Sober 38
I’ve had thirty-eight sober Christmases, this Christmas, goddess willing, will mark thirty-nine. Alcohol has been an element in my life that defined me both in its presence and its absence. My father was a terrible drinker, a black-out, violent drunk who physically abused my mother, and scared me senseless. He was also a periodic so on many occasions a few glasses of wine resulted in normal behavior. But when the bottles mounted and especially when something harder was introduced, there was an atmosphere so toxic in my childhood it’s a miracle I survived. I almost didn’t. And, ironically, my father was one of the most wonderful humans in the world except when he was drunk. And then he was the monster of my nightmares. I would lie awake listening to the shouting and things breaking and my mother screaming and thought he would kill her. I had a recurring nightmare that my mother was dead, in a coffin, and I was being pushed through a crowd of people to tell her good-bye. I told them about this nightmare, but nothing happened.
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Am I an Elitist?
A year ago we moved to a beautiful northern Michigan Peninsula surrounded by lakes. Living in our Cape Cod-ish house has been largely uneventful, no bears, no wild-eyed men with guns asking directions to our governor's summer house, nothing to make us regret the decision to leave Chicago and settle in this small, bucolic town where nearly everyone is related (year-rounders) or at least knows whomever you are currently making snarky remarks about. You must be as careful as King Midas when you want to share that you don't like someone, or you're tired of people promising to invite you over and never doing it, or you can't believe there is no decent coffee shop that remains open after three o’clock in the afternoon (one in the winter).
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How to Talk to a Teenager: Just Don’t
If you have to talk to them, be extremely careful. Under no circumstances should you attempt to approach them without a clear indication that you accept you are an alien. You are not of their tribe. You are not sentient to their customs, traditions, gestures, or language. Don’t use terms like “treated,” “sweet,” “bling bling,” or “phat”. This behavior will risk instant exile. You are a stranger in a strange land. Don’t make eye contact, do not touch any of their possessions, don’t comment about their clothes, hair color, make up, the smell in their room, the lack of lighting or fresh air, or whether the tattoo of an eye covering most of your daughter’s lower back is, in fact, permanent.
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