A Glimpse into How We Talk

When He and I are in a good place with one another; when our lives are flowing along a course that makes sense to us; we talk.  We talk over dinner and we talk while we walk and we talk at bedtime and we talk through the commercials on television.  When we are apart from one another, we check in by phone -- I call Him when I get to school in the morning, and I call Him again when I leave school and head for home.  During the school day, when there is time (and if the computer network gremlins cooperate), we chat on IM.

In the last two months, as we wrestled and wrangled with the issues surrounding His alcohol use; as we arrived at the iterations of The Plan; as we lived through all the long and miserable days of a month of abstinence; and then as we came out of that phase and He resumed drinking; we have slowly but steadily drawn apart from one another.  Moment by moment and day by day, as He struggled with the ups and downs of all of that, we talked less and less, and touched less and less.  We still maintained our routines and patterns, but we were like strangers going through the motions.  He was sad, depressed, angry.  I was baffled, confused, lost.  He felt rejected and devalued.  I felt betrayed and hurt.  Our world had grown very quiet.

By Thursday, we'd reached an impasse.  He had concluded that our M/s dynamic was a sham and a facade.  In His view, He'd relinquished control under pressure from me to change the drinking behavior.   I thought I was doing a good thing.  I thought I was working to protect His health.  I thought we'd arrived at the goals and the plans together, but that wasn't how it felt to Him.  He was clear that I'd seized control and that He was, therefore, in the position of being submissive to me.  The power exchange that forms the foundation of our relatedness was topsy-turvy and we were at odds with one another.  It wasn't what either of us wanted, but we seemed completely unable to wrench ourselves out of the spiral.

I had a wickedly long day on Thursday, with a full day of teaching followed by a three hour teacher inservice that was to run until 9 PM.  During my planning period, I managed to make contact with Him on IM, and so we chatted.  Neither of us had slept well, and we'd about come to the end of our patience with one another.  It was a very difficult and very blunt and very painful conversation.  We told one another some hard truths, and we wound our way through some murky territory.  Eventually, we came to understand that we had ourselves in a box -- and that it was a box that we'd constructed for ourselves.  "The Plan" which was making us so utterly miserable and crazy was OURS.  We'd developed it and set in motion and we could modify it at any point that we chose.  Duh!  We were not answerable to anyone but ourselves.  He was not answerable to anyone but Himself.

And, just like that, life snapped back into place.  We enjoyed our evening (what there was of it after my late workshop), and slept soundly, wrapped around each other through the night.

Today, we had a fair amount of time to chat (in several sessions).  We were almost giddy with the shear joy of being back in touch with one another, and so our conversation was light and animated and ebullient.  I imagine that there won't be many who actually care, but for those who find our relatedness intriguing, the rambling conversation may be of interest.  Be warned that we are, with one another, inclined to be unrestrained in our opinions.  Those who have tender sensibilities; who find us unduly sarcastic; who think that we are too mean-spirited towards those who hold views in opposition to ours; will most likely find our unedited commentary to be outrageous and distressing.  The running narrative will be given in highlighted boldface to distinguish it from the actual conversation--

swan

The beginning greetings go very quickly to His/hers apologies and proffered forgiveness for whatever it was that either of us might have done to get us into the emotional mess we've suffered through.  And then there is the clear frustration about the continual assaults by anonymous commenters --

Raheretic: I thought I heard IM-ing but thought it was too good to be true it could be you

Raheretic: how wonderful

Swan: maybe its a sign

Raheretic: How are you?

Swan: a little strung out and stressed but ok

Raheretic: feeling drained here too

Raheretic: what an experience this has been

Raheretic: I am sorry this has been so hard for you

Raheretic: It has been terrible for me too

Swan: and I'm sorry for however it is that I've overstepped

Swan: that was never what I meant to do

Swan: and I never meant to devalue or reject you

Raheretic: If you did..............who knows?

Swan: or make you feel that I had done that

Swan: I am so sorry

Swan: please forgive me

Raheretic: We likely need some anonymous person to try to tell us right from wrong

Raheretic: I forgive you if there is anything to forgive

Swan: I imagine there is one who will try that

Swan: thank you

Raheretic: Neither of us was doing anything except to do and try to be what was best

Raheretic: in difficult times and dynamics

Then we shift into some discussion about Master's former job, and the changes that have happened there since He left.  This transition to retirement, which came about because of difficult economic realities, has challenged us for months.  On one hand, it has been good and the cause for significant stress reduction in His life and in ours.  However, there have been difficult feelings and a real sense of loss after so many years spent in the disability advocacy realm--

Raheretic: I just looked at the Agency website staff list

Swan: anything interesting?

Raheretic: one fewer staff and if they can do the work, then that becomes a significant profit center

Swan: if

Raheretic: I bet they can if they emphasize production and cut quality

Raheretic: take a "good enough" sort of attitude

Raheretic: after all just because "quality" is in the program's name, do we really have to.....................?

Raheretic: well they will be of little value to the community if they are out of business too

Raheretic: so it has to be tough

Raheretic: I' rather be out of business myself

Raheretic: I did look on line to see if anything surfaces derogatory regarding me in a google

Raheretic: nothing is there

Raheretic: were there to be that would violate the agreement and they would be come fair game if nothing else for breech of contract and defamation

Raheretic: I am off "pursuing other interests"

And that bridges us into the discussion of our "moderation" adventure --

Raheretic: like how many drinks constitutes moderation?

Swan: I think my venture into the realms of moderation is over

Swan: I'm not going to fuss about it anymore

Swan: you know what makes you feel well and what doesn't

Swan: not my job to manage that

Swan: and I think MM is just stupid

Swan: so...

Swan: this poor slave is done

Swan: with that crap

Raheretic: I think MM helps me moderate -- reading there

Raheretic: it is interesting watching folks cycle in and out of "success"

Raheretic: I am already performing in their 95th %-ile

Swan: life is a series of cycles in and out of degrees of success

Swan: in every arena

Swan: none of us live "on the mountain top"

Raheretic: I think there are a lot of folks who really do get into cycling through drinking and sobriety as a game

Raheretic: neat melodrama

And then we spend time just reveling in being "good" with one another again, talking about the simple realities of my teaching work --

Raheretic: Boy, I feel good chatting with you today

Raheretic: better than in a while

Raheretic: maybe better than since I lost my job

Swan: L stopped in to talk

Swan: about testing

Swan: we just got word that all the testing has to be done by Wednesday next week

Swan: and we thought we had until the end of the month

Swan: so there is low level panic ensuing

Swan: building wide

Swan: I just told her I think we ought to start off first thing Monday morning and just go

Swan: until it is done

Raheretic: wow what a stunningly bold solution!!!!!!

Raheretic: why don't they just make you Queen

Raheretic: They would if they were smart you know

But I am feeling very tender about even the implication that I might be "in control," and so refuse the enthronement --

Swan: well -- I am done with being the fucking queen

Swan: queen never works out for me

Swan: sucks

Raheretic: that is not true

Raheretic: you are my Queen if i say you are

Swan: you can be queen but everyone will hate your guts

Swan: I'd much rather have a collar than a tiara

Raheretic: well it kind of comes with the territory sometimes

Swan: I can't stand it when You hate my guts

Raheretic: well with me you have both

Swan: it kills me

Raheretic: BIG COLLAR......................little tiara

Swan: if the world hates me I can live with it

Raheretic: I never hated you

Raheretic: Sorry I had lots of confused mixed difficult feelings in all this

Raheretic: and guess what I projected them and acted them out

Swan: I know

Swan: but it still sucked having you hate my guts

Raheretic: I didn’t hate you or your guts

Swan: no matter what sort of psycho babble bullshit we use to describe it

Raheretic: love your guts very much

Raheretic: I think through this whole ABS/alcohol withdrawal thing I have been terribly depressed and I am suddenly feeling way better

And then we veer off into serious fantasy land, talking about a house in the wilds of Alaska --

Raheretic: my god I just saw my dream home

Swan: I'm so glad you are feeling better

Raheretic: 499k

Swan: a yurt in Montana?

Raheretic: in Alaska on a lake with 1.4 acres of woods

Swan: I think that qualifies as a definite dream

Raheretic: giant chalet

Raheretic: dock on great lake at end of front yard

Raheretic: set up for boat or sea plane

Swan: nothing in Alaska is a "dream" Sir

Raheretic: showed pic in dead of winter.................no smow

Raheretic: sun

Swan: nightmare maybe

Raheretic: LOL no it is so beautiful

Swan: mosquitos that have to be cleared from a control tower

Swan: do they show THOSE in the picture?

Swan: I bet not

Raheretic: and no one to interfere if you want to go run around naked in the summer

Swan: and get eaten by a giant mosquito

Raheretic: they have those in Michigan and upstate New York

Raheretic: I grew up with them

Raheretic: they die when you smack them

And then, at last, for the first time in weeks and weeks, there was talk about spanking --

Raheretic: unlike your ass

Swan: which just glows

Raheretic: beautifully as does all of your beautiful body

Raheretic: god you make life a joy

Swan: thank you

Swan: for remembering me finally

Swan: I've been so lost

Swan: and so afraid

And another shift as we fall off into discussing a trip we have planned next weekend -- off to the "big city" of Toledo--

Raheretic: this will be a nice weekend

Raheretic: Maybe tomorrow even better

Raheretic: Neither you or t have ever seen anything like Tony Packo's

Raheretic: because I don't think there is anything else like it

Raheretic: different and good

Swan: that will be next weekend

Swan: this weekend we get to just be...

Raheretic: and on Friday night like their Dixie land jazz band will be playing

Raheretic: called The Cake Walkin' Jass Band

Raheretic: and lots of sausage eating, chili eating, perogi eating, drunken Hunky's

Raheretic: who are glad to be there and glad to be alive because they are there

Raheretic: in what is called the Birmingham Section

Raheretic: little Hungary

Raheretic: There are time I miss being ingrained as a player in that community

Raheretic: it was a good place to be

Raheretic: and offers so much more than people know

Then back to school stuff, as my day does what days often do at our crazy little school --

Swan: insane here this morning

Swan: I'm trying to give a social studies test

Swan: and the professor from NKU is grabbing groups of kids for interviews about the exchange project

Swan: and then just now, a group of about a dozen teacher from Denmark wandered in unannounced to "tour"

Swan:  “…well. hello. welcome. 6th graders -- what is it we're working on this morning?"

Swan: good grief

Swan: just out wandering from room to room

Raheretic: melancholy Danes just wondering the halls in small herds

Swan: wanted to borrow a dictionary so that they could see a picture of a hedgehog

Raheretic: well there's usually interesting things going on in your room

Swan: just testing this morning

Swan: not all that interesting

Raheretic: kids wiggling pencils

And back to our favorite topic --

Raheretic: just watching Today show guys’ wardrobes

Raheretic: damn they are doing butt exercises

Raheretic: so far I can't do any of them

Raheretic: due to arthritis

Swan: butt exercises?

Raheretic: saying besides the aesthetic it is crucial to balance

Raheretic: yeah.......glut's

Raheretic: Ok now here's one but I don't know if my shoulder would let me do it

Swan: a butt exercise that uses your shoulder?

Swan: sounds like an exercise for my butt

Raheretic: LOL

 And our sense of joy and wonderment at finding ourselves back in our lives again.  Here is where we begin to identify the "wrongness" that we feel in trying to adapt our lives and our world view to an essentially "disease" driven model of alcohol management and recovery.  The insistence on powerlessness doesn't work for us -- and it feels right and empowering to really know that --

Raheretic: god I love you

Swan: and I love you

Swan: and I'm so glad to be back to us

Swan: and I never want to go away again

Raheretic: It is so good to feel OK

Raheretic: I felt so broken

Raheretic: and deficient

Raheretic: and lost

Swan: and I was too lost and afraid to know what to do or say

Swan: until I finally got that it was ok for us to modify our own stupid plan

Swan: duh

Raheretic: I don't think I realized how badly I felt until now that it is better

Raheretic: thank you

Swan: we can be sort of stubborn the two of us

Raheretic: and we did do justice to it

Raheretic: we really did do it

Swan: IT

Raheretic: and then modified

Raheretic: IT

Swan: except that while doing IT we couldn't do it....

Raheretic: no while we were doing it we couldn't do IT

Swan: so now that we are not absing and not moderating you into total abject misery, what will we talk about?

Raheretic: hmmmmm.............spanking, sex, vacations, the weekend, food

Raheretic: politics

Swan: Abuelo's

Raheretic: the rest of our lives

Raheretic: happiness

Raheretic: yay for Abuelos

Swan: Abuelo'sAbuelo'sAbuelo'sAbuelo'sAbuelo's

Raheretic: I think the thing i am enjoying most since resuming drinking is 1800

Swan: and spanking and sex and spanking and sex and spanking

Raheretic: oh yeah, and, spanking and sex

Swan: and you might find, if you are not just drowning yourself in alcohol that you like different things on different days -- like you were drinking for the taste

And here is the precise point where He comes up with the idea of inflicting all of this on our readers -- and saving it for ourselves.  The very idea of sharing the conversation sets me off, and I go straight to the things that I'd just love to tell the 12-steppers and the nasty and hateful anonymous ones --

Raheretic: I think maybe I should see if i can save this chat and post it

Raheretic: As how we are

Swan: oh arrgggghhhh

Raheretic: since everyone is so interested

Swan: then be sure to say that I have had it up to HERE with all the meddling judgmental asshole anonymous pricks

Raheretic: And then all the 12-stepper disease model assholes can feel remarkably superior to our daring to be happy

Swan: them too

Swan: I do not 12 step

Swan: don't even two step

Raheretic: and not recognizing how truly powerless we are in the face of alcohol without help from the Great Beyond

Raheretic: and degenerately happy

Swan: and if we are in fact powerless, then knowing that -- realizing that -- helps us how?

Swan: since there isn't fucking anything out there in the great beyond

Swan: except "Billions and Billions and Billions of stars"

Raheretic: well then The Maker would heal us

Swan: and stamp us with the Maker's Mark

Swan: the whole place is one giant distillery

Raheretic: I think my next bourbon therefore will be Maker's Mark in honor of Him

Raheretic: ROFL great minds

Swan: what absolute silliness

Raheretic: Billions and billions of stars each one matched by a dollar that was paid to Recovery disease model based treatment programs that indoctrinated drunk people in the cult of "12 step-ism" with no outcome

Raheretic: other than most of them became powerless and more drunk

Swan: and their families sucked right into the vortex along with them

Swan: al-anon

Swan: and al-a-teen

Swan: and on and on and on

Raheretic: research does show that 32% of problem drinkers of whatever degree quit, and more resolve their problems by moderating all without treatment.

Raheretic: only 16 % with treatment have a successful outcome

Raheretic: for the drunks

Raheretic: lots of success for the treatment professionals, and administrators, and operations staff

Raheretic: who make very good livings thank you very much

Raheretic: and feel quite wholesome about helping the poor downtrodden souls whom they "serve."

Swan: what an amazing scam

Raheretic: Interesting scam mostly paid for from tax dollars and insurance reimbursements

Swan: more voodoo than even religious voodoo

Raheretic: Great minds again

Raheretic: very Catholic or Mormon like in its "voodoo" quotient

Swan: you would think we were compatible or something

Raheretic: replace drinking with cult dependence

Raheretic: no cirrhosis of the liver...............just the brain

Swan: once a 12 stepper, always a 12 stepper

Swan: the corollary to “give me a child until they are 7 and ...”

Raheretic: yeah just like a Marine

Raheretic: Didn't I read that somewhere recently?

Raheretic: Oh yeah it was in an anonymous comment on our Blog

Raheretic: wisdom from the disease model 12 step recovery folks

Raheretic: and true Christians no doubt

Swan: same only different

Raheretic: having given their wretched lives over to God

Swan: like god has time for this crap

Swan: if in fact god is god

Swan: wouldn't god be sort of busy?

Swan: making bees and tree leaves and clouds and shit

Raheretic: if he is, I bet he doesn't care if i drink or not

Raheretic: He might feel he gave me will, and intelligence and resources more than most human beings ever get, and a moral code, and expect me to live my life fairly well.

Swan: we've resolved all the important questions

Raheretic: mostly and in just one morning

Raheretic: Likely "post-ABS zest"

And then, the most remarkable transformation came pouring across my computer screen -- a flash of insight, wisdom and understanding that just took my breath away --

Raheretic: I just did have a flash

Swan: oh?

Raheretic: It dawned on me how much wisdom I had in my twenties and while I've experienced so much

Raheretic: and fleshed it out with hugely pragmatic information, and empowerment, and maturity

Raheretic: I've lost much of what benefit and life I had then

Raheretic: Then I was more poor as I/we are now

Raheretic: but not destitute because I worked hard

Raheretic: I broke my ass building mobile homes in freezing cold and blazing heat

Raheretic: and when I wasn't there I partied with great friends who I valued and who valued me
Raheretic: and when we got the chance we did hand to hand combat in the streets with police to end the war

Raheretic: and life was so good

Raheretic: and when I could I went to school

Raheretic: and my wife then was a good young teacher

Raheretic: never attaining or having the capacity for who you are as an educator

Raheretic: but still better than most

Raheretic: and life was good

Raheretic: and we never felt deprived

Raheretic: we were thrilled at the life we had

Raheretic: and valued the gifts we could share and the joy of fighting for good

Swan: and it was enough

Raheretic: It was more than enough...............it was absolutely abundant and we were continually grateful

Raheretic: and I woke up each day being helpful

Raheretic: and when we celebrated which did involve chemicals, we were celebrating our lives and our humanity and our loves and who we were and the strength we had to do good and to damage evil

Raheretic: and each morning I woke up happy for the day

Swan: and ready for what would come

Raheretic: I’ve learned and done much and had children and made a lot more money than I thought I'd ever see
Raheretic: and had victories and vanquished evil foes more effectively than I ever did then
Raheretic: although injuring them in hand to hand combat was far more rewarding

Raheretic: I should likely leave that to young people in their 20's

Raheretic: All this came to me oddly

Raheretic: I got thinking that I would love a denim work jacket

Raheretic: and I never see them anywhere

Raheretic: and I got thinking about that western wear work clothes shop out here in the country somewhere where we bought that long brown bull whip
Raheretic: and that they assuredly would have one

Raheretic: then I thought and yes they have real actual "cowboy oil skiin slickers" and that I have always wanted one

Raheretic: and that we should not spend money

Raheretic: and then it came to me that then we would have said that it was something I dreamed of having and that that dream would give me power

Raheretic: and I dressed and appeared in ways that I felt powerful
Raheretic: not correct

Raheretic: and as I recalled that all this rushed into me

Raheretic: As well as the belief I could recreate that life and it could be better than then

Raheretic: wow!!!!

Raheretic: this felt....feels powerful

Swan: a break through from the way you have been seeing things

Swan: a chance to create a life that is good and strong and fulfilling

Swan: if less monetarily lucrative

Swan: huge possibilities

Swan: for you and for us

Raheretic: way different than I have felt, seen things for decades

Swan: HOORAY!!!!!

Swan: I've been waiting for this for so long

Raheretic: maybe money is not the only conveyor of capacity

Raheretic: thank you for waiting for me to catch up

Raheretic: I am almost in tears

Raheretic: reading the whole earth magazine last weekend started to bring me back to this

Raheretic: I used to live by the Whole Earth Catalog

Raheretic: and read it like a Bible

Raheretic: I love you so much and I feel better than I have in decades

Raheretic: thank you so much

Swan: I am so glad

Raheretic: I love you

Swan: Yours always and all ways

Swan: bye for now

Raheretic: Mine Always and All Ways

Raheretic: Too..............Yours Always and All Ways

Raheretic: I/we need both

Swan: well then ... Mine always and all ways

Swan: bye, Love

And now you know a little bit about how we are when we are good, just us, and together...