A few nights ago, I had one of the most powerful dreams I’ve ever had. It was vivid, and it was incredibly emotional.
I’d been watching the news coverage of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, so I think this is what planted this thought into my subconscious.
In my dream I’m watching MSNBC — as I was the previous night for news of RBG’s passing. In my dreamscape, the anchor was doing a story about the University Of Alabama. And she introduced a guest that gives my conscious body a jolt.
“Let’s go live to Tuscaloosa and speak to the President of the University of Alabama about this story — Dr. Ann Ivey Hall. Dr. Hall, thank you for taking the time out tonight.”
There was my Mom. On a split screen with Rachel Maddow. Looking so beautiful and distinguished. Solid white shock of curly hair, speaking with such confidence and purpose. She looked in my dream the way I believe she’d look now at 71.
I truly believe that in another lifetime, my Mom would have been a university president. She would have gotten her PhD. She would have followed her dreams of academia. I truly believe this. I truly believe she would have done this…in another lifetime.
But alas, that lifetime isn’t the one we’re in.
I’ve spoken before about this dream I’ve had of my Dad. In fact, I could argue that I created an entire novel about this dream.
The dream is that I’m fiddling around on YouTube one night in live concert videos — as I tend to do in real life. And I come upon a video from an Eric Clapton concert film.
This film was of recent vintage. And as usual, Eric has an all-star band. I seem to remember Steve Gadd on the drums, Eric’s longtime musical partner Nathan East on the bass, among others.
But the director cuts to a shot of a Hammond B3 organ. The musician playing the organ has a long shock of solid white hair, and a salt and pepper beard. He’s got his eyes closed tight and is deep in the zone playing a solo.
He’s got his head down, but it’s clear who it is.
After the song, Eric gets on the mic and says:
“How about a big hand for Mr. Tony Hall back there on the keyboards.” Dad stands up and bows to the adoring audience and blows a kiss.
I truly believe that in another lifetime that could have happened. Dad could have brought his life home on his own terms, doing what he loved.
But again, that lifetime isn’t the one that we’re in.
My parents weren’t bad people. They were brilliant souls who loved my sister and me deeply. We never lacked for what we needed. And we’d regularly visit the Driftwood Inn in Mexico Beach, Florida every August before school started back.
But make no mistake, my parents were not who they could’ve been for me. They were both deeply, deeply ill.
I feel like I lost a lot of myself from seeing the models that Ann and Tony shared with me of what healthy people looked like.
Ann and Tony were addicts. They let their depression, their circumstances, and their heads keep them from living the life they both deserved.
I grew up thinking this was all normal. That it was normal to bring open beers along with you on road trips. That it was normal for a kid to find a matchbox full of crack rocks. It was normal to know that the weed hiding place was under the chair. It was normal for the house to smell like cigarette smoke.
It’s also often been said that parents who are addicts have kids who become addicts themselves. They become alcoholics or other kinds of addicts.
And you know…they’re not wrong.
My Mom passed away in 2009 from complications due to liver disease. This liver disease was brought on by a lifetime of heavy drinking.
My grief had no place to go. I was stifled and I was angry.
So, I started to eat.
All the things.
I started drinking a little too much myself. I never believe I had a drinking problem, but I never used to keep a bottle of Jack Daniels in my home until my Mom died.
I started out making my own whiskey sours. I’d make my own simple syrup. I’d squeeze my own lemons and limes. And I would drink several a night after work.
But that got too time consuming. I’d just buy grocery store sour mix. Which is nothing but sugar and artificial flavors.
Later I discovered the joy of the old fashioned. And man…
But you don’t put a box of sugar cubes in my house and expect me to JUST use them for cocktails.
I enjoy a good old fashioned still to this day. But I haven’t had one in ages.
But it was never the alcohol that I was addicted to. It was the damn sugar.
Let’s go back to the summer of 2009. My grief was overwhelming me.
And I did what anybody would do when they had no place and nowhere to put grief. I turned to my favorite addiction.
Dothan had a smaller grocery store called Southern Family Markets, and they were the only place I could find what I got addicted to.
Blue Bell — which is primarily a southern brand of ice cream — for a while made popsicles. I’d get a box of those suckers every other day and usually by the end of the night, they’d all be gone. Even in the middle of the damn winter, I’d buy them on every grocery store trip.
The Winn-Dixie was closer to me. But they didn’t have those popsicles.
After work I’d stay on sugar high til I went to bed. And hell, I’d sometimes think I’d get up in the middle of the night and grab me a couple. Because I’d wake up and see a couple empty wrappers on my nightstand.
I wasn’t writing. I was half-assing it at the gym. My job started killing my soul. And I was gaining tons of weight.
This led to the worst health scare of my life. I’m convinced that because I was eating so poorly, and the fact that I couldn’t do anything with my grief over my Mother, this absolutely led to my gallbladder rupture in July 2009.
A few months ago, I had a similar kind of moment. The well-documented moment of my NOT jumping out in front of the 3:15 to Grand Central that Friday afternoon in January.
While I clearly didn’t kill myself, I feel like I never allowed myself to mourn losing what I felt like was my dream job. And for that matter, I never let myself grieve getting removed from my home for the second time in 10 months.
To say nothing of the way of the world…
And I started to gain serious weight.
My depression was getting seriously dangerous. And I was really, really, really scared.
I woke up one morning and had a thought…holy shit I’m gaining a ton of weight!
The next morning, I started my running program.
Two months later, I ran my first 5K.
And two years from now, I’m going to run the NYC Marathon. (I can’t believe I just wrote that with no irony at all!)
I’m writing this at a Stamford, CT City park. A very peaceful place, about a 20 minute walk (or 10 minute run) from the hotel. And I look over and see something magical.
I watched a little terrier-mix dog pin down a giant Great Dane in a play fight. It was hilarious and exactly what my soul needed.
And I realized something pretty important.
The sugar addiction wasn’t because I was covering up the grief. The sugar addiction was because my inner child didn’t know how to exist.
You know, with the seeing of the beers in the cars and whatnot. And the matchbook full of crack rocks that we didn’t know were crack.
Y’know, normal kid stuff…
As much as my therapist drives me crazy with this stuff, it all makes sense.
I never got to BE a kid!
No more covering up how I really feel.
No more hiding my truth from the world.
No more fearing ANYONE.
No more being scared to ask for support.
No more avoiding my feelings.
This is going to take some work. It’s going to take some support. It’s going to take some serious healing.
But at the end, this is going to save my life.
I still enjoy drinks from time to time. But not in my home.
I still have a sweet tooth. But no more binges.
It’s time to take my life back. It’s time for me to become a fully-expressed — as I say — soul with a skin suit.
My name is Ryan, and I’m an adult child. And I need support.
