Am I a part of the cure? Or am I part of the disease?

I don't write much about it here (a little here and here), but I am an addict in (pretty successful) recovery.

This weekend I'm attending the annual retreat for my addiction recovery group, Radiant Recovery.

This weekend is something of a program reset for me, as my food as gotten pretty wonky. My meal timings are off, browns (whole-grains) are almost non-existent, my journal has disappeared.  Only breakfast has remained, the steady rock of my program no matter what.

I haven't started using sugar again, but with the specter of Jay's mortality hanging over me, I can see frighteningly clearly the point where I might start using again.

That I can see going back to the place I've so successfully pulled myself out of scares me. I've been clean for 5 years now, and I don't want to squander that success.

Neither do I want to lose the rest of my life hiding from the pain of Jay's death. I know myself well enough to know I will feel the pull toward that kind of oblivion once he's gone.  That would be true even if my food and my program were picture-perfect.  The desire to drown my grief in my drug of choice and to not have to face the life I will have right after he goes will be strong. Only a program strongly in place and strong emotional support will counteract that urge.

It's been interesting to watch how the cancer journey is inflecting my recovery journey. It's easy for me to get lost in the minutiae of what needs to be done, in all the care that I want to give him. It's so easy for me to forget that I'm not an infinite pool of energy and resources, that I need to take care of myself, that time away from him can be a positive thing, not a bad thing.

For even in all we have to contend with as a couple, as a family, as a tribe, as a community, there is still joy to be had, and I don't want to miss a moment of it.

This weekend is serving as a good reminder of how off my program has been. The simple realization of how much I've missed beans has startled me, and focused me.

Our community's founder says that once we've experienced radiance, our cells never forget the feeling.

My cells are singing with joy and radiance again.

I remember.

It's hard to rely on my good intentions, when my head's full of things that I can't mention

I am grieving.  If you've been following Jay's blog, you know why.  I can barely think about anything else but what the next few months will bring.

I'm full of fear, and profoundly sad.

Sometimes I do that awful thing of comparing grief, and think that I'm being awfully self-indulgent and selfish to be as grieved as I am.  One of the things I said to Jay early on in our relationship was that I knew my place in it, that I knew that I would never be first in his heart - that place will always be filled by his daughter, and rightly so. And I now realize that as the jenny-come-lately, I have the least to lose of all the people around him.

But there are times in this process where I feel like I'm forgotten (which I know is not true - witness the outpouring of concern and care I received on the announcement of Jay's terminal diagnosis, and continue to recieve) and where I fear I will be left with nothing.  The latter is harder for me to cope with, as I am quite literally the last in line.  I know my place.

I have no place or time to let this grief out, for many reasons. There's often no safe space for the expression of my grief, because of who's around or because of what needs to be done. This is becoming difficult for me.  I'm carrying a burden that even I don't know the size of, and it's just going to get worse as time passes.

I am grieving.

There was a time when everything we did seemed free

Today, my heart is breaking into little pieces.

I heard on Facebook of the death of a FB Buddhist buddy of mine. I'd never met him, but his writings on Buddhism and addiction touched me, and I'd corresponded with him a bit.  He was a gentle soul, and his passing leaves the world darker.

Following on that, I read Jay's blog post this morning about his current thoughts on his condition.  This did not improve my mood.

Life is so fucking short, and all this is bringing clarity to things that had been murky. Things in my life that seemed troublesome and important are being swept away.  There are many more important things than them now. My focus is so much clearer.

I'm feeling the endings of things, little things that I've taken for granted and never much thought about. Thinking about them now gives me a painful pang in my chest.  Loss, it's all loss.  Sometimes it feels like that's all life is, just a progression of subtraction, til we're left with nothing but the harsh reality of our dying breath.

I now understand, really grok down to the core of my being, why Jay has always been so insistent that I have a place of my own.  For a long time, I thought it was just to give me a place of respite when things got too intense around his illness.  I understand now that it was to give me a place to be once he's gone, so that I'm not hanging around his house like some sort of grieving madwoman, unable to let go of what's lost, weeping on his pillows and wearing his clothing as a way to keep him near me.

So this morning is being spent sitting in bed, weeping and grieving, alternately wishing Jay were here and being utterly glad he's off in Texas enjoying himself.

Fuck.

So do me that favor and tell me the good news first

This is my long-belated, somewhat-abbreviated post about the good parts of our trip to Texas.

We spent a night in Houston, at the home of Jay's aunt & uncle, and then hit the road the next day to go to Austin.

I utterly fell in love with Austin.  It was one of the cities I considered when I was deciding where to move from Baltimore, so that's not totally surprising. I told Jay at one point I was having buyer's remorse over moving to Portland, and that it was a good thing I love him as much as I do, or I might change my mind.  I was mostly kidding, but I felt such a powerful and immediate connection to the energy in Austin.

We ate our body weight in awesome food, stopping at the Salt Lick, the Hula Hut (caution: music), and the Hyde Park Bar & Grill.  Eating at Hula Hut was an item on my bucket list, so check that one off successfully. I was waddling by the time we got back to Houston.

Going back to Houston led us to the not-so-good parts of the Texas trip.  Another post, coming soon.

In your house I long to be, room by room patiently

I managed to miss the 6-month anniversary of my moving to Portland, which was two days ago.  Time has moved so quickly.

I can barely remember the me who was broken-hearted at the end of 2010 when my marriage ended.

I can barely remember the me who gave herself a year to grieve that broken heart.

I know those women were sad and lonely and feeling lost. I also know those women felt a spark of power come to life as time passed and grief passed more into the shadows.

The woman I am today began to come to life sometime in late 2011.  By the time I came to Portland last June, I was a bright bud.  In the time since then, I have begun to blossom in ways the broken-hearted me of 2010 could not possibly have imagined.

I'm learning to shine brightly, against all the programming of all my life that has taught me that I'm only safe when I'm hidden.

A lot of that shine has come out of hiding because of Jay's deep love for and unstinting support of me.  I started down this path on my own, but the relationship we are building together every day gives me the strength and inspiration to be more than I've ever been, more than I ever thought I could be.

So happy anniversary to me.  And all my thanks to Portland for being such a wonderful place to live, and my deepest gratitude to Jay for being in my life.

My anger is a form of madness, so I'd rather have hope than sadness

I've been processing a lot lately, which has kept me from writing here, not knowing what the outcome of the processing might be.

Therapy has been interesting lately, both stirring up old crap and helping to set it down for good.  Each session is exhausting, but all so far have been productive.  EMDR has been both helpful and daunting.  It's fascinating to watch my brain at work, and to watch it heal itself from old damage and trauma.

All the grief I'd been processing without being fully conscious of it since our Houston trip dumped itself on me in a great shower the Thursday of Norwescon, and left me in an awful emotional state for the rest of the weekend.  It was not a fun time for me, and a lot of it was just my own noise screaming in my ears.  Another EMDR session has helped a lot in quieting the noise, but it remains to be seen whether than quiet is permanent or if I get triggered again.

I still owe a post about our Texas trip, and I will do that this weekend.  It was such a mixed bag, like Norwescon was, that I'm hesitant to talk about it.  But if nothing else, I want to remember what happened, so I can refer back to the events later, so this will be the place to do that.

On the plus side for the week, my new bed got delivered yesterday (pics here), and I'm happy to report that it works just fine. No creaking or other untoward behavior.  And I had a lovely dinner and walk in the gardens with a dear friend this week as well (pics of that here).

High above the weary world, I wait and watch and think of you

More little thoughts:

• Still recovering from this cold. More an issue of energy right now than anything else - I slept for 10 solid hours last night, and could have gone right on sleeping.
• Jay comes home today.  I'm so excited to see him.
• We have houseguests this weekend - what fun that will be!!
• I started EMDR therapy this week.  We'll see what that brings.
• I got new glasses this week, which is the first step in the makeover my lovely housemate Nancy is performing on me.  Probably hair next, then who knows? Eventually a new package for this new Lisa.