Definition: the chemical breakdown of a substance by microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat.
This completely sounds like what is happening in my life right now!
I cannot explain the process - we all know my attempts to liken my life to scientific theory seem to fall a little flat...
But I do feel like I am being changed on a cellular level. Something internal is changing. There is a process going on that I am only loosely aware of and totally not in charge of.
Some examples:
Diet
I have ALWAYS been a sugar hound. I do not think in the last 49 years I have gone 3 days without sugar - chocolate usually - but eating or drinking sugar. Ice cream, chocolate, cookies, ice cream AND cookies AND chocolate. I have tried many times to cut back or outright stop. I have had no success at all. Always a still worse relapse has been my experience! However, 12 days ago I just stopped eating it. It wasn’t hard. I didn’t try. It wasn’t a goal. I just stopped. I have had a few cravings and really had a hard time not eating all six of the ice cream sandwiches Maria bought me as a surprise. But I didn’t do it. I feel better. I look better. It is amazing. Totally not a goal, totally not my doing. Just BOOM - don’t really want any sugar.
My son
We have always had a stormy relationship. We are alike in many ways which puts us into conflict a great deal. He is a hard personality and he has some challenges that are extra-ordinary. We had a particularly bad day at the beach a few weeks ago which resulted in me grounding him for a week. It was not a fun week for either one of us. But something happened that week - something changed. There was a shift. Now things are so much better! I can’t even tell you how. He is just different. I am different. We are different. It is no less than miraculous. He had a cold this week so he stayed home on Wednesday. His sister had a cold too and she was sicker so stayed home two days - he believes that everything should be equal so if she stays home two days - he has a God given right to also stay home two days. I disagreed. I told him he had to go to school but if he went without too much drama and trauma - then he could come home early. Do you know what he did? He fucking went to school and decided to stay the whole day! Listen, that may not seem like walking on water or turning water into wine but anyone who knows me and him will say that this is as close as we are ever going to get to a miracle! I still can’t believe it!
Buying
I think I have previously owned my shopping compulsion. I like buying shit. This has also been a life long habit. I have been known to buy up to 12 new pairs of shoes in one outing. I know, it is ridiculous. In my defense, this was a long time ago and I was single and no one was monitoring! Today, I reign it in much better. Now I will own that I have likely made the least progress in this area but I have to outline some unintended progress here too. This last year I set off to pay off all of my debt. And I have done it. I have money saved for Xmas shopping and I have zero credit card debt. None. I pay my statement in full every month. This also has historically been an issue for me. But right now, I have a mortgage, car payment and student loan. That is all. Ta Dah! Fucking unbelievable.
Writing
As you all know, I have been writing for a very long time. Forty years or so. It has always been a passion of mine. It was a private passion that I did not share with anyone. It came in fits and starts and was mostly something I talked about and thought about more than I actually did. Then last Xmas, something changed. I felt this deep desire to connect through the written word. Like I needed the process to reprocess my own thoughts into something different. And so I started writing...and I haven’t stopped. In fact, now I do it every fucking day. I have friends that actually start their days reading my blog. Coffee and NRT = day started for them. Now they couldn’t do this if I didn’t honor the daily commitment. What is so weird is that it isn’t even hard. I just get up and sometimes it feels like my head got up before me and I sit down with my own cup of coffee and the words pour onto the screen. It is almost like it is writing itself, I am just a conduit. Now I am not writing life changing literature here... But again, like all three of the above categories - I am doing something I haven’t ever been able to do before. I get up early and honor a commitment to myself and now to others. It isn’t even hard.
So what the hell is going on?
Because I am a weirdo - there is this large part of me that is sure that I have a brain tumor or cancer and must be nearing the end. I mean these are all life changing - life altering events here. It is nuts. Things that I have struggled with all my life (or all his life) have now just suddenly without really my permission, consent or even real attention just miraculously changed. I am different without my cooperation. Now that is not completely true because I have had some weak moments in all of the above areas where I had to preserver. But I did it with almost no effort where before I couldn’t make marginal progress with Herculean effort.
What the fuck is up?
I have no idea and I don’t even really care. I am being fermented into something else. I feel effervescent and I also feel the heat. I feel amazing. My friends have told me that I have this glow - some people are asking me if I am in love which is really fucking funny if you have been reading some of my posts lately. Something is happening to me that I cannot explain or own any credit. I am super grateful and also a little worried I am going to fuck it up.
However, this feels different. Like when I got sober different - I drank like a fucking fish one day and then I didn’t and never (to date) have picked one up since. Just done. Over it. Ta Fucking Dah! Same process here. Maybe I am finally growing up. This kind of feels like when we celebrate a sobriety birthday...we give each other cakes and coins and cards and are so proud of each other and ourselves. I always laugh because we are making a big deal out of shit that regular people just do everyday - show up for work, parent kids, don’t burn lives to the ground. We need a celebration (and we really do) to mark something that most people just do anyway. But we do it because it is truly miraculous that we are functioning at all. It is a HUGE deal that we are even still among the living.
So I think it is pretty fucking funny that the process that makes one of my favorite drinks of all time - Beer - is the very process that is happening organically in my life - I am undergoing a chemical process by some unknown microorganism which is resulting in me feeling effervescent and giving off some serious heat. I would love to take the credit but I am just the subject of the process - the mad scientist - clearly something much more powerful than me. Which is pretty fucking rad. Here’s to turning 50, effervescence and heat! Bring it on!
