Heard this song the other day and it really grabbed me.
Sober Saturday Night by Chris Young
It’s particularly prophetic to me for many reason regarding my daughters. My oldest’s allegations were that I drank too much. I really was drinking more than I should have, even prior to my daddy’s passing. My children weren’t neglected, they were actually rather indulged for the most part, not that that makes occasional intoxication acceptable, but I cooked, cleaned, did laundry, paid bills, helped them with homework, loved them, and worked a job. They were old enough to have some regular chores, but I very rarely made them do chores. Most of my first 16 years were doing chores, so I was a sucker for “Momma can I please go to so-n-so’s house even though I’ve not cleaned my room/done the dishes/whatever”. I never wanted my children to remember their childhood and teen years as missing out on fun because of chores.
But I digress… I suppose I want to make excuses and justifications and prove that I really didn’t drink much more than the average person and yet I also don’t want to sound as though I didn’t sometimes drink more than I should have…once my children were taken care of…because I did drink too much the once or twice a week I had drinks with friends when my teenaged daughter’s were either in bed or at their friends’ houses.Was I a neglectful momma from it? No. Were my children abused? No. Was I a “mean drunk” by any means? HELL NO! But all the same, I definitely overindulged occasionally and I should have put that in check and not excused it merely because my children were still safe and well cared for.
Regardless, after the exorbitantly exaggerated accusations after my dad passed and when I trusted the two narcissists, my mother and my ex” with my kids while I was planning my dad’s funeral, and Lexi had decided from hours of them bashing me for things I never even did as a child, that she “WANTED TO LIVE WITH HER DAD!”, suddenly I was (quite literally) the WORST MOMMA EVER!, an ALCOHOLIC!, and my poor eldest child suddenly claimed she’d been ABUSED/NEGLECTED!!! for years in my care.
Two weeks prior to this, my youngest had dedicated a song to me and left me a note saying she “didn’t know how she’d ever gotten through everything if not for her momma” and my oldest, Lexi, and I had gone for several trips to the beach to discuss life and laugh, and work out her problems with friends at school and boys and her sister…etc, etc… But now, overnight(after only a week of time with her dad and my mother), I’m an abusive, neglectful, alcoholic HORRIBLE person and an even WORSE mother according to Lexi. I’d “LIED TO HER HER ENTIRE LIFE!(still no clue what this lying was)” and I “HADN’T EVEN BEEN A GOOD STUDENT AS A KID !!(I’d been an Honors student from middle school through high school, so I don’t understand this one either).
So…wild accusations start flying a few days after we returned from burying my daddy out of state. Now, Lexi’s calling me a slut and screaming she had “HEARD ME IN MY BEDROOM AT NIGHT HAVING SEX WITH MY FIANCE ALL THE TIME THREE YEARS AGO” and I’m the most vile, awful human being who’s ever lived.
Needless to say, I drank way more for a few months after this ordeal and my daddy was dead and my children had gone to live with their dad. And then, I suddenly felt guilty every time I had anything to drink. I started wondering if I really WAS an alcoholic and maybe couldn’t see it. I went for alcohol counseling and assessment and was turned away because the professionals there determined my habits “did not indicate a dependency on alcohol”. Still, I felt guilty (even with no children in a 2,000 mile radius speaking to me) having anything to drink. I couldn’t use it as an escape as I had before this because I analyzed and criticized myself for ever sip I took.
So, I quit drinking completely for a year. I went to a two week long intensive Christian retreat where I knew they’d criticize my prior drinking whether the “professionals” thought it was a serious problem or not. I confessed all my drinking to these people who believe demons inside us cause these things and they exorcised those demons from me. After two weeks, their assessment was that I suffered from an “unholy level of grief” regarding my childhood, my dad passing, and my children leaving me after making hideous wild untrue accusations.
“Unholy grief”
Ya think? I mean, I didn’t even begin to touch on the two violent rapes I’d endured, the full stroke and paralysis of my left side, my childhood abuse or lack of love in any actual depth, nor my abusive romantic relationship with my children’s father…. Yeah, I’d say I had/have some unresolved “unholy grief” going on pretty much from birth and as a state of being really!
So, I do have a glass of wine once in awhile now still, but it takes me about two weeks to drink a bottle of wine because the guilt and insecurity I feel everytime I try to enjoy a glass is overwhelming. It pretty much has ruined any enjoyment, either actual taste or the numbing of my heartache if I were able to drink a few more than I do.
It doesn’t matter though. Lexi doesn’t want me in her life whether I’m drinking anything at all or not. Which sadly, after my crucifixion for “drinking” is exceedingly unfair. Yet, it also gives me the validation that it was never really about my drinking anyway. She was looking for something to hang me/ hate me for and if she had to lie or grossly exaggerate, she was going to. So, she could care less if I drink ever, every day, or not at all. It was never about my drinking. But, it worked. I’m sober as hell, no matter the constant hurt I can’t escape from day or night, waking or sleeping… I’m fucking sober for every second of it all.
I’ve never used drugs, so I can’t turn to that. And now, I can’t have sex or romantic relationships, I can’t drink wine for a brief warm fuzzy mental escape. Which was my only escape ever in my life, from the pain of it all. Music was another escape I used most of my life and I can’t even enjoy that now. Most music, except classical, I shared my love of it with my children and my daddy. So, music I love now tends to just bring on “unholy grief” and nostalgia that I want to avoid throwing the salt in those wounds…. So, there’s nothing. I literally have no escape of any sort. I’m forced to endure every second of unwanted, abused, unloved, unlovable abandoned, orphaned, and worthless smother, daughter, sister, human being that I am. Every sharp and agonistic, hopeless and un-fixable second of every minute of it. That’s what monsters like me (who don’t understand how or why they’re monsters) deserve, I suppose….?
So, now I’m a lonely old lady all alone with my dog who can’t even enjoy a glass or two of wine. I can’t even give myself permission to drink a bottle of wine and numb my pain/grief/loss/PTSD/etc. even for a few hours. Nope, there’s no momentary numbing of the pain for the unloved, unwanted, and completely abandoned mother/daughter/human being.
I get to feel all the pain. All the time. My children, my mother, and my ex saw to that. There will be NO escape from my pain except death. And I’m pretty sure that’s because they literally all would rather I were dead.
So this song, although clearly intended toward a romantic love that was lost, very much reminds me of the loss of my children and that I’m sober even though I never really had a problem…and that they all saw to it that I would feel EVERY SECOND of the pain from my past, present, and hopeless future, without any reprieve except death.
And I’m working diligently on giving them (and me) that final solution.
