As I sit here on a plane, halfway through Ross Rosenberg’s new book The CoDependency Revolution. I was just slammed with a memory of that single counseling session in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.
I recall bristling and reeling at the therapists suggestion I maybe consider looking into some resources on co-dependency. That tumbled and rolled me down a whole hill. I wanted to resist, deny, unhear, but I could not. It’s not in my nature.
It’s a testament to the profession that the counselor was as straightforward and honest in a very early on couples session. Would I have been so brave, so bold? So not co-dependent.
Now on this airplane a few tears shed at watching father’s with their baby girls, being part of a team with the mother, being affectionate and cutesy with their daughters. In other words I’m having a moment.
As far as the rest I’m on a plane with no anxiety, did not take a Xanax, and am on my 4th week of intermittent fasting. The eating is greatly helping me iron out more securely my boundaries with food, which is a beginning step towards my fit by 50 goal. As you can see I’ve given myself plenty of time.
I have learned to do this over the past several years. To hold my sensitivity and nervous system needs sacred and holy, and fully allow myself to seek and share my needs.
Getting better each day one step at a time.
Speaking of that I rarely take Xanax anymore. It gives me a slight headache and unclear feeling that I detest. Which makes it very clear to me that it works for a panic attack when it needs to, but in the absence of that acute level of anxiety, no thanks !
I’m 333 days sober today. I’m not sure what’s in store for me with balance around this. I may remain a non-drinker for health reasons, and for solidarity for all of those harmed by its presence. I may not. I may choose to have a drink on an occasion and indulge in wine pairing with a fine meal.
I don’t know yet…..
I finished Stray (also an old running title for my memoir, now it’s Starved) by Stephanie Danler, in two days. It’s raw and gritty and everything I hope to be as a writer. Albeit with my own voice, which is becoming clearer each day.
Ever since 2020 this has been a tough time a year for me. Reminders of events I am not a part of, and many other things. However there’s a reason the rear view mirror is smaller than the windshield and I will not live the rest of my life in a form of sabotage. In one tomb or another from all the lives that weren’t.
I am most interested most of the time in the life that is. Though my old selves, and those they loved, and wanted to be loved by are now wholly part of the package.
On an errand to help out twin B. My solid as a rock not so tiny any more bundle of love, joy, possibility, and so many things. Following a car accident she has been having post concussion issues which include difficulty driving. So we have moved her home to convalesce and are now collecting her vehicle and her things from Florida.
Upon examining my flying anxiety I realize it to be a product of the combination between my writer’s imagination and my cptsi (complex post traumatic stress injury) symptoms, mainly intrusive thoughts. A helpful dose of CBT, steady frequent reminders that a thought is not reality without at the very least a choice, and voila a much better experience.
I choose to believe when it’s my time it will be my time and nothing I could have done differently would have changed that. This of course assumes a relatively healthy and balanced lifestyle. I allow this to comfort me now. When previously I believe that I subconsciously felt relief by being in a nearly constant state of terror of some kind or the other, because then nothing could catch me off guard.
I feel my memoir / whatever book I will write taking shape. It comes to me in the early hours of waking, in the shower, on the road. I hear powerful lines from it, and when I’m lucky enough I capture them, like butterflies in my childhood net.
Nature at least provided some solace that people did not. See there’s one now 😉
So between the reading I’m doing and seeing these men be fathers on this plane a post emerged. I hope the rest of my trip is so fruitful with the writing….
I am excited !
C