Mind Messes Follow-Up

Hello, all Awesome People Everywhere.* Thank you for your thoughtful responses regarding yesterday’s post. As I said in my comment to Your comments, everything was Good.

So. Here’s the rub…

Friday, parents went to see one of my shows. Great night. Beautiful outside. Cast was awesome. Music was awesome. Audience was awesome. Parents loved it (which was awesome). It was all, you guessed it, awesome. But? Because of the babes not napping, we didn’t have a chance to go out and hash out the show, life, etc. It’s usually our tradition to do so, so I was feeling a little off-kilter because of that.

Then, the next morning, my parents came over for breakfast. Love-ily. Delicious. Sweet. The babes were in top form – adorable, funny, silly, playing with Grandma & Grandpa. We talked about the show from the previous night, and also a bit about what to expect from the second show they would see that coming night. For me, as I had mentioned before, I was feeling ‘itchy.’ I felt like there was that elephant in the room, or rather there was an elephant in My Room… I believe I said it was dancing the can-can? … Yes. I failed to mention the elephant’s pink top hat and feather boa. C’est chic.

So.

After breakfast, we went out shopping per my mother’s request. The outing didn’t really provide an opportunity for us to talk about my sobriety, except for my mom buying me some super-cute palazzo pants on sale ($16, regular $60! (Nice!)). She made a joke about all of my ‘rewards,’ and just said she was proud of me. Very nice. Very kind. But not really a conversation.

So, then. We went our separate ways for a couple of hours, and met up back at the second show. … It was god-awful. Seriously. I was so frustrated. Last week the cast had had this brilliant, amazing, so-funny show, and this week it was just flat. As a pancake. As a floor. As a day-old, opened bottle of Cherry Coke. Yuck. FlatFlatFlat. It wasn’t completely the cast’s fault – the weather (it’s outdoor theatre) was atrocious and hothothot, and humid and sticky and still. Gah. No breeze. Nothing. Plus? It gets better (that was sarcasm)… It was the biggest house of the season thus far (200 people!) And we were filming for a local TV station. Gah. Punch me in the head. So bad. I could barely watch. Everyone was slogging up hill as best they could, but it was just Bad. … And I had theatre friends in the audience who had never seen my direction before, and I am still mortified by what they saw. I had daydreamed they would ooze and gush about how awesome it was, and that they would want to hire me on the spot for a part of their coming season, but nope. No way! Not this time around. My anxiety about this/the show/what was is still so high. …. And that‘s the show my parents saw. Blech.

So. The three of us did get to go out afterwards, while the hubs took our babes home to bed. That was nice. They were nice, as parents are. They said it was good and they could tell it was a tough show, but that it was still really enjoyable and that no one would notice or know it wasn’t our best. … In other words, they were my parents. *smile* Very nice. Very kind.

Just before our food arrived, my head had that yearning to start The Conversation. And after a couple of false starts, I dove in and just said, ‘I just want to say thank you so much for being so wonderful on the phone when I called a couple of weeks ago. It meant so much to me, and it was really special.’ And they both were great, and my dad said something to the effect of wondering when we would talk about my sobriety, and wondering if I wanted to, to which I responded, ‘Yes!’ And then he joked and said (which I think one of you also joked), ‘Well, we’ll follow you. You’ll have to lead us on this one.’ …. And I did! And it wasn’t a lot, but it was enough, and it was the next step in what was needed. I talked about where I was mentally when I decided I needed to stop drinking – that I was exhausted and frustrated and starting to put too much importance in the bottle(s) of wine I would have every night. I talked about drinking being a Reward for my sucky, adult life, but that I didn’t realize how hard the drinking was actually making the rest of my life. I talked about my perfectionism and trying to do everything to the nth degree in spite of nursing a hangover most days. … They were both great and awesome. My mom said she didn’t know how I juggled everything, regardless of the alcohol. And I made some joke about doing it all in only twelve hours, because the other four or five hours every night, I was busy drinking and rewarding myself for getting it all done. … I also told them how I was just grasping every second to stay on top of it all, or at least to stay in line with it all. I reiterated how tired I was, and how, Now, I feel so good. So rested. So much less frantic. Yes, I’m still busy, but I feel like I can Breathe. …. And they both said they could tell a huge difference. That I seem so much better. That I seem like myself (my dad said). I look better. They said they see a calmness in me (in Me?! I still don’t quite get that one. *smile*)… A centeredness…. All good things.

And then our food came, and we moved onto other topics.

Tuh-dah! Wonderful news. Wonderful moment. The convo wasn’t overly important or heavy. It felt Just Right, to steal a phrase from Goldilocks. … And now? We have an opening for next time if we want to go down that road again. It was beautiful. No judgment. Just love and acceptance and support. …. I feel like I say it so often on this blog, but I am So Lucky. Truly. Truly Lucky.

Day 47, thank you.*

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