Look Brie, We're Riding a Bike!

A few weeks ago, we went up to Park City to go mountain biking for Recreation Therapy.  It was dreamy - a break from the unrelenting heat of the Utah summer, and pines and quakies and wildflowers everywhere.  One of my dearest friends and sidekicks in treatment was Sarah.  (FYI, any names that are real on this blog are only used with the person's express permission - and I won't ever divulge any personal information obtained in a therapeutic (or any other) setting; additionally, stories or details given that are true are, again - written here only after permission to do so has been given.

Ahem - back to mountain biking in beautiful Park City:

Sarah and I had been put in the group of youngsters: there were about five women who were technically teenagers, because many of them were still eighteen or nineteen, and then there was me and Sarah - the old ladies in the group.  We're both in our mid-dish 30's, and I know everyone will want to tell me that we're not old, and I know, I know - we're not that old.  But we really ARE "that old" when compared to a passel of sprightly teenagers who don't have bum knees (Sarah) and arthritis and asthma (me).  So we're biking, and in less than 56 seconds, they (the sprightly teenagers) have zoomed about 459 miles ahead of us, but Sarah and I didn't mind.  We quite contentedly biked lazily and gratefully at the back of the pack, enjoying the view, the clean mountain air, and reveling in the strength and resilience of our bodies when free from substances.

I could hear Sarah not far behind me.  It was a comfortable and companionable silence; this woman and I know almost everything about each other, and only love each other more fiercely because of it: our messy and complicated stories are full of pain and sadness, but we both see the beautiful - if flawed - women underneath all of that.

We are both women now with our eyes turned to God, and with vulnerable hearts and willing hands.  You can be the worst of the worst, but if God gladly rejoices in our earnest and sincere return to Him, then the worst of the worst can be the best of the best - because anything is possible with God.

I hear, just over my shoulder, Sarah say, simply and emphatically, "Look Brie, we're riding a bike!"  I laugh.  "Hell yes," I shout, "WE ARE RIDING A BIKE!"  Sarah then returns with "We are riding a bike AND being productive members of society!"  I laugh hysterically.  "How are we being productive members of society by riding a bike on a mountain with NO SOCIETY even around?"  Sarah: "Well, I'm not stealing any money from ANYONE right now, and we're not out in public being like drunk and disorderly, so that counts as being super productive, even if we don't have jobs!" I laugh.  My heart is soaring. "Yeah, Sarah, we are riding a bike indeed, being the best members of society ever. They really should all be thanking us."

We keep riding, happy and still totally abandoned by the sprightly teenagers, and now just kindasorta out of breath and alittlealot sweaty.  I hear Sarah swear and see her bike swerve out of the corner of my eye.  "You okay?" I call over my shoulder, and Sarah, back in control of her bike, yells "YES I'M OKAY!  I'M SO OKAY!  A BUTTERFLY JUST SMACKED ME IN THE FACE!"  "Wha--?" I yell back, "How is a butterfly smacking you in the face "so okay?"" And she yells back, "Because that butterfly smacking me in the face was LIFE interacting with me.  Life is happening right now, everywhere!  Don't you see?  LIFE IS SMACKING US IN THE FACE!"  And I'm laughing, and I'm wondrous, because I do see it - life smacking me in the face everywhere I look: those cute duckies in the pond I just passed?  Life smacking me.  The summer sky, so blue it's so beautiful it almost hurts?  Life and it's beauty smacking me in the face.

Bringing Mila a surprise lunch with extra treats - smack!

I have learned something about myself (and other grateful recovering alcoholics and addicts): we marvel at the smallest things, because in our addictions, we felt nothing, loved nothing, appreciated nothing.  Life wasn't smacking us in the face, because we didn't want or allow it to - we instead compulsively allowed darkness and despair to smack us, over and over and over.  Just having a clean body, that we can feel getting stronger and stronger brings us gratitude and is a giant life smacker.  Going to a movie or getting through a weekend clean and actually enjoying it is marveled at.  So, you have to understand - mountain biking in Park City with a best friend?  Sober?  With a strong (if kinda old) body?  Like, this is the best smacking that life has ever offered us.  Those of us that really want recovery will be grateful and excited for it all, and you'll be able to discern between those of us that Want It, and those of us that Don't Want It.  Because there is a difference between being clean and being sober.  And gratitude is most of that whole difference - those of us that throw our pride aside and adopt a habit of gratitude will have a higher likelihood of lasting recovery and sobriety, because we will find joy and we will recognize all the little and big smackings that life gives us, from simple bike rides where butterflies smack our face and we erupt with wonder and giddiness and joy, to celebrating our sobriety milestones and beyond.  An addict who is clean, but perhaps only grudgingly clean, will not see or appreciate life smackage.  And it is very sad, and I pray for these amazing and deserving addicts to ask for and experience and be grateful for all the smackings that life has to offer.

Field seats at an RSL game on a dreamy summer evening - smack!

When we are grateful, we will see life smacking us in the face almost every moment of every day, and this goes for the addicted as well as the normies.  You can never have had an addiction and still be the most miserable, lonely, and prideful person out there.  If you want life smacking moments and all of the Good Stuff God has to offer, you can have them - and you can have them now.  Choose to smile, even when you're having kind of the worst day ever.  Be nice to the struggling teenager who messes up your lunch order.  Leave a kind and sincere comment on someone's Facebook or Instagram account that normally irritates the hell out of you.  Be the person responsible for someone else having a life smacking moment, and then you'll see your own life smacking moments appear everywhere.

Bringing a NON-ALCOHOLIC drink to share with friends - smack!

I'm not kidding.  Gratitude is changing my life.  Sobriety is changing my life.  I spent my darkest days in so much pain, that I didn't think that I could bear to keep breathing if I was not intoxicated in some way.  Life couldn't smack me in the face because I stopped believing that life smackage could ever become a reality in my life again.  But they are!  Life doesn't give up on us, we do. Life is smacking you in the face every other damn minute, but it is up to YOU to recognize these moments, and to revel in it and have gratitude for it.

Most of us, if mountain biking in Park City, would curse a butterfly flitting in our face, especially if it caused us to nearly crash (bless your heart, Sarah!).  But not Sarah - Sarah turned that into a life smacking moment, because Sarah really should be dead, or in prison, from her drug use.  She understands that her having the opportunity to get clean, and mountain bike in Park City, and almost crash from that butterfly face smackage SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN A REALITY, LIKE EVER.  So, Sarah has gratitude, and because of that, Life smacks Sarah in the face hugely and abundantly.  Life doesn't care that she is an addict, and many other labels she's been given by society because of said drug use.  Life is just happy she is grateful, and happy she is aware of all the little smacking miracles, and thus, Life is super happy to keep all that smacking up.

When you and your sissy happen to choose identical nail polish out of over 350 choices when we got our nails done - smack!

Sarah taught me something important that day.  She taught me that I want life to interact with me and to smack me in the face.  Like Sarah, I shouldn't be clean and sober and grateful today.  I should be dead, or in prison.  I shouldn't have been welcomed with open arms into the residential treatment center that changed (and saved) my life.  I shouldn't have been forgiven for all the chaos I caused and the havoc I wreaked and the pain I doled out.  If anything should be smacking me, it should be perhaps losing relationships that matter to me, or maybe even my freedom - that's the smacking I deserve.  Instead, Life is smacking me in the face, and it is so good, and so cool.

That adoring look you get from your pretty perfect daughter - smack!

I am having lunch with my sisters, and rebuilding my relationships with them.  I am having way too much fun (and Mila not quite enough) doing her hair every morning before school in fun and creative ways that look much better on Pinterest than they do on my dear daughter's sweet head; bless her heart.  I shop and eat with my best friends I was in treatment with, and we're all still here and we're all still sober - holy smack!  SMACK SMACK SMACK!!!  I snuggle my pack (yeah, that means a lot) of pets.  I make dinner for my family.  I help Cade with his math homework (and discreetly Google how to do long division; math is hard).   

Time spent with the "Quad Squad" - my besties - I have enough friends now to constitute a "quad" - smack!

All of these moments may seem small, or unimportant.  But they aren't.  They mean everything to an alcoholic and an addict who played Russian Roulette with her life and her alcohol and drug use for way too long.  To a woman who asked God maybe a hundred times a day, maybe a thousand: Why am I here?  They are everything to a hopeless and shameful Mormon mother who spent every night, while her family slept, talking herself out of ending it all.  They are everything because I should have nothing.  They are everything because I should be nothing, and am instead becoming a loving and silly and courageous mother, wife, and human being.  Conquerer.  Woman Warrior.   Queen.  Flawed and kind of maddening, sure, but still something - definitely not nothing.

Lunch with a few of my sisters - chips and salsa and sarcasm - smack!

 Love your life smacking moments, and don't forget to smack the hell out of life right back.  Ride that bike.  Ask for help.  Go to treatment.  Love on your kids a little harder.  Smile more.  Be brave.  Take that risk.  Be open, and vulnerable, and real.  Surrender to your Higher Power.  Be willing to love yourself.

I love myself now - and am not afraid to show you my eyes, because I'm no longer afraid of what you will see in them - smack!

And then, turn your face to the sky, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and feel your beautiful life smacking you right in your beautiful face.

It feels awesome, huh?
Toldja.