It’s Monday lunchtime and I’m busy vacuuming the living room. The extender arm on the vacuum is broken so I’m bent over double, pushing a short arm around, trying to clean up all the dust. I’ve got the music turned up loud and I’m singing along, thinking (as I often do nowadays) how contented I feel.
Corin walks in the door from work, he’s a little later than normal because he was called upstairs to meet with the boss of the news department at TVNZ. We spent last night speculating about what they might want to talk to him about. A new co-host maybe? A new format for Break fast? I turn the vacuum off and straighten up to face him and hear the news. Immediately I see in his face that something dramatic has gone down.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
He sighs heavily and pauses.
‘What?!’ I prompt. ‘Let it out man!’
He takes his time, but eventually he speaks. Just two words, but that is all that is required.
‘Political editor’ is what comes out of his mouth.
I stand there stunned for a minute, not saying anything. They want him for political editor? This is huge. Corin has a look on his face which is hard to read. Political editor is a big job, a really important job, and to do it you have to be based smack-bang in the middle of parliament.
Parliament is not in Auckland. Parliament is in Wellington.
My mind is racing. If Corin were to become TVNZ’s political editor, we’d have to relocate the family. We’d have to leave our lovely Auckland life and move back to Wellington. Not only would this take a massive effort but this could also seriously threaten my delicate sober equilibrium. I’m in a lovely calm, controlled, sober bubble. I need things to remain calm, as much as they can, given I’ve got to write a bloody Master’s thesis! The university, my supervisor, all the academic support networks are here in Auckland. And what about the kids? They’re super-content and settled now. We’re happy. We can’t move.
Then I look at Corin again and register the look on his face. It’s nervous and it’s hopeful, and in his eyes I can even see a hint of pleading. It breaks my heart. And in that instant my world shifts and I burst into tears. There really is no question. We have to go.
Political editor of TVNZ is without a doubt, hands down, the most perfect job ever invented in the history of jobs for Corin. He has worked his ass off to get to this point. Now is his time, he is more than ready to step up and take the role. I can see it in his eyes, he’s itching for it. He loves politics. He lives and breathes politics.
And we’re on each other’s team. I know that this job is the chance of a lifetime. This is the big dream, the ultimate goal, right here in front of him. I know this, and this is why I cry. This is why I have to put my delicate sober equilibrium to the test, pop the bubble and (ohmyfuckinggod) up sticks and move cities. Again.
Mrs D Is Going Without (Day 220)
A few years ago we packed up our lives completely and moved cities because of a big new job that Mr D landed. It was an immense effort on my behalf, liaising with a million different people, supporting the kids through the move, supporting Mr D in the transition to a new job. I was the go-to person for the entire move logistically and dealt with the movers, the bank, real estate agents, letting agents, utilities providers, schools, insurance companies etc. etc.
I got through the whole mission with a clipboard full of pages of contact numbers and notes and lists and lists and lists.
I got through with very little sleep (insomnia kicked in majorly because of stress, emotions and general brain noise).
And I got through with a lot of my beloved wine. I drank to help relieve the stress. I drank to cope with the strong emotions (sadness, excitement, nerves, grumps). I drank because that’s what I did and during tough times, well, you drink more, don’t you? Wine was my constant companion through the move, as it had been for most of my adult life.
Since we’ve been in the new city we’ve had another baby and have built up a fabulous new community of people around us—neighbours, school teachers, kindy teachers, new mummy friends, previously distant family members, sports team buddies, academic contacts, gym friends, workmates. We love our life here. We are happy in our house and we are happy in our community, which has become rich with people we love. Oh, and I’ve gone and gotten myself sober and am in the middle of writing my Master’s thesis through the local university. Life is good.
So what’s this all about? Well, it’s happening again. And fast. We’re selling up, packing and heading away within a matter of weeks. I feel tired and emotional just thinking about what’s ahead. In the long run it will be great, but in the short term, hard work and tiring. And emotional.
And this time, my coping mechanism has gone. This time I’m going to do it all sober. This will be a test. Wish me luck.
Of course I receive a lot of very lovely, morale-boosting comments on my blog, but despite this online support, over the next week or so I become unbelievably raw and emotional. Any kind of stripped-back sober feeling that I might have been experiencing before is amplified a million times now that we are facing a big upheaval. The sadness I feel at leaving our Auckland community is like an actual physical pain in my gut. I cry and I cry and I cry.
I cry writing emails to people telling them the news. I cry telling school teachers. I cry telling neighbours. I cry on the phone to my mum. ‘I’m just so sad, Mum. It’s sadness!’ I wail. I even cry watching people being evicted off American Idol. I’m a big, teary, emotional, stressed, sober mess. I manage to see through my misery enough to reassure Corin that the tears don’t mean we shouldn’t move. ‘I know we need to do this,’ I say. ‘I’m just so very, very sad and I can’t pretend I’m not. I just can’t squash it down.’
He accepts that this is the truth but, boy, do I cry. Tears are pouring out of me in waves. It’s very intense.
Mrs D Is Going Without (Day 230)
I have to write right now as it’s 4.45 a.m. and my brain is whirring and I think getting things out in words will help me.
I think the thing is, and I was trying to explain this to Mr D last night, I think the thing about doing this move sober is that for me all the emotion associated with it is way more amplified than it would be before. It’s like someone’s put ‘relocation headphones’ on me and has turned the fucking volume up to one million decibels (if there is such a thing, and sorry about swearing but I just want to swear here, okay?).
And normal drinkers or non-drinkers or heavy drinkers don’t get this because they’re used to whatever their habit is so their emotional volume level is sitting more comfortably where they’re used to. Only people who used heavily then took it clean away know what this is like. I’m still relatively newly sober (7½ months) so my volume is peaking and I’m sure it will slowly be turned down as I get used to living without liquid anaesthesia.
My eyelids are swollen because yesterday I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed huge gut-wrenching sobs all the way home from the university, where I’d just told them I needed to put my Master’s on hold for 3 months then continue via distance learning from Wellington.
Then I cried rivers telling my friend up the road that we’re moving. This woman is the most awesome, lovely, strong, kind and amazing friend and saying goodbye to her is really, really going to hurt. She is very, very special.
To be perfectly frank, I don’t want to be doing any of this. I don’t want to be putting my Master’s on hold and I don’t want to be crying in front of all my friends and I don’t want to have to say goodbye to my neighbours and I don’t want to be looking for a house to rent in the new city and I don’t want to get 3 fucking written quotes for Mr D’s firm to approve the furniture removal company and I don’t want to be organising gardeners and cleaners and painters and builders to get our house ready for sale and I don’t want to deal with real estate agents again and I don’t want to talk to schools and help my boys with their nerves about moving and I just don’t want to do any of this because I am really, really happy here.
And all of this emotional pain is much more keenly felt because I’ve radically changed my lifestyle.
Corin can see what a mess I am and is working really hard to make this move comfortable for me. (‘Let’s get a really amazing house to rent when we arrive in Wellington.’) I know he is hugely grateful that I’ve had no hesitation in moving us, and I can see the transformation in him now that he’s heading into his dream job. He’s walking a little taller in his shoes and that gives me great pride, enough to dull my sadness a little. Of course my lovely blog readers are also amazingly supportive.
Comment from ‘Annabel’
What is it they say, that a move is right up there with divorce and death in terms of stress? Amplified ten thousand times if you don’t actually want to move. It sounds like you’re still in a state of shock. And, oh, yeah, you have to feel all of this raw and unmuted and possibly even amplified because you’re newly sober.
I don’t think I had any real coping skills in all the years I drank. I also don’t think I realised this until I started feeling feelings again, which was around the 6 month mark. And it sucked and I cried over things I hadn’t realised I wanted to cry over. And these weren’t even new things, mind you. And here you are dealing with a very stressful life moment and you are doing things to cope, but still it’s feeling raw and powerfully hard. I think all you can do is stick this one out and ask for help and vent as often as you can.
Focus on tasks little by little. Let go of what you have little or no control over because that will just overwhelm you. Do whatever you need to get through this, but mostly just allow yourself to feel the emotions. I really think it’s an important thing to feel right now. Someone told me the lows are replaced with equally high highs and I’ve found that to be true. It gives me a lot of hope when I’m low.
Hugs to you.
Comment from ‘Sunny’
AA’s are advised not to make major lifestyle changes in the first year. Sometimes we don’t have a choice. Even when it’s the right thing to do, it is still hard. Getting through it will be a fantastic achievement for you.
I’ve just thought. Presumably most people in your new life won’t know you as a drinker. So you won’t feel you have to explain. You will just be Mrs D who prefers to drink soft drinks.
Damn, must have lost that memo about not making any major lifestyle changes in the first year. But here’s what’s interesting. I’m a wreck, and I know that it is worse because of my new sober lifestyle, yet I am not in the slightest bit tempted to actually go and buy a bottle of wine and drink it. I couldn’t do that. I think hard about that boozy person I was and I so don’t want to be her. I hold an image in my mind of the person I want to be and I start to realise I am actually becoming her. Raw and messy, but sober and brave. I cry, but my mind is set. I am a non-drinker. This is a test and I will pass it. Watch me.
I feel my sober armour so keenly I decide to do something external to register it. A tattoo’s out of the question (the pain!), so instead I go online and find a silver jewellery maker who does pieces to order. I email her and order a pendant with a flower etched on the front and request ‘September 6, 2011’ to be etched on the back. Will she wonder what that date signifies? I almost wish she’d ask just so I could answer.
‘It’s my sobriety date, lady,’ I’d say. ‘It’s the date I stopped putting alcohol in my body.’