It's not often that you get to experience the joy of your grandmother siezing you by the throat, glaring into your eyes, and saying, "You better stay clean." Easter was fantabulous this year. This is what I feared most when I told my family about my addiction; The walking on egg-shells, avoiding the subject, and the judging looks. Part of me knows that it is a minimal charge to pay, considering the alternative, being ostrasized. God knows I have walked as a pariah at points in my life. A self-styled loner, that's me. I don't know if it's just me or if people truly do set me apart for some reason. God knows I can be a strange duck.
Which leads me to ponder the saying, Lord love a duck. It is generally used as an exclamation to a situation that is just too outrageous and unbelievable.
Example:
John: Yeah, I was in a 12 car pile-up and walked away without a scratch.
Jane: Oh, lord love a duck!
Now I don't know what God's love for the bread-loving, aquatic bird has to do with outrageous situations, but for my mother it was the perfect saying to use. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was married to a man named Drake at the time. I wonder if she doesn't have some fetishistic preoccupation with ducks.
Thankfully, we didn't have any duck for dinner. I sat at that long table and watched everyone drink around me. It's hilarious to me that my grandmother precedes her reminder to me to be sober with a gulp of her gin and tonic. God knows that ethanol loosens up the human tongue dramatically. Alcohol used to be my favorite lubricant at family functions. I could be the center of attention, lively and humorous, while easily answering the tedious questions about work, life and love. "Do you have a girlfriend? How do you like your job?" Alcohol can provide you with witty answers and comments that steer the conversation to topics that reek of merriment.
But I choose survival. Alcohol may have done all that and more in the past, but it extracts too much from me in return. If I am in this thing for the long haul I must curb my lust for life in some areas and direct it towards greener pastures and sunnier avenues.
Now is the hour to be content. God has blessed me with a new day, and each breath I take is an affirmation of the precious life that we all sometimes take for granted. God knows I need to appreciate all that I have. God knows that I live one day at a time. It's time for me to stop believing these things and time for me to truly know them as if they were etched on my soul.