rollercoasters, onions, and 7-layer cake

the one with too many metaphors

Mar 16, 2021

Friends! Come hang ::

👉🏽 March writing workshop theme is “Anticipating Sunrises.” A real sweet community is emerging out of these monthly workshops, and I’d love for you to join us. Register here (Sunday, 3/28, 10am - 12pm PST).

👉🏽 Next Sober from Bullshit Recovery Club :: Storytelling Edition is April 7. Register here.

I just had a birthday, and it’s springtime, and I’m still reckoning with the anniversary nobody wants, and though the time change is most welcome, I’m walking around in that exhausted, early spring-forward haze. A new season is upon us and suddenly, all the unchecked boxes on my to-do list are stepping forward in relief: get my teeth cleaned (get Tater’s teeth cleaned); donate my old clothes; give back the cooler, headlamp and sleeping bag my friend loaned me back in August for that camping trip that was canceled last minute when California was burning; make a meal plan, and, um, stick to it this time; get vaccinated!; tend to my houseplants that need re-potting or that I want to propagate; clean out my dirty-ass car (this one is embarrassing to admit); get a proper desk chair since the one I have is cute as hell but also fucking up my back, and also, because I’m officially in my late-thirties and this is the only spine I’ll get.

I came home after a couple of days away on a mostly solo retreat and the weather was cold, colder than usual, and then the rain came, and it was icy, and between all this, on Sunday night I was in a mood. Then I woke up on Monday and the hook of anxiety had me by the sternum. It’s (blessedly) been quite a while since anxiety has come calling, so I took this as a signal to slow down, listen, which I did my best to do in between bouts of phone scrolling and ice-cream eating.

Have you ever made a Big Life Decision, and then dealt with the subsequent terror of said decision? After riding a recent wave of big opportunities and feeling like my life was finally up-leveling and all of it feeling flowy and easy, I woke up on Monday inside the perfect combination of post birthday blues and low-grade panic. All of the aforementioned tasks on the to-do list seemed like nothing more than silly distractions from this next phase of growth, the one that had anxiety show up and crowd the door through which I’d made my escape so many times before.

Years ago, I was cycling through a bunch of self-development courses and though many of the specific details are fuzzy, one thing stuck with me. One of the coaches said that transformation, or changing your life, is like riding a roller coaster. There are ups and downs, moments of thrill and terror, gorgeous horizons and low-down nadirs. Most importantly, however, is that you would never unbuckle your seatbelt and get off the roller coaster halfway through. You have to see it through to the end. You have to finish the ride.

birthday morning sunbeam through redwoods <3

I’m three and a half years into my practice of recovery, and sometimes it feels like the ride’s just getting started.

Words like growth make it sound pretty, which is helpful considering that much of the time, it feels more like work.

In the early days, change happened fast. Small shifts to daily habits had a profound effect. My skin started to glow. I stopped telling the type of little white lie that no one knew about but were slowly whittling away at my soul. Sleep was still elusive, but I had more energy and so much more space in my brain for things like reading, listening to podcasts, being available to my community, and practicing thoughtwork. Each step (not those steps) back toward myself revealed additional steps, which was around the time I started referring to all the change as The Onion of Sobriety™ *

The metaphor holds even now, some years in. The difference is that while those early outer layers flew off, these days, as I get closer to the onion’s core, the layers are denser, tighter. Less willing to give.

They’re also more subtle. So ingrained and habitual, they can be hard to even see. Which means that what is required now is a deeper level of presence and attention.

As the wheel turns on another cycle, as I prepare to move back out into my social spheres, as capitalism inevitably roars back to life and I get back to business, I feel the low-grade buzz of anxiety. Yes, because it’s going to be weird for things to open back up, but also, more than that, I am anxious because I don’t want to miss this opportunity. I don’t want to go back to how things were (we know that “normal” was oppressive to more of us than not). And, I’m not quite sure how to get to where I’m going. Where I want to go. Where I have to believe it is possible for us to land.

So I’m moving slow. I’m questioning all feelings of urgency. I’m taking my work email off my phone. I’m minimizing distractions, I’m keeping quiet, I’m eating homemade bread with butter, I’m staring out the window at crows preening each other on the power lines.

I’m staying curious about the next layer.

You know what else has layers? CAKE.

This is the part where I tell you that yeah, though you have to deal with an onion, with its at-times-stinky-at-other-times-tear-jerking qualities, a nice fluffy seven layer cake of your favorite flavor is on an adjacent plate (hopping in here, dear reader, to acknowledge that we have perhaps fallen off deep-end and I am sincerely apologizing for the cheese). For real though!

Yes, y’all, this shit is neverending. This onion is borderline sisyphean! The good news is once you accept the onion as part of the path, instead of an indication that something is wrong, you take a deep breath, look around and realize some of the layers you are uncovering are so staggeringly gorgeous as to be previously unimaginable.

So, OK. Yes please. Give me all the work, have me take all the care. Throw me into all of the fires, all of the dark and quiet rooms I must move through, tracing my fingers across walls dappled in shadows I am only now able to bring into light. Walk alongside me, let me carry you. I don’t know how to do any of this.

*most definitely not really trademarked.

Slow Motion Sober is a newsletter and community for creative types who are sober or curious about sobriety, and all the life-y intersections along the way. It's written by me, Dani, a writer and sobriety advocate in San Francisco, CA.

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