the length of waves

Day five rolled in and I knew it would be a breeze. I was spending the evening with my mom and since she’s not much one for keg stands or drinks in general, I knew we wouldn’t be raging. I think it’s pretty safe to say that no parent wants their child to become best friends with alcohol. To be honest, most of the time I think my mom wishes that alcohol and I weren’t even acquaintances. In my nearly thirty years of life I’ve seen my mom drink only a handful of times. And by drink I mean she’s taken one or two sips, never a full cup of her own. Usually at that point she cackle laughs for about two minutes and starts self induced sobriety tests. Maybe she’s also had some wine at Passover? Idk, most of the time I’m too busy dipping my finger in the glass for frogs, plagues, etc and wondering how much wine goes to waste across the world for that glass of wine for the spirit of Elijah, who never seems to come (this is as much religion as I know).

We went to dinner and then to get a massage. The massage was perfect timing; not only for the sake of my neck/back/shoulders/ entire body that was in some sort of pain that felt like unusual punishment, but also for the thought process my brain has slipped in to during these first few days of sobriety. Also known as: epiphany four.

 

listen to your body tonight.

 

Or, you know, in the morning. Ever since I stopped drinking, I started waking up with headaches. You can imagine my frustration with this. In my world, headaches are for hangovers, and I’ve certainly not had one of those. My neck has been aching, some weird muscles in my face that I never knew existed have made themselves the star of the show in some excruciating form that wakes me from my sleep every morning around four. Like any self-respecting adult, I took to the internet so it could tell me I was dying from something, how much time I had left to live, ways to prepare a will. Turns out, it’s just that I clench my jaw in my sleep and, now that I’m aware of it, pretty actively throughout the day, The thing about sleeping habits, is when you sleep alone (cue the tiny violins), you don’t know they exist. Do I snore? Do I toss and turn? I know that sometimes I talk because my best friend told me once I just said “ya” in the middle of the night and once I told my boyfriend at the time to stop touching me because there were “customers in line.” Also, his fault, I wasn’t even awake. Chill it on the moves, dude.

The point is, I’ve spent a lot of mornings blaming ailments on alcohol. Thinking that any aches and pains were party favors from the night before, dismissing them completely. Sure, a throbbing jaw and temporary headaches aren’t the end of the world, but why are they happening? Turns out, clenching your teeth is a serious sign of stress. As a person who has walked away from a lot of people because they did not manage the things that caused them discomfort in their lives, this did not sit well with me. Am I unhappy? Do I feel overwhelmed? I feel like I have everything under control, but my body is telling me something different, and my body knows me better than anyone else. It was impossible to differentiate between headaches of the past; were they caused by alcohol or anxiety? I’ve no way to tell because there is no controlled constant, the experiment is flawed. The aching jaw, though, that’s the trouble. This was new and scary in more ways than one. The pain, yes, sure, and obviously. But also the realization that alcohol has served so much so as a form of stress relief, that it has knocked out my acknowledgment that there may be some unbalance in my life. That I may be dispirited. I have blurred out facing daily struggles, weekly struggles, months to years to potential lifetime struggles with the haze of a habit. And I hate that.

If you know me well, you know that I could talk about bodies forever; they fascinate me completely. How we send messages from our brain, to our hands, to our limbs to make movements. How we breathe without trying. How we catch balance. How memories exist and what I imagine they look like. How our body will do anything it can to survive. Once I realized that my body was sending messages that were marked unread, I wondered what else I was missing. As I laid still and a stranger rubbed my body (remember, the massage, people) I thought about how many working parts I have, how I never give them attention. How I don’t even know what they’re called or that they even exist. The smallest bone in your body is a little guy that helps make up your ear. You can’t listen without him. Oh, you guys, it’s too apropos.

I am learning how to value my body more both mentally and physically. I’ve started attending a work out class (re: air thrusting) that not only is building my confidence externally, but has also taught me the importance of time for yourself, your bones, your muscles; to stretch yourself in all directions. To breathe. How crazy how often we forget the most important part of life.

A few weeks back I was contemplating what was most important to me; what my passions are and how to feed them. I charted them out in my mind and then realized I needed to correct the order. There was nothing there that benefit my health and if I’ve not that, then nothing else really matters, does it? It doesn’t matter if I love writing, photography, trying desperately to keep plants alive, if I’m not alive myself. If I’m not healthy and capable. We won’t always be. There will come a day that I will drink again, yes. But in moderation. In respect for my liver, my heart, the blood in my veins that shouldn’t have to host so much alcohol. For the breath in my lungs, the beats of my heart, and the tiniest of bones that allows me to hear what my body has to say. Because now, here in this moment, these days, I’m actually finally listening.