I’m honestly shocked that five weeks at home with my family has not been that awful. You’ve been privy to my struggles and you know some of the core wounds that have presented themselves in time of relative economic security, peace, and unlimited toilet paper. But, despite my addict-brained best efforts, the only outward fights have been between a united parent front and a child that is frustrated (rightfully so) at what the fuck is going on. Inward-looking, it’s been a bit of a hot mess, but after surviving all the bullshit of 2019, it’s been manageable.

I miss playgrounds. I miss bottomless chips and salsa with extra salt, consumed on an outdoor patio, mouthing “yes” to my husband when the waiter asks if we need a basket refill (did you not see the eating disorder post yet?). I miss those few blissful minutes between dropping my daughter off at school and driving to work in silence.

The best and worst thing about quarantine is that it has revealed my self care methods were not up to snuff. I would come home from daily walks in the initial weeks of quarantine pissed off, mentally calculating all the ways my husband had failed me, or just ready to cry in general.

I would dive deep in tragic books about America’s drug crisis (“Dreamland” is a great read and I do recommend it, but maybe not right now…) as a method of escape (Hey, it could be worse!), and come up for air without an attitude of gratitude (I’m just as shocked as you are).

I would compel myself to sit in my office chair, ready and willing to work and prove that I still had value, but sign off drained and disheartened. How the fuck has exercise, reading, and doing productive shit stopped working?

It stopped working because I was forcing it to work, willing it to work because if it didn’t work, I couldn’t imagine how I would stay sane. But here I was, sobbing like a fucking crazy woman as I power walked. So, as a sober addict and alcoholic, I had to pivot before I really lost my shit.

Step 1: Identify the immediate vibes

Why was I coming home pissed off with a mental inventory of everything wrong with my husband after a walk? Because there was so much wrong with the world, between shutdowns, personal pay cuts, friends experiencing layoffs, surreal grocery store announcements over loud speakers, our daughter’s loss of playdates and playgrounds, that my sick brain took all those powerless feelings and attempted to do me a solid by focusing on the one thing it was convinced I could have an impact on: my poor, poor husband. Luckily, pre-quarantine me set up a reminder on my phone to go off at 5 pm everyday reading:

“You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it or cure it”.

This was set up a for when I found myself just generally getting frustrated at my husband, but I have finally been able to make the jump to broadly applying that motto to everything happening today. He isn’t the problem, and even if he was as awful as my brain made him out to be, that’s not on me to correct (but for real, he’s not).

Why was I burrowing into sad, tragic books about lives that were irreparably harmed? Maybe that’s not the healthiest way to cancel out the noise of a world that is currently sad, tragic and full of lives irreparably harmed, but it was a coping mechanism that helped me survive growing up when my parents divorced, lonely summers, or when a friend died. Thank you survival technique, but that’s not quite doing the trick right now.

Why did I chain myself to my home office? I wanted to have some semblance of normalcy and tangible moments of value. I’m a grant writer for a nonprofit that has lost all sources of earned revenue due to government-imposed closure, and it is a scary time. Instead of sitting in how uncomfortable it is to be in the nonprofit world right now, I wanted so desperately to pretend that this is fine, we are fine, and I’m going to make us fine. I was only pushing myself over a ledge of my own creation.

I cannot rescue the world. I cannot soothe all the pain out there. I cannot singlehandedly save my company. I cannot control the quantity cap on Luncheables Pepperoni Pizzas for my online grocery order, even though that’s 1/3 of my child’s diet.

I cannot control anything except for how I want to react to an awful situation. I don’t want to be mad. I don’t want to find fault. I don’t want to scramble. I want peace.

Now, I recognize that being realistic about a shitty situation is healthy and normal. Having said that, making and adding to a list of negatives cannot bring peace, and is dangerous territory for an addict. Making an annual reminder of that time when my husband made so much spaghetti that it overflowed the pot and got everywhere? That brings me peace.

Step 2: Seek alternatives

There is a very good chance that quarantine life will continue for a while. This means I really need to take the time to figure out what will soothe me instead of forcing old-life methods to a new world. I am sober enough to not take my #walk-n-wails out on my family, and I kept the irrational displacement of powerlessness to select friends, never letting it be voiced to my husband because a global pandemic isn’t his fucking fault (unless he’s actually been a colony of bats in a trenchcoat this whole time).

I can implement boundaries at work, and that looks like taking the time during the day to engage in homeschool kindergarten, taking a BRIEF walk with headphones in and listening to old podcasts and music as white noise to reset the intense emotions of fundraising in a pandemic, and set realistic goals and actions for myself.

I can schedule daytime Zoom recovery meetings and leave my evenings reserved for family.

I can talk to my husband about my feelings, and give him space to share his. And I can let go if he doesn’t currently have any feelings coming up. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve mentally jumped to “he doesn’t trust me enough to share his feelings” or “he’s just stuffing them down and I better force them out”. Not my business.

I can encourage my daughter to feel her feelings, set up her Zoom calls with her teacher, and savor watching her wave to her classmates.

I can make a mental list of the goofy shit that happens when three people, two cats, and a dog are stuck together each and every day.

I can voice to a neutral party allllll my concerns, and then let them dissipate. Not every slight is real, and not every hurt needs to be remedied on the spot.

I can write a brief gratitude list, and acknowledge the days when it’s hard to find gratitude. That’s a very real human response to a global pandemic.

I can pick books that allow me to escape to a nicer reality and I can order those books from independent bookstores to help them out or discover new books for free on my library app. The dark, tragic books will still be there when it’s a good time to read them.

I can take on little tasks at home and feel like I have made a positive impact somewhere.

I can set up a cheap Walmart tent in my backyard and camp with my six-year-old to make some fun memories of quarantine time.

I use the phrase “ I can” because I am entirely capable of doing these things, and it’s a daily choice to pick up new behaviors or sit with the old. I hope that I will do these things as much as possible (well, after one night in the tent on a work night, I decided to implement a “weekends only” boundary).

Peace will find me if I make room for it. Letting my brain do a mad dash of insanity doesn’t offer space for peace, for God, or for quiet self reflection to occur. Being a sober addict doesn’t magically erase the brain from seeking quick fixes and unhelpful escape routes, so I extend myself the grace to continue to learn new behaviors and new tricks.

Grace is never in short supply.