9 Months Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I recieve my 9-month coin. It's interesting that today of all the days over the last 9 months is the day I had this sudden urge to drink. What? How is that possible? My sponsor says it is the way my mind and body are reminding me that I am indeed an alcoholic. 

These last 9 months have been strange and I know tomorrow I will be asked, "can you share how you did it?" Every other time I have rattled off the expected response that everyone rattles off, "I go to meetings, I got a sponsor, we work the steps, I do service work..." 

The reality is different for me. I kept myself distracted and checked off boxes. 

It's like the original Super Mario Brothers... you know, the 1985 version? 

The concept is simple, beat each level and rescue the princess. But there are ways to get ahead. First, you can go down a pipe to secret coin rooms and then you enter the game a little further ahead. Or if you're lucky, you can find a starman and become essentially invincible. All you have to do is touch an enemy to get through. 

The problem with the starman is that we often try to race through the game, to get as far ahead as we can before time runs out on the superpower. I'll be honest, I'm not a good video game player so most of the time, I either run into a turtle or get fired on my flower, or simply don't see the gap ahead of me. I basically end up dying and have to start over, either at the beginning or one of checkpoints along the way. 

Or, you can take your time, you can go down a pipe and collect coins - which eventually give you extra lives. 

So, I got to 9 months because I decided to take the Starman - thinking I could take the easy route because I can outside the program. 

But what I found is that the better way is to go down the pipe. Not just to get coins, but because it's usually darker down in the pipes and there's a lot of muck I need to wade through. I did my fourth step 3 weeks ago today - and I derailed after it because I didn't take the program seriously. Doing the work isn't about intellectualizing and rationalizing my way through it. For me it's about actually taking time to sit in muck, to not get sidetracked by the starman along the way who tells me I'm special and can do it my way without looking at the bigger picture. I restarted the steps last week because even though I haven't relapsed, I feel like the shit I did before I entered the program - and I'm not willing to cheat myself out of recovery. I have to feel, not just know why, my life had become unmanageable. 

That's probably not the happy clappy version you wanted to hear - because this isn't supposed to be a starman program - it's lifelong. Might as well take the time to do it as best you can. 

Taking My Sparkle Back

Scholastic book fairs were always a highlight during my elementary school years. Second grade was the year when reading became a passion. 

Diving into worlds of make-believe that others created hooked me. 

Imagining the worlds that other people like me created drew me in. 

I lost myself in books.

In second grade, probably near the end of the year, the librarian at my Elementary school took me to the back wall and handed me a chapter book, The Secret Garden. She believed my reading skills were such that I could finish it in a month. I checked it out on her recommendation, but the vocabulary was far too advanced for me at that age so I returned it having only maybe read two chapters. The next time I picked it up was when I was in High School; we had moved to Ecuador and it was not readily accessible to me during those years when my reading skills improved 

In second grade my vocabulary was more on par with the words in the book The Kindles Find a Home. Like most children, the vibrant pinks and yellows on the Scholastic booklet enticed me. 

"Welcome to the magical land of the Kindles! It's a fantasy forest where music makes the honeybud trees grow. The Kindles love to sing with gladness but now an evil sorceress wants to end their happiness forever. It's up to Sparkli to lead the Kindles out of danger!"

Sparkli! Yes, this was the book for me. What 7-year-old American girl doesn't love sparkles? Seriously, what CHILD doesn't love sparkles? 

Sparkles were magic. 

I had a sparkle baton.

I'm sure my sticker book was full of sparkle stickers. 

Sparkles was a name my dolls often had in the stories I made up. 

Sparkly was the name I landed on at some point for my future daughter's name.

Sparkle ruffles lined the neck of my tumbling leotard.

Sparkles.were.magic. 

I NEEDED this book. My parents, despite our relative poverty, bought me the book. 

AND I LOVED THIS BOOK! It was everything it promised to be and I read it over and over. This is the book that defined my second-grade year. Like most of us, I outgrew this children's book. Somewhere along the way, it was lost or sold in a garage sale. Over the years I would think about it. In late May this year, it invaded my thoughts again and I went into a deep dive looking for it online, googling the premise of the book. I found it; I ordered it. 

It was as magical as I remembered. I CONTINUE TO LOVE THIS BOOK. 

I looked up my Amazon order history today and noticed I purchased it on May 30. God is always speaking, but I think we notice God's presence in retrospect. There were things in motion that were leading me to take my sparkle back; the sparkle I lost from around 1988/1989. 

In September of 1988, we moved to Ecuador. It was rough. I didn't speak Spanish, I was ripped away from the family and friends I had grown up with. My body had to acclimate to the different foods and contaminated water. I was homesick and miserable. I look back on these years as a time of transition that helped me grow as a person, and I have no resentment toward it. This move was not done out of malice, and it's an experience I look back on as a time when I learned resiliency. 

It was also an era in my life when the innocence and silliness of my childhood came to an end. 

I don't know how, or the exact date, that my sparkle baton broke. But I know it broke in Riobamba while visiting my grandparents. I still see the rippling glittery water dripping through my fingers; one half of the broken baton in my other hand. 

I didn't cry; I had been called a "crybaby" my entire childhood. 

The last vestiges of my sparkle were gone in that moment. My childhood ended. My joy was gone.

But there is always hope: Today, tomorrow and for the rest of my life, I'm taking my sparkle back