National Beer Day: A complicated celebration.
I've been on a blogging sabbatical lately because I've been struggling with WHERE to write. One of the struggles with blogging in the 'world of technology' is that I don't want to lose my writings but I also am 'finding my niche' in the process.
I'm learning that my blog can support and motivate my writings that I do for a living and they CAN work together.
Making it actually happen is a whole new monster.
Meanwhile, today is national beer day. I usually write on my calendar, the national holidays, to focus my scattered brain and start with some sort of collective holiday. Thinking as I start the day, "who knows how many others sharing this blip of existence will be thinking the same positive thoughts, themes, perspectives as me today - no one, someone, anyone?".
Like the empathy we experience at a concert, the shared experience, I put on my underwear as I consider the hashtags for my blog. (somewhat pathetic? meh)
I think about my complicated relationship with beer. I remember my first sips of beer on the pontoon boat, in the heat of summer, as I begged my mom for anything to quench my thirst. All we had on the boat, littered with adults basking in sun and smoke, was iced beer in a cooler. I was maybe six and remember the fizz and stale taste in my mouth as on-lookers laughed at my reaction.
I remember learning how to open a can of beer for my dad, both bottle-top or aluminum can, without damaging any part of the counter top or my brittle fingernails (painted in Lisa Frank orange perhaps). I was cresting eight when I remember feeling pride when my dad's friends came to the house to watch the Superbowl, and I knew how to open beer and cheer at the right times... when to be quiet too.
I remember not having any curiosity about beer or drinking at all really by the time my peers were sneaking alcohol from their parents' liquor cabinet. My mom was a raging alcoholic and by the time I was a pre-teen, her boyfriend had already masturbated in my presence while my mom lay passed out on the dining room table. I remember feeling neglected to the comparison of Michelob Light's attention and was relieved when my mom ran out of beer. Despite her irritable attitude, at least we'd adventure into town and I could get a cold Flinstone push-up pop. Sometimes the gas station 'adventure' was the only time in that three day weekend I would eat something, drink anything other than nasty tap or homemade drinks made by mom that Mike thought fun to 'spike' once in awhile. I liked learning the name of the person behind the counter and imagined that if my step-dad were having a 'bad weekend' that perhaps they'd remember me if I came screaming their name? Yeah, beer.
I didn't gain the freshman fifteen because I didn't 'discover' alcohol or getting drunk. I did however turn to self-sabotage and alcoholism when I completely gave up on myself and wanted to crawl inside some created identity for myself; when I decided to become my mother. After surviving ovarian cancer, 'getting healthy' and doing everything 'right', I still found despair and depression, or should I say, it found me. I was married, I was supposed to be happy, and yet I couldn't bare children. Infertility, a deep rooted feeling of failure that would never go away, no matter how healthy I tried to become. So, I did the opposite, I became really unhealthy. I destroyed everything I could and let everything I couldn't control, destroy itself with time and neglect. Like a black vine growing over my newly started adulthood celebrations, a pint of Rum could make it all seem beautiful. I floated along for almost six years before getting completely sober and forcing another big life change.
A new person emerged after nearly a decade of adventuring through back alley ways of human pulp. Working law enforcement, social services, working sixty hours a week to come home to a party that never ends; sleep never finding you. Health is nothing but a billboard trying to sell soap out of your price range.
Somewhere in my clarity, after my self-punishment and detoxing, but before the Universe gifted me a family, I found SURRENDER. I didn't need drugs, alcohol, sugar, or anything for that matter. I had me. I loved me. A new place of happiness and a peak of strength. It was here I found my husband and soon after, was gifted with children.
How does this bring me back to National Beer day? Well, my husband and my dad (both two important figures in my life), adore the occasional beer. My children at the age of only five and four, can also fetch a beer from the fridge and can recognize dad's favorite box in the liquor store. The boys know I don't drink beer, but I'll taste it, enjoy it, and do it on my terms. That's when you realize YOU ARE THERE. You can do what the groups tell you not to, because spiritually speaking, when you have the wisdom to combat impulse and desire, you can manage balance.
Everything in moderation and everything with good intentions. If you can master this, in the small things - and in everything, I think that is peace. That is my ultimate goal. With beer, I've come a long way. I can still taste that first fizz in the back of my throat with the sound of my mother's laughter and applause. I can remember stealing beer from my dad, for my high school friends, and him always knowing it wasn't me. I remember the dark nights of divorce and the deepest pits of alcoholism both through the eyes of the victim and the abuser. I thought I hated beer and everything it stood for and then I took a step back. Now, I can appreciate sobriety, my abstinence, my reasons for it all. I can happily hand my husband a beer during a Yankees game with no resentment and I can still find those happy days with my dad somewhere in my mind. I can go out and try new brews, explore fermentation, support local breweries and business, even explore the parings of food to drinks with beer. There is a lot I can do without fear now that I have learned balance.
I can celebrate after surrender.
Thank you Beer. (yay beer, I prefer Red stripe or Red IPAs)
I'm learning that my blog can support and motivate my writings that I do for a living and they CAN work together.
Making it actually happen is a whole new monster.
Meanwhile, today is national beer day. I usually write on my calendar, the national holidays, to focus my scattered brain and start with some sort of collective holiday. Thinking as I start the day, "who knows how many others sharing this blip of existence will be thinking the same positive thoughts, themes, perspectives as me today - no one, someone, anyone?".
Like the empathy we experience at a concert, the shared experience, I put on my underwear as I consider the hashtags for my blog. (somewhat pathetic? meh)
I think about my complicated relationship with beer. I remember my first sips of beer on the pontoon boat, in the heat of summer, as I begged my mom for anything to quench my thirst. All we had on the boat, littered with adults basking in sun and smoke, was iced beer in a cooler. I was maybe six and remember the fizz and stale taste in my mouth as on-lookers laughed at my reaction.
I remember learning how to open a can of beer for my dad, both bottle-top or aluminum can, without damaging any part of the counter top or my brittle fingernails (painted in Lisa Frank orange perhaps). I was cresting eight when I remember feeling pride when my dad's friends came to the house to watch the Superbowl, and I knew how to open beer and cheer at the right times... when to be quiet too.
I remember not having any curiosity about beer or drinking at all really by the time my peers were sneaking alcohol from their parents' liquor cabinet. My mom was a raging alcoholic and by the time I was a pre-teen, her boyfriend had already masturbated in my presence while my mom lay passed out on the dining room table. I remember feeling neglected to the comparison of Michelob Light's attention and was relieved when my mom ran out of beer. Despite her irritable attitude, at least we'd adventure into town and I could get a cold Flinstone push-up pop. Sometimes the gas station 'adventure' was the only time in that three day weekend I would eat something, drink anything other than nasty tap or homemade drinks made by mom that Mike thought fun to 'spike' once in awhile. I liked learning the name of the person behind the counter and imagined that if my step-dad were having a 'bad weekend' that perhaps they'd remember me if I came screaming their name? Yeah, beer.
I didn't gain the freshman fifteen because I didn't 'discover' alcohol or getting drunk. I did however turn to self-sabotage and alcoholism when I completely gave up on myself and wanted to crawl inside some created identity for myself; when I decided to become my mother. After surviving ovarian cancer, 'getting healthy' and doing everything 'right', I still found despair and depression, or should I say, it found me. I was married, I was supposed to be happy, and yet I couldn't bare children. Infertility, a deep rooted feeling of failure that would never go away, no matter how healthy I tried to become. So, I did the opposite, I became really unhealthy. I destroyed everything I could and let everything I couldn't control, destroy itself with time and neglect. Like a black vine growing over my newly started adulthood celebrations, a pint of Rum could make it all seem beautiful. I floated along for almost six years before getting completely sober and forcing another big life change.
A new person emerged after nearly a decade of adventuring through back alley ways of human pulp. Working law enforcement, social services, working sixty hours a week to come home to a party that never ends; sleep never finding you. Health is nothing but a billboard trying to sell soap out of your price range.
Somewhere in my clarity, after my self-punishment and detoxing, but before the Universe gifted me a family, I found SURRENDER. I didn't need drugs, alcohol, sugar, or anything for that matter. I had me. I loved me. A new place of happiness and a peak of strength. It was here I found my husband and soon after, was gifted with children.
How does this bring me back to National Beer day? Well, my husband and my dad (both two important figures in my life), adore the occasional beer. My children at the age of only five and four, can also fetch a beer from the fridge and can recognize dad's favorite box in the liquor store. The boys know I don't drink beer, but I'll taste it, enjoy it, and do it on my terms. That's when you realize YOU ARE THERE. You can do what the groups tell you not to, because spiritually speaking, when you have the wisdom to combat impulse and desire, you can manage balance.
Everything in moderation and everything with good intentions. If you can master this, in the small things - and in everything, I think that is peace. That is my ultimate goal. With beer, I've come a long way. I can still taste that first fizz in the back of my throat with the sound of my mother's laughter and applause. I can remember stealing beer from my dad, for my high school friends, and him always knowing it wasn't me. I remember the dark nights of divorce and the deepest pits of alcoholism both through the eyes of the victim and the abuser. I thought I hated beer and everything it stood for and then I took a step back. Now, I can appreciate sobriety, my abstinence, my reasons for it all. I can happily hand my husband a beer during a Yankees game with no resentment and I can still find those happy days with my dad somewhere in my mind. I can go out and try new brews, explore fermentation, support local breweries and business, even explore the parings of food to drinks with beer. There is a lot I can do without fear now that I have learned balance.
I can celebrate after surrender.
Thank you Beer. (yay beer, I prefer Red stripe or Red IPAs)
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