I considered posting a bit of video on Instagram as I started having the thoughts I’ll detail below, but I realized I had too much to say.
At the start of this year, I didn’t intentionally set out to live as I am living now, but I knew I had begun to shift my priorities. Among them has grown to be the sense of trying to be a better friend. Not that I was a bad friend before but as the year progressed (and it’s early yet), my word for the year coalesced. The word is ‘GRACE.’ Grace when driving and other people are going slow. Grace when something is owed me but hasn’t materialized yet. Grace when someone irks me. Grace for myself, when I err or when I fall short. Grace for my loved ones, as we continue our relationships and they grow and change with us.
Another aspect of the year has been something I learned from Glennon Doyle. If it isn’t a HELL YES, it’s a NO from me. That NO is simple and firm. It isn’t a judgment, simply a product of how I spend my precious time and energy. This hasn’t been super easy. I’d often say yes in the past and spend time doing something or with people that didn’t fill my soul’s cup. I’d often say yes when I wanted to please others and appear more willing to bend myself into how they see me. It’s happened recently and though it tested my resolve to say NO, I realized I wouldn’t have to convince myself to go somewhere or be with certain people, if it was something I truly wanted to do. So, I said, No, even though the part of me that likes to please others thought I should force myself into a Yes. I’m facing another NO in the days coming but again, I don’t feel I should need to convince myself to want to spend time with people who are my friends, if that’s what they really are.
In saying all of that, how I define ‘friend’ is shifting as well. Friends are people who hear what I’m really saying and who continue to help me along this journey of creating and re-creating myself. Right now, that includes supporting my choice of being sober-ish. It’s a radical shift from just a few months ago (I really started down this road last August), but it’s gripped my soul with a radiant light the further down the road I get. How thrilling that I’ve seen my outlook and my inner light change so much in just a few short months! It’s meant big changes in how I socialize and it’s meant big changes in how I show up for the people in my life.
Part of showing up differently has meant, for me, to spread more grace when my friends are hurting. Supporting their choices instead of trying to exert some control over how I think they should be living their lives. It’s always easy to judge from the outside, but judgment is not what our loved ones are looking for when they lay their burdens at our feet. They want help carrying the load, not to be told how to carry it on their own from on high.
I’ve made space through grace for forgiveness, even when the hurt runs deep. In that forgiveness, I’ve made space to heal both for me and others, and that has created pathways to new understanding, even if the other persons only took a first step and then halted. Forgiveness and grace are not immediate, they are roads we journey on. I’ve made more space for the loved ones who show up sporadically but bring joy when they do. I’ve made space for reaching out across long silences to reconnect but I’ve also made space within me to end a connection when I realized it was injurious to my heart. Again, all of this without judgment. All of this without creating more conflict. Silence is an answer, just as No is a complete sentence.
I don’t know where I’m headed in this wild life of mine. It’s somewhere new and different and with the fog of alcohol lifted, I see better to chart my course to somewhere sublime. The people who stay with me on this journey are so important to me and those who may have veered off on their own course away from me, well, all I can do is wish them well and hope they find joy in their own way. As for me, I’m going to continue holding the word Grace like a shining golden orb in my chest and see how it alights when something is truly a HELL YES from me.