#BlogElul 22 - Dare

Go ahead - I dare ya! 

I dare me. 

Sigh.

I do dare almost as well as I do change, and I don't actually do change. Change happens; I don't do it. Change is a twister from Kansas, dropping on me like, well - like a houseful of bricks. All that's left sometimes are my shins (battered and bruised) and my stockinged-feet. Dorothy has already taken off with my shoes.

There are days I'd have to climb a ladder up from dare to get to the ease and grace with which I do change.

I have lived a life mostly ruled by fear. Fear of failing. Fear of succeeding. Fear of fitting in - or not. Fear of appearing weaker than, less than, vulnerable. Fear of being found out, not measuring up. Being alone, having friends. I have learned to live with my odd inconsistencies and juxtapositions. It's hard to dare, with all that fear going on.

As a result, I live a very little life, skating along the edges and staring wistfully, resignedly - fearfully - at the center.

It's lonely out here.

I used to think it was safer, being this far away. I used to think I would never get hurt by living small and undaring. I used to think that I could drink myself courageous. I used to think no one would - could - ever love me, but that if I could make you need me, that would be good enough. I used to think a lot of things. Most every one of them was wrong.

I spent a lifetime of "Don't you dare!" 

And then you get sober. And then you get married. And then you have a baby. And you buy a house and you keep not drinking and and you get divorced and you still keep not drinking and you watch over this child who continues to teach you how to love and you start breathing again, almost for the first time in your whole life and you don't drink and you make breakfast and you clean up puke and you pay the bills and you stumble around and get lost and feel broken but you do it all anyway and you get this gift, this amazing, miraculous gift of love - pure and unconditional and filled with trust and grace, and shitty stuff happens to you and astoundingly breathtaking things happen and you're still freaking terrified but you put one foot in front of the other every day and you get out of bed you love - God! you love that boy every day, even on the days when there is just not enough duct tape in all the world to contain him.

And you realize, without ever noticing it, that you have lived a bold and daring life. Even through the fear, you have learned to dare. 

(c) Stacey Zisook Robinson

2014

22 Elul 5773: Dare

On my one year sober anniversary, I felt somewhat at a loss. I mean, really-- how in the world do you celebrate anything, if not with a flute or seven of champagne (merely as a prelude to the serious drinking that was sure to follow)? I went to my regular meeting and announced for all the world to hear (or at least the 27 people who were present): I have one year, today.

I'd seen the drill a thousand times. OK, maybe not a thousand, but at least one or two at every meeting I went to (which was pretty much a daily occurrence), someone announce his or her anniversary. Some counted days. Some, months. There were many of these folks at every meeting. For some, it took months, sometimes years, to put some time together. Often, we'd hear "I have 3 days. Again" or "I'm back. Got two weeks this time." Some iteration of time and desperation and hope.

Incremental anniversaries were announced, but there were always a helluva lot fewer people making these announcements as the years went up. Two years. Three. Seven. Seventeen. With each bigger chunk of time, the number of people to reach those milestones became fewer. One year anniversaries were kinda special. At the one year mark, it was as if you had crossed a magic line-- you'd made it, member of the club. Not that it would be a slam-dunk guarantee of sobriety, forever and ever, world without end, amen. Not that (not ever that). But at a year, there was a recognition that, at the very least, there was a chance that sobriety just might stick. 

So I announcded my anniversary. I felt a little proud; I felt a little lost. There was applause and exclamatory congratulations flew across the room. I got the obligatory "How'd ya do it?" followed quickly with my equally obligatory "With the help of God and the fellowship of this program!" It was a script we'd all played at before, in one role or another. Right at that moment, I didn't believe a word of any of it.

Frankly, I had no idea how the hell I'd stayed sober for a year. 

We went for coffee and to grab a bite after the meeting. No champagne. :) I got a chip-- a brass coin-- embossed with a giant Roman numeral I on one side, and "To thine own self be true" on the other. I got a rose. And I got a card. The front was kinda sappy-- watercolor flowers and "Hooray! Hooray!" Lots of exclamation points. Or at least, it felt like a lot. I opened it. 

This was another of those truth things, found unexpectedly. It hit me between the eyes and took my breath away. Hooray, hooray--

"You did the thing you feared the most!"

And I realized, in that instant, that I had. Sobriety was a terrifying prospect when I was just starting. How in the world can you live without a drink to calm you and protect you and put a glassy, fluid shield between you and the rest of the universe? How in the world do you face life raw and vulnerable? How in the world can anyone dare to hope-- that things will change, the life gets better, that there is forgiveness and perhaps even love? 

How? A day at a time. A day at a time, a minute, an hour, a breath-- you do the thing you fear the most. 

In honor of that long ago moment, that changed my life and opened my heart; in honor of this month of Elul, for today, for this moment, I will dare to live of life of hope. I will dare to trust, and pray, and believe. For today, I will let faith overrule my fear. For this moment, I will brave the shadows. For today, I will reach out to offer strength and kindness, to shine a light in your darkness.

For today, for this moment, in this breath-- this eternal and infinite breath-- I will do the thing I fear the most, and I will dare to leap...