Is there anybody out there?

Hi.

I've been thinking a lot lately about this place and this person, who I used to be.

See, my life is a lot different than it was when I shut this thing down. In many ways, so much better. Sweeter.

My husband is still my husband. He is sober. Faithful. Imperfect. Sometimes, I think I'm going to leave him. Sometimes, I think I'm going to love him forever. We have kids. He's a wonderful daddy. He's a wounded man, plagued by mental illness. But he's not doing heroin anymore.

He went to rehab when I was pregnant with our first child. I found out I was pregnant when he was in rehab. I got a real job, where I made good money and had health insurance, finally. And that did the trick. Now we live kind of normally. Also kind of crazily. But it's better.

But in so many ways, I'm still spinning. I went from the woman writing this blog, running away from an avalanche that was just inches behind me, licking my heels, to holding a baby...which is, in many ways, just as nerve-wracking as living with an addict. I don't think I ever stopped running, and I'm losing track of who I am.

See, when your husband is sick with heroin addiction, nobody brings you a lasagna. You aren't invited to take a break, to recover. There is no rehab for the junky's wife. There is support. There are friends, There is Nar-Anon and Al-Anon. But there isn't a season of recovery, grief, and rest, and I think I've needed it for so long.

And I've lost track of myself as a writer. My identity as a writer kept me ahead of the avalanche when I was writing here. Having a forum, an audience, and telling the story gave it all a purpose. The emails I got from readers (and that I still get sometimes, even all these years later) gave it all a purpose. Writing for hire doesn't really have a purpose, in the same way.

So maybe, I'm going to bake myself a spiritual lasagna. In the next few years, once our youngest kid weans, I want to go on a retreat, and take all this material, and turn it into a memoir. And in the meantime, I think I want to reconnect with the best parts of The Junky's Wife. I want my writer back, and this was the best place to meet her.

And I want to figure out how to get the weird, nasty messages off my last post. Anybody know WTF that's about?

Fried.

I am fried. I'm not writing well. It's sucky.

I have a huge project that I'm trying to finish that was due on Monday, and it's been eating my brains. I have decided that today, I'm going to work on other projects and let the big, soul-sucking one lie for a bit. I hope this helps.

I'm not sleeping well. I'm not going to yoga. I'm not doing much besides sitting in front of my laptop in a questionable state of sanitation, writing.

One thing I have been doing in the midst of it all is keeping up my meditation practice, and it has served me well. Having a few minutes to be quiet and to notice my state has helped me to stay aware and to recognize that I'm doing a bad job at meeting my own most important needs. I have had a few experiences this week in meditation that have been powerful, and one last night has given me some insight into the way I'm working.

God gave me a gift with words, and I honor that gift when I use it well. It serves me; it is how I make my living. It is how I serve others. It is how I soothe myself when I'm struggling. However, when I exploit it like I'm doing right now, I don't honor that gift. I've got to learn to slow down and take my time to avoid exploiting this skill. I need to nurture it so that I can use it to nurture me.