Doing Grownup Stuff

 

Over the past decade or so, I’ve had to do some growing up. Aging is inevitable, but I never knew that growing up, or maturing, is something that I have to work at, and not something that happens naturally as we age. 

Since I started on the path of recovery from my alcoholism and addiction, I’ve gone back to a suit job, got married, bought property and built a house, had a kid - a micro premie who is on the spectrum, changed jobs, bought another piece of property and built another house, said good bye to my cats, and said hello to a dog, with a relapse and periodic return to prescription drug abuse in between. 

I’ll have ten years without alcohol this month though. It hasn’t been plain sailing the last 19 years, but nonetheless an achievement since this is the longest I’ve gone without booze. 

While the list of things I’ve done since 2005 sounds like I’ve got my life back in order, the destructive, drunk within has continued to sabotaged my inner life periodically. I’m not used to serenity and peace. Chaos and drama are where I feel alive. Always.

I struggled through a 15 year marriage to a man who is as sick as I was at three years’ sober. He chose not to seek professional help, or to get with a program to work on his issues. I, on the other hand, took on his issues, made it my own, and sat around pissed off that I had too much to fix on my plate. 

Time to let go of his problems, and him.

Divorce is never easy. None of my immediate family members have experienced divorce. All of them are widows or widowers, some of whom are living their best moments now that their tormentors have left for the other world. At 50, I’m too young to be dead on the inside, but too old to sit around waiting for something or someone to change my drab reality. It’s time I put my big-girl pants on and took ownership of my own destiny. Time for another round of growing up. 

* I need to thank my ex, but now current boyfriend, N, for encouraging me to write again. I doubt anyone else would read my posts so I’m writing this mostly with his readership in mind. *