I did the thing that makes writers quake in fear and self-loathing: bumped into my little, ridiculously unstable TV dinner tray with my hip, and heard the slosh of my nearly-full tea mug as its contents tipped over this darling, brand-new little netbook. And yes, the tea contained honey, though thankfully not milk, which I’ve now read is basically a laptop hollow-point bullet.
I’m writing on it now, but the bottom left keys just don’t have the click they once did, and I’m debating on whether to try to return it or not, as I’ve only had it a couple of weeks.
The truth, though? I’m standing at my kitchen island typing this out on its keys, and guess what’s sitting right next to my arm? A big ol’ mug of coffee. With sugar and soy milk, no less. This morning I realized I was grappling with a lot of shame over what I’d done, the parental voice shouting at me about how I’d treated something new and costly. But now, I’m just a student/writer/gadget geek who likes a beverage with her stream of consciousness. I’ll be more careful on that wobbly little Ikea TV tray, but truly, expecting myself not to drink, eat, or pet my animals when I’m working from home is a bit ridiculous, and these things happen. Imagine if I had a puppy or a kid who knocked over the mug – would I scream at them about how they knew this would happen and did they know how much it would cost to replace?
Maybe I can think of this as more of an electronic hazing ritual: kind of like when we drop that gorgeous new cell phone on the pavement and it gets some huge scratch, but it’s otherwise fine. We’re disgusted by our clumsiness at first, but then it’s just a cell phone, and it works just as well with its laugh lines and crows’ feet – the scratches and dings become part of its identity. And we often don’t drop it as calamitously ever again. What the hell is that about? At any rate, maybe that’s what I’ve done, and my little machine now has a lazy “z” to remind me of what we’ve been through together. Like we got a tattoo to drunkenly, stupidly mark this new love forevermore. Or she did, at least.
Shame’s a toughie, though. So incredibly useless. So paralyzing. Are there people who can feel regret or anger without it turning to shame or self-blame? Could I interview them, please? Or get a wee bit of their brain fused with mine? Awareness, as always, is the first giant step, and I was very loving to myself every time I awakened during the early morning hours with a heaviness in my chest and a mild sense of persecution – I literally wrap my arms around myself and kiss my skin, saying “it’s okay, I love you” over and over again. It helps – it really does. It’s what a good parent would do, or a good partner/spouse. It’s what C would do if she’d been here with me – she’d have talked me down, stroked my skin, suggested all the things that could be done to make the situation better. To be able to do that for myself is seismic. What I’d really like this morning is to get to a meeting, but as recovery-intensive as this area is, there isn’t one on Thursday mornings, at least that I know of. I attend an open AA meditation meeting on Friday mornings that I’m definitely going to tomorrow – there is so much wisdom and humor in that room, and I think one thing AA folks have way over us Al-Anoners is their sense of humor. When you face death and choose to return, I guess you can find a lot to laugh about. Not that aspects of my life and recovery haven’t been pee-pants funny, but somehow as a group we seem to take ourselves far more seriously, always probing, thinking, processing. I guess that’s why we can still drink. Oh my, that’s kind of funny.
Newton Faulkner is my new music crush. “Hand Build by Robots” is the album, and I just can’t stop listening to it. He’s got this sexy, gravelly voice and great guitar skills, which pretty much amounts to love in my book, but he also writes some great lyrics and has a couple of rhythms that I hear in my head and can’t help dancing around to. One’s on right now (for real – not in my head) – “All I Got.”
Okay, so the laptop’s performed well through this first typing test (all typos are the tea’s fault, though – not mine). It’s time to get some morning chores done and then settle into using this for its intended purpose – getting my qualifying exam up to snuff. And if I get stressed, well, maybe you’ll hear from me again later.
