december 11 etc (part two)
This is the next part of the larger piece I started on December 3.
August 7 was a Thursday. On that Thursday I wrote a post titled August 7 etc. I didn't post again until Monday, August 11. That post was titled August 11 etc. Since then, I have written a blog post every weekday for four months straight.
They say consistency is more important than intensity and they're right. I never believed them because I didn't think I was capable of consistency. Turns out I am. If you don't try to do the thing you will never achieve it, but if you don't try to do the thing you're not allowed to chalk the L up to personal failings —— unless you're talking about dyspraxia and that's a whole other thing.
Sidebar:
A few days ago I wrote a bit about Microserfs and it merits mention that I first read the word "dyspraxia" in that book, where it was used to mean "the inability to initiate an action." For years I thought dyspraxia was something akin to procrastination —— as does the character the word is spoken to in the book. Thing is, the book doesn't dig into it that much. The word comes up in a scene where a character is trying her best to make a good impression on another character, her boyfriend's mom. But dyspraxia is very real and more people should know about it.
Getting back to what I was saying, the big blogging streak (#tbbs) reaching four months today reminded me of another important streak that is still going even though I don't think about it like that.
On July 6, 2020, I had my last drink. I drank a bit too much bourbon on the first anniversary of a really tough breakup and, accordingly, woke up with a tiny bee sting of a headache and the hangover to match. It was like a 3/10 hangover but for some reason it was enough to make me think "I hate this, I don't want to do this anymore." I went that day without booze. Then I went the next day without booze. Then I went the day after that without booze.
At three days you want to get to a week.
At a week you want to get to two.
At two weeks you want to get to a month.
At one month you want to get to two.
At two months you want to get to three.
Three months is different. When you get to three months the next mountain is six months. Four doesn't mean anything anymore. We're counting big time only. So, yeah, you want to get to six months because you believe you can get to six months.
At six months you say "I'm going for a year." Seven, eight, nine —— these numbers are meaningless now. You want to turn six into twelve which turns back into one.
At one year you want to get to forever.
I haven't had a drink in five and a half years. When people ask me about it I tell them it was no big deal. I say things like "it wasn't that hard," and "it's a lot easier than it used to be." Thing is, it was a big deal. And it still is.
I have always liked altering my consciousness a great deal. However much you are picturing, make it more and make it bigger and then make it more bigger. I drank a lot and did so regularly for most of 25 years but I never once thought I had an addiction issue. Like, sure, biologically and physically my body and brain and blood had some kind of addiction (thanks genetics!) but psychologically? Nah guy.
I drank a lot but I wasn't psychologically addicted to drinking. I was psychologically addicted to avoiding my thoughts and feelings or at least rerouting them. I used booze to suppress most of who and what I am and I did so in order to fit in. To blend in. To fade away. To self-efface. To take everything special and unique about me and drown it. It worked until it didn't. It worked for 25 years but one day a part of myself I hadn't seen in ages stepped out from behind a bush (or whatever) and said "my guy we simply aren't going to do this anymore." It wasn't a request. It was a statement of fact. That part of myself wasn't asking me to straighten up and fly right. It wasn't interested in 12-stepping me. Rather, it just turned me around and pointed the way and started walking me back to the place I should have been all along.
It took me until my mid 40s to understand that I wasn't garbage. That my life had value and meaning. That I was worth anything. I drank to suppress every good and true and unique thing about myself because I was told in no uncertain terms that those parts of me were bad, wrong, stupid, pathetic, unpalatable, unlikeable, unloveable, irredeemable, insufferable. I was told to change. To be more like other people. To like what they liked and want what they wanted.
I tried. I distinctly remember a moment in Grade 9 or 10 where I decided, very deliberately, to try out a different look. It was 1992 or 1993 and I leaned hard into mid-1980s country club prep. Cable-knit sweater. Chinos. Penny loafers. "Maybe this is who I am" I said to my reflection in the mirror. (It wasn't.)
I was intimately acquainted with the concept of artifice and entirely aware of the mutability of pretty much everything (including signs and signifiers and style as language) as a tween. Later, as if on a dare, I did change. I liked what they liked and wanted what they wanted and it never felt right and it never felt true but boy howdy everyone was a lot nicer to me. I instantly knew that learning that Shibboleth was both important and powerful while also being utterly meaningless.
This is the second part of a story about neuroplasticity, growth, and how old dogs can learn new tricks. And you're only part way through it. The next part will come out on the day that I write and publish it, most likely in the next few weeks.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch to
🌳 grass sleep
🌷 now
Be good to yourself.
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