Reconnecting with my DNA, after 20 years

About me, art and alcoholism

-----Original Message-----
From: Lisa
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 3:09 PM
To: Uncle Randy
Subject: RE: Morning Again

Uncle Randy,

You write beautifully, almost as amazingly as your wife sounds like she must be. Your words and the small glimpse of your story below, once again prove to me that the DNA I mentioned earlier, has been interconnecting me with you in more ways than I even imagined. I was given amazing gifts of writing, painting and my new found passion for photography.

I really abandoned my passions for quite a few years and stifled down those voices as Corporate America became more demanding of my every thought as they tried their hardest to convert me to the robot they really wanted. It was a horrible journey through those years without art yet it made me very successful in business, as my creativity seemed to be my competitive advantage in any boardroom. A few times throughout the 12 years in Tech and Telecom, I would reach a burn out point and just back a bag. Those trips would re-ground me, allow my soul to heal from the box I had placed myself in and humble my ego back to a point where I remembered that I have never cared for power or prestige. One of those trips was the seemingly catastrophic 9-month stint in Mexico, that Uncle "Bill" bailed me out of (for which I have many regrets). Through the years, I had always attracted artists, musicians, bands, and made them my pet projects; promoting and selling their talent that I admired so much. A shadow artist they say, one who doesn't believe they will ever find their own release. I took a few years off (3 years ago) and worked with an artist that was painting plate glass windows and windshields for car lots! She was great at lettering and I was great at landing the account and selling her work to car salesman (my background had sure taught me how to deal with male salesmen!) So I followed her from car to car, painting the accents on the glass, with a 2" sponge brush and remembered how to tap into what my passion really is. Today, my job is a culmination of the things I love the most and all of the corporate training that the big ones gave me. I get to do what I do best, I don't do the mundane tasks that made me crazy and I help people. I consult on marketing, advertising, call center efficiencies, I produce web sites, commercials and I paint, write and dream... I have learned that I am not defined but what I do for a living, only given the chance to do what I dream, or dream of what to do next.

There was another thing I battled over the 30 short years I've lived, that was a life shadowed and eventually painted with alcoholism. I spent most of my youth thinking that I had lost everyone I had ever loved to the drink or the drug. Of course, I married them too, because they looked familiar to what I had always known. Then, after years of judgment and condemnation of those I thought chose something other than me, I found myself in their shoes.

Drunk, there I sat in that dark bar room where I had been so many times before, about 8 years after I had given up the fight to "change them" and I "joined them". This night was going to be different though. There was an elusive chase that was never quite satisfied at 2 am, yet the drive to chase it again was unstoppable, insanity they call it. But that feeling that somehow tonight was going to end differently was more like a premonition.

The speed I took that night enlightened my view of the silhouetted band playing and the rafters that I so carefully drew on that bar napkin. The pen seemed to move in freedom over that tiny canvas where I painted the emotions of the faceless people that represented the never ending daily cycle of anger, fear, resentment and loss. It was a piece of work; I had tapped into a truth that night, mixing the speed with the unimaginable amounts of liquor that I could hold, that would change my life forever.

Many bars hours later, I took my last drink. I would never again have to search for a way to numb it all. The endless cycle of trying to find the right bar at the right time, to combine the right drink with the right combination of drugs; only to ultimately find that right warm body to crash into at 2 am that I hoped would make me feel differently in my own skin, was coming to a screeching halt. There had been no right concoction that had worked, in quite some time. Nothing that would cover up my frustration with the things that escaped me, the loneliness of my own prison where I always awoke to the horror of that first eye opening moment that all I had vowed I would not repeat, had happened again. I was on an endless search for the comfortable level between "buzz" and "drunk" where I could look myself in the eye.

No amount of drinks that last night could have convinced me that it would be my last. I had often tried to imagine life without it and could not. Nor could I imagine going on, blotting out my existence I feared would take me to that dreaded day, at the same age my father had stopped fighting it.

As I "awoke" behind the wheel to the sound of crunching metal, there was no panic or surprise. I had totaled my car into the side of a cliff, about 100 yards from the bridge I had often hoped to jump off of one day, but could not because I knew the feeling of being the child left behind. I had escaped that fate almost every night. I remember the fear of leaving and the relief of entering, as I realized I didn't have to do it anymore.

On April 10th of this year, I will be 2 years sober. My life today is blessed, with being chosen to have walked on both sides of this disease. I now know that it was not a choice, for them to pick me or pick the drink. There are no choices in that, I don't think. At some point in the process, I watched the movie "legends of the fall" and finally realized that the people that had left in my life were simply battling their own bear. In some cases, the bear had won.

Your wife and family sound amazing. Please continue to tell me more each chapter. As for the grain and the train, it is much like my 2" paintbrush and me. It sounds like more than a place to find stability, but more than anything else, peace. I am sure that working the graveyard shift is not ideal for the family though; my work has never been ideal either, no matter what I did. I don't think work ever is, because who wants to leave their loved ones and go work anyway!

Talk to me soon!
Lisa


Creativity is the willingness to express emotion and the ability to explore it without perfection.