Category: Relationships

our new home

November 5th, 2022

This is a good sleeping house. I say this because I’ve been sleeping better. My family has been sleeping better. The pets seem to have adjusted nicely too. I enjoy walking around the house. It’s not that big, but there’s a life path—a circle—that connects the study, the kitchen, living room, and dining room. There are windows, big ones, in all these rooms except the kitchen, so walking this path provides different pictures of the world each time. There’s frequent traffic and pedestrians, which I thought would drive me crazy, but that I enjoy. I feel that I’m in the middle of something, an activity, and it’s good for the spirit.

I sat in Earl’s rocking chair today under the light of my wife’s Grandma’s antique lamp and read Hallelujah Anyway by Anne Lamott. I’ve been picking away at that book for a couple years now. It’s short, 176 pages, but it’s not a read-through-it-right-away book. Not for me. It’s poetic. Prosey. So, I engage when the mood strikes me. I think I’d get along with Anne. Maybe not. She has spunk, is flawed, is thoughtful—maybe too thoughtful—and would be an excellent resource. A jaded oracle. A once wild Aunt that offers advice without saying a word. I could learn how to write better from her, as well. Which I suppose I’m doing by reading her work. In Earl’s rocking chair. That’s the name of the man who died several years ago. He lived a block and a half from our old house. His family had an estate sale. I bought his rocking chair, but never really used it. Now, I know why. It was meant for this house.

Writing, as much of an old friend and comfort that it is, is indeed work. And work needs doing. I haven’t been doing as much as I ought to. Now is the time when I should be most prolific. I’ve been around a while, have some experience under my belt, understand what works and doesn’t—for the most part—when it comes to life and writing. What needs to happen now is that I get over my laziness. This can only be done by setting aside excuses. I disguise my laziness and excuses by saying I choose to prioritize and devote energy to more important things, but watching Love is Blind with my wife at night while eating Doritos doesn’t require much energy. Or thought, for that matter.

When it comes to shows like that, I do enjoy seeing people make mistakes. Not because I want them to suffer, but because the mistakes they make—saying awful things, selfishness, portraying an image of themselves rather than their real selves gives them great opportunity to rise up and be better, but they don’t. I also like to see how relationships start, how they end, the intricacies of personal development, how people miss obvious moments for breakthroughs, but most of all, how people are unaware of the quiet importance of incremental growth.

Change can happen overnight, but slow and steady does win the race. Sitting with my wife for an hour at night, watching other couples screw things up, makes me thankful for what we have. I’m not sure what it is, exactly—the IT—but we have it, and it works, and I don’t think it’s something that can be labeled. I don’t want our marriage to be boiled down to one word or phrase because that isn’t who we are. We, like many other couples navigating this life, have a system that works. We are quiet about it. We do our own thing. We like it.

This new old house has us sleeping better. Feeling good. We’re on our path—a circle—that we know starts and ends in the same spot. There are windows along the way, places where we can stop and watch the world, and the world can stop and watch us. There’s frequent traffic and activity, inside and out, and I enjoy it because I feel that we’re all sharing this middle of something, connected, and our spirit grows.

~ KJ
get out and stay out

September 16th, 2022

It’s hard to open a mind that doesn’t want to be open. Same thing goes for hearts and souls. A lot of good people move through life unfulfilled because they’re unwilling to change their narrative. They’ve established a persona, a way people expect them to be, so they fear that being anything else will chip away at their armor, change perspective, and force them to be more than they are.

And they’re right.

Changing course can be challenging. Small movements and little steps can lead you to a better place or take you deeper into the rut. And one rut leads to another. Negativity breeds negativity. Repeating bad habits becomes routine. It doesn’t take long for people to close up, hole themselves away, and blame others for their lot in life. When that happens, it becomes extremely difficult to help them see life in a different light. If alcohol is involved, offering a hand to help someone pry themselves open is nearly impossible.

I knew I wanted to quit drinking. The difficult part was doing it. Not because I couldn’t live without drinking. Not because quitting would change friendships and activities but because drinking was a habit that fit a persona I created when I was younger. Being the drinker, the “fun” guy, the one that could drink no matter what, was what I believed I needed to get me through. I believed drinking helped me cope, made me relax, and helped me be me. I felt right when drinking. And so, to quit that—the ability to pour a glass and get right—was a bit scary.

Giving up a way of life isn’t easy. The day I stopped drinking alcohol wasn’t any different than any other. It came and went without fanfare. It was a private decision. One made on my own in the basement of our old house while on lunch break. All the little steps I had taken over 25 years, forward, backward, and sideways, had led me to the point where change was necessary. The time spent drinking was wasteful and selfish. I made horrible mistakes. Did nefarious things. None of which I would have done had I been sober. Drinking changed my brain. Oh, I thought there were good times, but I wonder now if those good times would have been better without a drink.

I get more out of the days now than I ever have. My ability to think and reason has improved. I have higher highs now, and I do not experience those low lows. If you’re a serious drinker, if you’re really good at it like I was, you know what I mean. Those lovely, sinking, emotional lows when it’s you against the world. Nobody cares. They just don’t get it. Everything has so much meaning but is meaningless at the same time. And you drink more and more because it’s easier to keep going on the path you’re on than to pull back, think of others, and stop.

But you know that’s exactly what you need to do.

Breaking the cycle, getting out and staying out, that’s the hard part. But once you make that break, you’re free. Sure, you have to deal with feelings. You have to begin thinking for yourself because the bottle’s not there to flavor your decision-making. But all it takes is a step. Then another, and another. And it’s not 12 steps. It’s more than that. Much bigger than that. And when you start heading in the right direction, open-minded with nothing to lose and everything to gain, you will be amazed at how productive, strong, and good you are.

~ KJ
the drinking brain after 1 year and 10 months of sobriety

September 4th, 2022

Taste of fall this morning. Cool, gusty wind coming off Grand Lake. Lots of waves. The temperature will probably stay below 70. Not cold, but not warm enough for swimming or dragging people around the water on a tube. So, our activities will be land-based. Cornhole, ladder ball, sitting and standing around, talking. All of this is fine and good, and I’m looking forward to it.

Me, these days, always looking forward. But also getting better at looking at the now. And right now it’s pretty good. I’m here with the dogs, with time to wake slowly and drink coffee and write.

I’m growing more comfortable relating to people. It’s not confidence, really. It’s comfort. I’m good with who I am, my flaws, and I understand my past better than ever before. People have much to offer. They have insights, challenges, needs, and desires. The world, as it turns out, is not about me or you. It’s about us and how we relate to one another. It’s about how we take advantage of opportunities to better ourselves, understand others, and carve out our happiness.

The older I get, the more I realize that I can do plenty of things. I know my wheelhouse, so I’m not overreaching, but I’m learning that my core competencies have depths to be explored. And that exploration is advanced and enhanced by letting others in. Meeting. Listening. Talking. But mostly, listening. And the strange thing is the more I engage with others, the more I know about myself. I am discovering what makes us tick.

Communicating is key. For strangers, co-workers, family, and friends. For the world. There are many barriers to break down and overcome, but once we stand on common ground or sit in a booth at a coffee shop, we make progress. We begin to know our potential. The sky opens, light shines, and we begin to see the goodness in work, family, and the mundane.

This level of thinking and approach to life would never have been possible had I kept drinking. Quitting alcohol has allowed me to brighten my days, help others, and let go of anxiety, fear, and frustration. Sure, I still experience those emotions, but it’s not like before. Waking up pissed off at the world, all wound up inside, stuffing frustration down repeatedly so that it built up and had to erupt, mostly over the stupidest things. Issues I created that weren’t really issues at all. But the drinking brain is disorderly in its organization. It believes chaos is the answer. It likes things messy, cluttered, in disarray. It creates a broken reality in which destructive behavior, carelessness, and selfishness are the norm. It’s a ME brain. It’s all about insulating oneself against the outside world because “nobody understands.”

The drinking brain says and does whatever it wants no matter what the situation or company because the drinking brain “tells it like it is” and “just states the truth.” The more you drink, the more “truths” you discover. Soon, you’re swimming in so many of these so-called truths that you cannot function because you cannot relate to others. Except for other drinkers, of course. And so you run with them. You go fishing, and you drink. You watch a game together and drink. You camp and drink. You bowl and drink. You golf and drink. You drink and drink. It’s fun, you think. Relaxing. You’re “just havin’ a good time.” And you do this, over and over again, no matter how shitty you sleep, how awful you feel, and how much regret builds because when you’re in it, that is the truth. Drinking is the answer because you’ve convinced yourself that it calms you, removes the fear, and alleviates anxiety. And when those around you think the same, you get trapped.

Drinking makes you into someone you aren’t meant to be, at least not permanently. I’m an alcoholic, I guess. That’s the term that helps others identify my vice, my flaws, my intentions, and what they should expect from me. But I don’t like that term because drinking is more than the alcohol. There are reasons people migrate to the bottle like bugs to a lightbulb. One is they want to feel better by not feeling at all. The drinker, like a bug, will keep moving toward that warm, fuzzy glow time and time again because they don’t know, or don’t want to remember, anything else.

But they can. And it doesn’t take AA or a priest or jail time or losing friends or hurting family. It takes finding that one moment when you know that it’s not for you, that it doesn’t make sense, that alcohol is, indeed, a poison. And when you understand that, it becomes much easier to grab that fleeting moment of clarity and flip the switch. Begin a different path, away from that promise of warm fuzziness, into reality. It’s not easy. Life is not easy, but it’s navigable. It’s manageable. And letting others in to help, listen, yell at you, play with you, care for you, puts you on the fast track to healing. Because when you open that door, welcoming strangers and family alike, with the intent of just being there in whatever capacity they need, you recognize that you are fixable and good, that you have much to offer, and everything to look forward to.

Be good to each other. Reach out.

~ KJ
9:30 am, Saturday Morning

August 6th, 2022

A morning alone at the cottage. No breakfast. Only coffee and water and the buzzing of the 40-year-old refrigerator fueling me as I head straightaway into two years of sobriety, fourteen years of marriage, and another autumn that leads to months of cold, stories unfinished, travels not taken, amends not made.

The water will run. Light will rise. All of it continues or ends but does not wait. I know I don’t have another second, minute, hour, or day, that nothing is mine. And as the traffic rolls North and South on US23—people engaged in gears and motion, the in-between moments of life—I’m aware that the lake will ripple, rock, then settle to glass with or without my touch. The big cedars will get as big as they can get with or without my daytime dreams from the hammock they hold. And everything the grass and air and flowers have heard from me, they will keep.

Individual importance lies in our unimportance. This realization betters one’s chances for peace. Fighting, posturing, siding, and pretending—your wanting to belong to something bigger—is wasted effort, unless, of course, you recognize the wastefulness. If you look carefully to find the spinning wheels beneath people’s motives, actions, and desires, it becomes easy to stop, disconnect, take a breath and peel away the layers you’ve created year after year after year.

Everything aside from the moment I’m in is extra. There are plans. Lists. Hopes. But none of that is guaranteed. There is only the now. Writing while looking out the big window that shows me the green and the blue, and the red swing, and the firepit with tinder and wood piled pyramid style ready and waiting for the next easy evening when we’re all here. At our cottage. Whomever we are. Whenever we are. Unplugged, in the dark, under the stars.

~ KJ
The Dad Job

May 11th, 2022

I don’t know where it all goes.

They were here yesterday, soft and playful. Running around the house all day. Needing me. Not for the important stuff. Mom is always there for that. But for games and feats of strength. To reach things up high. Carry them upstairs to bed. Tell them stories. Just be there. Good old, trusty Dad.

Years have passed while I worked, ate, slept, and paid bills. Now, my son drives. Drops off his younger sister at middle school and then shuttles himself down the road to the high school. My kids live lives outside the home. Academics. Athletics. They’re getting smarter and stronger. Engaging in experiences that sharpen senses, develop skills, grow awareness, and deepen hearts. Establishing independence. So, these days, I am a tree or statue. Maybe a rock, I’m not sure. Sometimes they acknowledge me.

My daughter, “Dad, can you open this jar for me?”

My son, “Dad, the car won’t start.”

In these moments, I suddenly feel heroic. I catapult off the couch or spring up from my basement office to assist.

You need olives? I got that! Twist and pop!

Looks like the lights were left on, buddy. Let me show you how to jumpstart it.

My role is changing and my experiences as Dad, as a person, are evolving. Of course, my kids are always going to need me, but the whole point is to nurture, educate, and love them as best I can so they don’t. They are supposed to get out there into the wild, get better at living, and put more good into the world than bad.

My Dad job’s not done. It’s not one I’ll ever retire from. But now, some of my energy can be focused elsewhere. I get to continue my learning and my growth and have as much fun as I can until I can’t reach the top shelf. Open jars. Remember how to start the car. Or until I need to be picked up and carried upstairs to bed.

~ KJ
into another day

April 22nd, 2022

Let the dogs out at 6:23 am. Was immediately grounded. Taken away from profit and loss, numbers, and the future by birds and sunrise. Cool, damp air. The dogs sniffing, running, doing their thing. The town so still. Quiet. And I remembered summers at the cottage that we haven’t yet had. As if this morning is a memory of memories. Layers we drift to and from, in between, as we wake and sleep. Dig deep or find ourselves floating.

It’s a good feeling, the fluidity. And much needed. A nice gentle, but firm reminder. Like your Mom. Taking your chin between her thumb and forefinger, shaking your head, just a bit. Playfully, but looking into your eyes, reminding you there’s much more going on in this world than you. Be aware, be kind, and don’t be stupid. Now, go on, play with your brothers, but make better decisions.

Words, lessons like that, enter the brain but don’t sit right and click, often for years. Some of us like to run up and down, all around this world and the ones above, below, and between, until we’ve run ourselves ragged. To a place we feel we can never continue. And that’s when you’re faced with choices. When you have an opportunity to reflect, consider, reason.

Many of us don’t use our time wisely. We’re unable to recognize opportunities. We don’t capitalize on them when we do. And so, we sit, get weak and weary and bitter, and we fit ourselves into routines we’ll never break from.

Others, we make the choice to continue on every single time we stop. Even if we’re tired. Weak. Sad. Broken to bits, picking our pieces up off the floor. It might take a while for us to get going again, back up to speed, functioning at full power, but we get there. And we seize opportunities. For us. For those around us. Because it’s much more than you and I. And sometimes, when we stand in the doorway letting morning hold us with its orange sunrise, cool touch and birdsong, we’re reminded of just that.

Here’s to another day.

~ KJ
they’re growing up

March 7th, 2022

artwork – old blue – © 2022 by Rita Stevens

All we need

we’ll take with us

when we go.

When we leave this place.

Move on to the next.

So, it’s okay

to enjoy

the plastic and metal,

the concrete and virtual.

Go ahead,

experience the highs

and lows.

Run,

walk.

Freefall.

Taste the salt of sweat and tears—our ocean.

Remember the puppies,

the ferret,

the porch full of stray cats,

a mouse in a box,

and birds.

Us, taking them all in,

no matter what.

Don’t forget the plastic turtle sandbox,

swing set,

and trampoline.

Trips to Bronner’s,

soccer fields,

our fishing spot.

Animal ice cream cones,

silks,

and

Camp Peace.

The walks

and hikes

and drives,

and how we always came back

to the big, old blue house.

That invisible connection

that will never break

and will always bring us

back

together again.

~ KJ
patterns to possibilities

March 4th, 2022

woman in red – heading home © 2021 by Rita L Stevens

Can’t go back. Not yet. Maybe one day. We’ll discover this is the metaverse. A computer program. A dream. Or not. The fact is even if we recreated the past, it wouldn’t be the past. That moment. It may feel the same, look and sound the same, but it is not that moment. There is only one moment every time there’s a moment.

Like now.

And we let the moments—our time in this experience—pass. With or without thought. In it or out of it. After all, if one was tuned into every moment, how long could one function? How long would they last? They may end up giving up on everything. Disregarding rules. Forgetting expectations. Abandoning relationships. Walking the streets, muttering to themselves, smiling and toothless, or pounding fists into the pavement. Fearful. Alone. Just voices and light and dark, warm and cold. Searching for fuel to keep the body moving, at least for a few days more.

Most of us fit into the system. Run along as best as we can within the structure. Marking days off the calendar. Checking off to-do lists and bucket lists and shopping lists. Identifying each other by our numbers, our belongings, the rungs we have or have not reached on the ladder to success. Some strange place or feeling that we’re supposed to have if we do this, that, and the other things.

But when we focus too much we can get just as lost as we do when we don’t focus at all. And so, we balance between today and yesterday. We do what needs to be done with an eye on tomorrow. Buckled into our routines, but aware there’s more to come if we make better choices, help others, make even the slightest step outside of our comfort zone.

A different path to work. A different chair at the dinner table. A subtle change in the pattern that shifts progress and alters our course, so we move beyond the pull of the past—wanting to be there again—and step, ever so slightly, into the possibilities of the unknown.

~ KJ
October 21, 2021

October 21st, 2021

“Writing is art,” she said. “Some paintings and artists offend people. You’ll piss off people. Others will like what you do.”

I sipped my coffee. I know this, of course. I’ve been writing long enough to experience the applause and boos of audiences. Some smart. Some not. Everyone with an opinion. And over time, it builds up. But now, I feel I’m about ready to let it all rip. Tear away the niceties. Let the writing do what it has always wanted to do. Run free. And even if it gets ugly and wild, there’ll be beauty.

I’ve spent so much time over the years reigning myself in that my writing has been too measured. Maybe it’s not about the iceberg theory—making meaning by what’s left out. Maybe it’s good to simply say it straight out. Do what the energy wants. Rip off the band-aid. Let it bleed. Let it breathe. Just let it be. And maybe this change is about more than writing. Maybe it’s about my life.

She is right. She usually is. She is my barometer. My mediator. My meditation. My best friend. And so, when she said those simple words this morning, it meant something. Set off a rush of thought and happiness that will fuel me the rest of the day.

That’s the stuff marriage is made of. Not vows and big, look-at-me events. Not flowers, rings, kisses, and hugs. Not even sex. It’s about having the guts to listen, to give way, to unite so you are strong together or apart. So that one day, when you are wrinkled up, deaf, and blind, you are comforted by that familiar spirit that’s there with you, holding your hand in the dark.

~ KJ
phantom hangover

July 29th, 2021

tuu Sitthikorn/iStock via Getty Images

Dreamt I drank.

Felt guilty as hell. There was no desire to drink. Just did it. I was driving my son’s car. 2009 Toyota Corolla LE. Going to get it tuned up for him at a friend’s garage. Strange. Surreal. Exciting and worrisome, as dreams often are. I felt good, buzzed up, but I knew it was the phony high—the old friend I thought I had for so many years. The one that helped me make bad decisions. Destroy relationships. Make me hate myself. A lot happened. Reunited with drinking friends, but I wasn’t really happy to see them. Lost an iPhone that wasn’t mine. Then, drove off from a gas station with the Unleaded 89 Octane nozzle still lodged in the Corolla’s filler tube. Didn’t realize it until I got home. And the car had other damage. I never made it to the garage. I don’t remember how I got home. And more guilt piled on. All I wanted was to get my son’s car tuned up, but I got tuned up instead.

And then I woke. Safe in bed. My wife, pretty as ever, sleeping next to me. I took a deep breath. Sat up. Stretched. My head throbbed. I felt unclean. As if I’d been real-life drinking all night.

Heading into ten months of sobriety and getting phantom hangovers.

Life’s funny like that.

I have no desire to drink. Not one iota. I don’t miss it. It is, like a bad relationship. You’re in it, but you think you love the person. You think you’re supposed to tough it out, deal with it. Move in and out of days stepping on eggshells because even though it’s bad, it’s great when it’s great. The laughing, the physicality, the…the…

The excuses.

For me, there isn’t a reason to drink. For years, I conditioned myself to believe that everything—good or bad—was a reason to drink. Instead of living life, really living it, I pumped booze through my bloodstream, got buzzed up, and stayed safely at an arm’s length from anything meaningful.

Not that all the experiences I had while drinking were bad. They weren’t. In fact, some were great. But I often find myself considering how much better they could have been had I been sober.

I’ve no regrets. I’m working through the guilt. Accepting who I am, for better or for worse. Discovering that the most important relationship that I have is with myself. And the better that relationship is—without anything phony in between—the better my relationship with the world. Most importantly, my kids and my wife.

So I wake, with her. Safe in bed. Both of us breathing, healthy, and warm.

Hopeful.

With another day of promise, waiting.

~ KJ