Digging Deep

Time to call it quits for the day. It’s been a long one working on home projects and taking care of household chores, shopping and cooking. The candles are lit, tv is on preparing to watch the Oscars, a warm blanket draped across me and my laptop resting on my lap. Throughout the day while doing my chores, I spent much of that time in deep thought. One of my projects was cleaning out a section of the basement and in doing so, I came across many photos and school projects and programs from my children’s early years. How can one look through those things and not take time to reflect?

I found myself longing to have those years back and a chance to do better as a mother. I also found myself fearful of my future. My youngest of six is finishing her junior year in high school, next year will be her senior year- her last. Where will that leave me? For thirty-four years, my identity has been that of “mother” and although I will always be a mother to these six incredible humans, I am unsure of what my life will look like when the last one is gone. Will I be lonely and sad, or will I finally be able to realize my dreams and find fulfillment in other things? I do not feel prepared for the next chapter of my life. I feel that I have only really been an adult since I became sober and that has not been nearly long enough. I have just begun to build my life in the way that many do in their twenties and thirties yet suddenly I am facing the second half of my life.

I find myself still digging deep to figure out what it is that will bring me the most peace in my life and also digging deep to pinpoint those roadblocks that I need to work to remove, in order to even be able to see where that peace may come from. I have only begun, over the last six years or so, to undo forty something years of trauma. I fear that I’m running out of time and that if I don’t sort through the untouched, I won’t have the time to enjoy a peaceful life. It often stuns me when I think I have worked through my trauma and then realize there is more that I have locked away. It comes sneaking out when I honestly do not expect it. Often it is propelled by an uncomfortable or unfortunate situation and suddenly pops up in my mind, body or soul and I feel like I’m starting again. It saddens me sometimes.

This last week was a perfect example of that, when my new supervisor made an unwanted sexual advance towards me. I have a great deal of past sexual trauma and was in a place where I believed I had worked through that. I could not have been more wrong. Not only did I have an intense physical and emotional reaction to this recent incident, I have continued to have very intense flashbacks, not only of traumatic incidents I had talked through in therapy, but new memories that came back to me of things I had blocked out. How frustrating to think that I now have to address and work through this because I know if I don’t, it will torture me, eat at me and that could ultimately lead me to relapse. I have worked too hard for my sobriety to let that happen.

I want to get to a place in my life where I can just be peaceful and happy and not have to work so hard on things from the past. I understand the reason why I must, but it is exhausting sometimes, and I feel that it robs me of precious time that I wish to spend just enjoying life. I try to really hold onto and relish quiet moments like this when I can smell the candle burning, feel the warm blanket draped across my lap and listen to the tv in the background as I do what I so enjoy, writing!