And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today...Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in [this] world by mistake. (Pg. 417)
I spent my whole life talking about how efficient I was. In a large part, the idea that I was efficient and always trying to find a better way, working a problem as a worry stone until it was smooth, was what allowed me to hold my life up in the light and say, See, there’s no problem here!
When I had my three sons under two (the twins and the baby are 15 months apart), people used to stop me in the grocery store and say, “You have your hands full!” That’s like, people’s favorite thing to say to twin moms.
I thought three was a lot of kids. I was also like, Yes, I completely agree, this is an absurd number of kids. 10/10 don’t recommend.
And then, I chose a life with five more kids.
I married a man who had four kids from his previous marriage. Together, our children are currently: 13, 9, 7, 6, 6 (my twins) 5, 5 (who we affectionately call “the other twins”) and we made our one “our” baby who is now 3 months old.
It is a happy, loud, energetic house. Six of those eight kids are boys (all but the baby and the 9 year old) and my boys are on the more feral side of things. For instance, my oldest son is what you might affectionately call curious -- if left unattended, he does things like cut a watermelon open with a knife he gets out himself. He weirdly often does these things correctly, like slicing open an avocado, and we all move on without a trip to the emergency room, but you have to keep a close eye on him.
There is lots of running up and down the stairs and laughter and jumping on the trampoline and imaginary play and dinosaurs and building with blocks and love.
But then.
Then. There is so. Much. Noise.
And so many crumbs. And these mf’ers drink so much juice and can consume cartons upon cartons of strawberries. My husband loves strawberries, and he never gets any, despite the fact that we buy two 2lb strawberry cartons. The strawberries I get, I eat while slicing up the rest for the kids.
The laundry. The dishes. The pairs of shoes. The backpacks. The number of voices requesting different drinks, snacks. The bickering and fighting and whining. Oh. My. God. The whining.
I am happy, most of the time. A woman in the rooms says she is happier than most anyone she knows and I find that to be true for myself.
But most of the time is not all of the time.
And in one of these recent moments when I was completely overwhelmed and exasperated, I thought for perhaps the first time in my sobriety, Oh my fucking god, there is no escape. There’s no escape hatch. I just have to get through this feeling.
Sensory overload is an inherent part of parenthood, but my god.
In the past, perhaps I might have had the fleeting thought that a drink would fix it. At least temporarily.
But this time, I feel it in my bones: I don’t want to drink.
I don’t want to blow my life up. Not that it would happen overnight, if I drank, but I finally understand that I don’t get to have the joy that I have now and the freedom I have in my life today if I am drinking.
And I don’t want to give any of that up.
The crushing reality that I have to accept what is and put one foot in front of the other and make a list of the things I need to do and to stop catastrophizing and spiraling and the whole idea that I didn’t even want to engage in self destruction behavior -- that is it.
To choose to not do something that will kill me, even if it would dull out the day for just a minute. To recognize that the dulling of the bad will also dull the good.
This is freedom.
Everything is happening exactly as it is meant to be happening, Louise Hay said in the iconic, You Can Heal Your Life.
My paternal grandmother always said, as Louise Hay does, All is well.
When she said it, I often thought of it as a platitude. All is not fucking well, I would think. This shit is fucked up. Kids are starving. People are being murdered in the streets. There is injustice everywhere.
But I see now this All is well attitude does not mean everything is good. It does not have to be taken as a platitude, as ridiculous Pollyanna Let’s-Play-The-Glad-Game nonsense.
It means it is adequate. All is well doesn’t mean it is exuberant! Or it is tragic. It isn’t the greatest thing ever and it isn’t the worst thing ever, either. It simply is.
At 35 years old, I am getting to know myself. I am learning what pushes me over the edge. What I can no longer tolerate in my sober life.
Or perhaps, acceptance is the answer. Managing my expectations might be part of the answer. Perhaps I should acknowledge that a household of this size will be loud. It will be messy. It will be filled with love and laughter and the occasional (or even frequent) screaming.
And still, even with Goldfish crumbs everywhere, all is well.
Ah, acceptance. Some days I land there and other days, I want to hide from everyone who needs anything from me. But I no longer reach for (or want) a drink to get away from any of it.