use to believe that freedom was doing exactly what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it. They said they were wrong and now they have a freedom that is real and for which they are grateful.

I shared that I spent years self-obsessed and controlled by bondage to self. I had my nose in my navel, figuratively speaking, and could not and would not see life from any other perspective. I, too, thought freedom meant doing what I darn well pleased without boundaries. I shared that now I see committed marriage as freedom and I see living as a responsible and contributing member of society as freedom and care giving of my husband as freedom. I am choosing of my own free will to live the way I live today and I am no longer controlled or bound by the burden of my self. Self-will run riot. A prison with no bars and with no jail keeper yet it held me as tightly as any prison bars with guards could have held me.

It is a puzzle how choices that now require more of me and often confine me feel like complete freedom. I guess it is because I am choosing out of a sober mind and out of a mind surrendered to God. Everything around me is open and full of hope. And, yes, like my friends, I can go and get back my old ways anytime I want to do it. I do not have the desire for those ways. I am free and I am happy in that freedom. 

God brought me to this point and He will continue to pave the path of my life in Him. I will often wonder if anything is going to work out and I will find out, as long as I leave myself free to hear Him speak, that everything is going to work out and in ways that I cannot think or imagine.

I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness.

Romans 6:19 (The Message Bible)

It Is O.K.

Long is the night  a cold wind blows,
and an icy rain falls,
appearing in the light of a streetlamp
as streams of sparkling drops falling from the heavens.  

I avoid squishing bugs if I see them first and I always throw back any fish I catch. I apologize to trees when cutting them down for wood to heat with in the winter and I ask the ants politely to stay outside but they often violate that request much to my chagrin. 
I open doors for people and say thank you, please and "beg your pardon".
I adore the impish playfulness of small children in shopping carts and of elderly people when they are caught off-guard by something they have done that turns out silly. 
I cry when I am overtired. I cry when all evident options have been exhausted to no avail and then I wait on God and He is faithful.
I love to ride along highways and roads I have not taken before or return to places I have not seen in quite some time and I cherish the deep angst I feel as memories from long ago flood my mind as I drive by old, familiar places.

With little effort I convince myself that my grandmother is still sitting by the window of her house watching the traffic go by on the nearby road. I convince myself the lights are on as night falls and I know she has probably hidden candy in the sides of her chair or in her pockets despite the doctor's orders. I remember holidays, summers, reunions of the past that were held in her house and yard. I convince myself that time has frozen and, were I to drive by today, life would be as it was and this craving in my heart would be satisfied.

And...I love waking up from a nap with one cat on my lap and another draped over my chest, both sound asleep and snoring gently. I wait to move them off of me until I begin to feel their weight as a burden and then I gently push them off and onto the floor. Minutes later they have found another place to snuggle down and sleep. They dream of jumping with abandon from chair to couch to chair. They dream of knocking over glasses and kicking car keys behind coffee tables knowing it will take a long time to find those keys and they laugh in their dreams as they think of my scolding them and spritzing them with the water from a spray bottle. They run from the water only to return to the exact same spot moments later. 

I love the wind and the rain and the sun and the shade. I love the smell of the ocean, frying bacon, freshly cut grass, t-shirts with the faint scent of a loved one lingering on them and I love the time I have left to love. 

Standing at the ocean's edge, salt spray blowing onto my face
aware of the vastness stretching out before me
aware of my finite self
and it is o.k.
It is o.k. with me.

Ignorance And Some Quotes

“An offended heart is the breeding ground of deception.”

John Bevere

“Bitterness is a root. If roots are nursed—watered, protected, fed, and given attention—they increase in depth and strength. If not dealt with quickly, roots are hard to pull up. The strength of the offense will continue to grow. We are therefore exhorted not to let the sun go down on our wrath. (See Ephesians 4:26.) Now instead of the fruit of righteousness being produced, we will see a harvest of anger, resentment, jealousy, hatred, strife, and discord. Jesus called these evil fruits.”  John Bevere

Living In An Evolving Now

I am 33 years sober this month. Sobriety is always now. It is always just this minute, just this hour, just for today. 33 years in sobriety simply means I have heard the message of sobriety and practiced staying sober longer than someone with one day. Our common ground is the fact that we are both sober now. Our common ground is that there is no other way to stay sober. Be sober now. 
An evolving now defines the margins of the life my husband and I are leading. Understanding and adapting through our growing knowledge of what having frontal lobe dementia means is an evolving now. Coping with mood swings, tiny changes in routine, misunderstandings that feel personal but are not personal, the monotony of care giving, the pursuit of common ground through chat rooms are all part of the evolving now. He and I live in it. We rarely discuss it or even refer to it. We live in it. 
 Frontal Lobe Dementia is a multi-faceted form of dementia that is nothing like Alzheimer's. Frontal Lobe Dementia is in the now. It may have been in our "now" for a long, long time. It may have posed as deep depression, lack of empathy, diminished social skills, fixed  thinking, obsessions and stilted conversations. If I look with clarity back down our road to here I can see the signs. I can see the footprints of this illness in behaviors I did not understand. Doctor's visits, hospitalizations, treatments, shock treatments, medication changes with little real change in my husband's symptoms all point to more than any of us could see. Should we have noticed? Should someone have pointed at a moment in this journey and said, "This isn't working. Something else must be happening?" Caught in the moment. Caught in the now of each event, each sense of loss, each dawning realization that the result we sought was not to be found blinded us. He was blinded by the changes in him. I was blinded by the needs I had that he could not meet. I thought I heard he "would not" meet and cried so many tears that he did not care for me and now, right in this moment, I believe the truth was and is that he "could not" care for me. This illness had begun the work of taking from us long before we noticed anything missing.
Interesting how ego struts into a relationship claiming space to express itself. My ego bore the wings of a proud peacock. It needed to be admired. My ego needed to take him prisoner and force him to meet my needs. My ego, despite the outer strutting, needed to be built up, supported by another's words and adoration. My ego blinded me. It was not my fault. It was not his fault. We only played the hand given to us as if we were wounded and angry at each other for our wounds. Now I know the illness of the frontal lobe dementia had, most likely, stolen a small portion of his brain. Just a tiny bit. Enough to cloud his mind. Enough to create an itch he could not scratch. Enough for me to notice lack and rage against it.
I am 65 years old. He is 70. We have been together 20 years. Out of all the moments we have had together the diagnosis of frontal lobe dementia, the reality of this illness in our lives and our response to it has brought us closer. Until it was defined it drove us apart. 
He grieved the loss of his ability to be independent. He grieved the loss of long days spent fishing at the pier and hunting the down east waters for bait. He grieved the loss of his car. He grieved his dependence on me. And then, one day, that grief seemed to fade away. 
I grieved the familiarity of our routine. I grieved looking after my mom and increasingly looking after him. I grieved the loss of expression, the loss of attachment, the loss of my independence and the fear of an illness I could now see happening to my husband but could not define. 
Today we live in an evolving now. We do not think about the future and we do not talk about it. I tell him we are in this together and we will be in it together. I tell him not to be afraid. I tell him he is loved. I know that he loves me. At times I am afraid and I let it go. What is to fear in the evolving now? Right here. Right now. This moment in time we are responding to, operating in and depending on, this moment and nothing more. It works for us. 
The truth is that no one has more than we have when we are living in the moment. All of us are living in the moment. The sum total of what brought us to this moment and what we will do with the rest of our lives resides in this moment. I am grateful for the "now". I can manage right now and I can think right now and I can find my way right now and my husband can depend on me right now and trust the process right now. God is with us right now. Within this moment and in each moment, within the evolving now we are loved, cared for, protected and blessed by God. The evolving now is eternal. God said, "Do not be afraid." We are not afraid.
I see myself moving through the many days and nights it took to get to this moment. I began the journey filled with a deep sickness of spirit. I am needy and, like a lost dog, wandering from place to place seeking comfort from whomever provides that comfort. I begin to change. The sickness begins to heal. The wounds and bruises heal. For a long time I cannot bear the grace that lifts me up and loves me unconditionally. I hide from it as I imagine Adam and Eve hid in the garden. The love continues and does not let me go. Days and nights and years pass. Love forgives me. Love teaches me to forgive. Love brings people and situations into my life to heal me in the here and now. The day comes when Love decides to teach me how to love unconditionally. Through an unwise choice I make Love seizes the opportunity to teach me. I am ungrateful and demanding. I forget the Love that lifted me and crave the filth I wore when Love found me. Love does not let me go. I surrender. I surrender. I surrender. Love guides me to love freely as I have been loved and suddenly in a burst of joyous awareness I understand. My husband and I are bound together in this pouring out of grace. The lines are blurred between us. In a way that only Love can know we have become one together. Here and now.

Island Life

Alarmingly little is passing through my head of late. Inspiration is running at a trickle. The old stand-by of righteous indignation coupled with an ill defined anger requires energy and a cause. I am fresh out of a cause and running low on energy. Opinions are on a hiatus. 
 I dreamed, again, that I was in a foreign country. It seems the arrangement was temporary. I felt a deep desire to stay. I knew I had to go. I befriended a family. They had small children and were adventurous. In the dream I was exploring a part of an island with one of the people I met. I knew, intuitively, we were not suppose to wander so far nor were we to follow the road we chose. The girl I was with assured me that all would be o.k. We went through an awful mud bog and as the path rose and curved to the left I heard then saw a group of men descending the path towards us. They were dark, short, stout and muscular men. They were talking loudly to each other. My companion said we should be quiet and let them pass and for a minute it seemed this would work. Not far past us one of the men turned and looked back. He growled rather than shouted something in a language I did not know and all of the men gave chase after us. There seemed no hope of rescue. I remember the fear I felt as we ran ahead of them. We took a sharp left down a path that, if memory serves me right, led to a large body of water and, as is the way of dreams, we were suddenly in the water. It was a beautiful day. The family I met on this island moved toward us on a boat waving cheerfully while asking how we came to be so close by while exclaiming how fortunate it was to find us. It was not that we were rescued as they did not have a clue about our scare. It was a disarming response in the total lack of surprise at finding us in the water with no boat of our own. The response felt oddly familiar and yet it reminded me of a song being played with all the right notes except for the ones just played and no one noticing at all. The dream progressed with a number of sequences and the inevitability of my departure weighing on my mind. I wanted to stay and I wanted to go. The entire dream had a discordant note. That aspect of it resonated with me. I don't remember anymore of the dream. I know I planned to leave. I felt torn but also felt uncomfortable about staying. The people I met and the experiences I had with them were intense yet shallow. The idea of staying was becoming more for them than for myself. I began to feel that I was pretending to want to stay and I woke up.

This is the second or third dream I have had of traveling to a place unfamiliar to me, meeting people and wanting to stay but finding myself torn between returning and staying and, at the end, thinking how I was pretending to want to stay as if I should want what was offered in the places where I found myself and as if I should believe something I could not fully believe nor could I fully let go. All dreams ended at that point.

I woke up feeling as if I left in the middle of a play and did not know why. The other feeling is that I was returning somewhere that held nothing for me. I was puzzled and conflicted.

Left to wonder...

I wonder what our marriages would look like if we would just stop. Stop wanting for ourselves. Stop listening for the habits that anger us so quickly. If we would listen and listen more. If we would hold and caress without thought of a result. I wonder what my our marriages would look like if we would just stop.

I wonder how an average and ordinary day can be transformed into a miraculous, lightness of being day simply because a ten year old child is glad to see me. 

I wonder at the survival skills of the huge, fluffy cat that has taken up residence on our porch. The skills that demand food and demand attention to his needs do not surprise. His demand to be loved. His demand to be petted before he eats and his return to rub against my leg as if he is saying a thank you take me off guard. So I made an awkward attempt to provide him shelter with a plastic container and blankets from the house. He lies there stretched out or with his body curled in a tight ball deep in sleep. I wonder that he is possessive. He dares to be possessive. Without one ounce of shame he follows me around uttering a plaintive meow for food or for a decent belly rub. He intimidates my cats. My cats are of no matter to him. I wonder how this creature knows and demands what so many of us fear to admit we crave. 

I wonder how the birth of a child pulls love from me in such a wild abandonment that I feel my heart leaving me forever to belong to someone else and yet, when I birth another child that same love rushes to meet him and is no less diminished by the first?

I wonder if trees are communal and thrive better when close to other trees. I wonder if there are rogue trees that vie for the attentions of passersby. 

In my more outlandish moments I think of being where I am at any given moment and of my memories of other times and other places. Then I wonder if those places and those times exist without me in them. Does the world we cannot see or hear exist at all or does it create itself as we move into it then close back into itself as we department.