Reminders:
Register for A Vision for the Future: Writing Toward 2021* here. (This Sunday, 12/20).
Register for Sober from Bullshit Recovery Club here. (This Monday, 12/21)
*just a few spaces left (!)
“The only way I can find my people is to tell my truth out loud.” Sonya Renee Taylor
A few weeks ago I found a journal from the early days of not drinking. Only the first few pages were filled out, scribbles from attempts at walking myself through the book “May Cause Miracles” by Gabrielle Bernstein after it came highly recommended by my most favorite sobriety evangelist, Holly Whitaker. I didn’t get past the first few pages, because I am allergic to this particular brand of self-help, but the first lesson was to “Witness Your Fear,” and the exercise was to write down your top 3 biggest fears. Anyway that was over two years ago and I was so super bummed to reopen this journal to find that my number one fear then was still my fear today. There it was, spelled out in all it’s sad, sad little glory:
For my life to always feel like I’m just barely treading water.
I was low-key morose for the few days after. Would this ever change? I wondered. Sobriety has been this dance of slow, very slow incremental change over time (hence the name of this newsletter), and while the me now is nearly unrecognizable to the me of three years ago, I am a human and so I do that thing where I fixate on what’s not working which in this case was all the ways adulting still feels like an endless game of catch-up // treading water.
I recorded a sad, here’s-me-taking-myself-WAY-too-seriously Marco Polo video, rambling on about how scared I was that maybe I wasn’t capable of change. I sent it off to a friend, and then languished about like a sad heroine from a Victorian novel. There I was, lost in the fog of story, settling right back into the well-worn lizard brain groove of “there’s something wrong with me.”
My friend recorded a message and sent it back. In their infinitely lovely way, they acknowledged what I said, and then offered a response. They said, “You’re not treading water.” And pointed out to me what they saw, they reflected back to me all the ways this story actually isn’t true. Not anymore.
Lightbulb.
*
I’m skeptical of my ability to write about friendship in a way that doesn’t sound trite or pithy. I do know that this year has brought a greater depth to friendship I haven’t known before. Maybe this is by dint of our collective realigning of priorities, or being sober, single and child-free at 36, or having lived in a place long enough that I finally have friends who are mostly staying put. Maybe it’s all the ways I practice keeping connected, via phone calls, texts, voice memos, Marco Polo videos, postcards, care packages, Zoom, FaceTime, carrier pigeons, psychic brain transmissions, etc. I also know that in recovery I am far less likely to suffer fools, which has translated to making friends with people with whom I can be my full wild and, um, intense self and not only is all this all good but they even actually seem to like it. I know that I take pride in being a good friend, that it is something I care actively about and practice developing on the regular.
My number one coping strategy these days when the darkness lurks in my vision and threatens to take the steering wheel is to phone a friend. The simplest connection snaps me back. Gets me out of my small, self-centered stuckness. Reminds me of joy, and beauty, and that I’m not alone. Also, there’s a strong likelihood that we will laugh together, and I don’t need to explain why this is so necessary.
I spend most of my time alone, and also, I am never alone. I am more connected than ever. Anyway what I’m saying that when it comes to friendship, 10/10 would recommend.
*
I don’t think I would have been able to let go of my treading water story if Valentine hadn’t snapped me out of it (given me fins? A floatie?). The minute the words left their mouth, I knew they were true, because something inside of me released. I didn’t have to question it. The story was simply gone. I wonder now, would I have been able to drop that story, otherwise? Maybe. But what if it took years more? I’d already been inside the swirl of it for most of my adult life, so it makes sense that I would continue to drag it along behind me if there wasn’t some disruption to cut the cord. The disruption in this instance was not long hours hashing it out with a therapist or an insight in meditation or a lightbulb moment in the shower or any number of tried-and-true familiar go-to’s. The disruption was friendship, and not just any friendship, but the deep, vulnerable kind. In these friendships, vulnerability is the bridge. We meet on the bridge, we tell the truth, we offer truth in return. Both require risk: there’s the risk of exposure, of letting oneself be fully seen. But the reflection back requires risk, too—knowing that our friend might not like what we have to say, and saying it anyway.
This isn’t about telling the truth no matter what. This isn’t about being an asshole, of playing devil’s advocate or “telling it how you see it.” This is a calling in, a lifting up. When we’re on the bridge together, we are in a dance. Like any good dance, it’s improvisational, generative, and cathartic. It’s where we elicit the best in each other, where possibility can spark, and where there’s room for surprise, like when the fuzzed up lens of an old story is suddenly squee-jeed clean, and we get fresh vision—boom, just like that.
This is an ode to friendship, obviously. But also, underneath, is a question. What else isn’t true?
*
Being seen, having oneself reflected by the mirror of community, is life’s greatest gift for this person who spent most of hers walking around terrified that she would never belong anywhere; that if people only knew the truth, that they’d kick her out of the club, for sure; that this lack of belonging would only ever keep me on the frantic periphery of life, of living, never able to pierce through into the deeper water.
I promise to hold the mirror for you, always. I promise to lay down on the floor and cry alongside you through your grief and sadness. I promise to be the first to pop the top off a bottle of painfully fizzy Topo Chico to celebrate your triumphs and successes. I promise to listen with my whole self. I promise to show up for all the things you are hosting or teaching or facilitating or conducting or demonstrating or showing or performing. I promise to respond to all your emails and texts, even if it takes me a minute. I promise to always make sure you are sung to and have a candle to blow out on your birthday. I promise to buy your books or your snacks or your ceramics or your jewelry. I promise to cover all my skin with your tattooing. I promise to hold your secrets, to not judge or condemn. I promise to forgive, I promise to apologize and mean it. I promise to carry you across the river when your legs are tired; I promise to let you do the same for me.
Meet me on the bridge? I promise to make you laugh, and I always bring snacks. And a cute-ass dog.
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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SO much to love in this piece. "Allergic to this particular brand of self-help" - haha me too. Your promises of the things you will do for your friend is like a dream list. And she IS a cute ass dog.
Snacks!