TBD

That's a determination too.

The bacon grease stains came out of my new sweatshirt. If you’re a Seeing Upside Down subscriber and have entered the world of the Substack app for our group chat, you likely saw that I was working on a couple little projects in the house yesterday. I posted a picture of my brand new sweatshirt full of white dollops of paste made up of baking soda, dish soap, and a splash of water. My sister-in-law suggested this home remedy for grease stains in clothing. Her suggestion descended like an angel to calm my inner rage toward the unruly bacon grease that had the GALL to leap… nay explode, out of the pan onto me, the vulnerable apron-less chef. You know, it also takes this chaotic variety of an unfortunate event to finally get me to do that thing I’ve been meaning to do, whatever it may be. I have said I need an apron for years. You can bet I will not step into 2023 without a (cool) new apron.

I left the paste on overnight and ran the sweatshirt through the wash for a second time. I pulled it out of the dryer, and you would have thought I witnessed a real magician’s finest work. Not a splotch in sight. I really wasn’t expecting the homemade stain remover to work. The day before I had already tried the Tide-to-go pen and a cold water, dish soap combo prior to the first wash. It seemed like the stains set in for good. All-too-troubled Jeannie would have probably chucked the blemished sweatshirt into the trash in a fit of irrational fury and driven north to buy another new one as quickly as possible. If you haven’t been introduced to that side of me yet, hi : ).

Part of my shock and delight with the DIY stain remover victory was also the simple fact that I listened to someone’s suggestion and actually took the time to try it. This might seem obvious to some people, but not too long ago I had much less of a tolerance for the discomfort of a good thing going unexpectedly wrong. If you’ve read some of my posts so far, it’s possible you encountered the parts that reveal my past with alcohol addiction. Anything that made me uncomfortable was an excuse to drink. It became my #1 coping mechanism for difficult things. This also means that instant gratification became my norm. I became so dependent on that substance, which would make me feel better immediately. I got so used to living in the false comfort of never truly feeling the frustration of effectively working through a challenging situation.

I never expected that the miracles of sobriety would come in the form of simple, everyday moments like doing laundry. Yet here I am, having a spiritual experience with baking soda. We casted out the bacon grease demons, y’all. Not to mention I’m so happy I get to keep the original sweatshirt that enchanted me in the first place. I don’t even have this kind of history with other clothes I’ve had for several years, let alone with something I just bought on Wednesday. I do love a good bonding moment.

It should go without saying that I enjoy bonding moments with people too, not just inanimate objects. Dom’s parents were in town this week, and my father-in-law spoke some profound wisdom to me. Let me back up and set up the story. The four of us got home after running a couple errands. It was early afternoon, and we settled into the down time. I decided I wanted to start a puzzle. Our two-bedroom townhouse is not overflowing with functional options for space, such as a room dedicated to dining and, therefore, a large table. That’s an eloquent way of saying we eat at the barstools or on the couch. The puzzle I picked is only 300 pieces, 14x20 inches, but the bar top was still not a big enough option. I did not want to hog all the shared space of the coffee table either. A fairly large package from my mom was recently delivered. I’m not supposed to open it until Christmas. I slid the box over to the middle of the family room thinking I could use it as my little makeshift tabletop for the puzzle. I measured it, and it was just slightly larger than the dimensions of the finished puzzle. Before I could entertain that idea any further, everyone quickly insisted that I use the coffee table.

As I started flipping over the pieces and organizing them by shape, pattern, and color, I began to laugh at myself. The pieces began to spread farther out across table. It made me laugh that I thought I could use that box as a tabletop. I started to joke about it out loud. My father-in-law chimed in said something along the lines of: “You weren’t thinking about the space it would take to BUILD the puzzle.” He said it lightheartedly as we joked along, but it struck something deeper in me. All of sudden I saw my tendency for instant gratification from yet another vantage point. I saw how nonsensical it is! My brain was only thinking about the finished product of the puzzle before it was even out of the box. The purpose of the chosen tabletop would hardly be for the completed puzzle as much as it was for the upcoming hours spent in the elaborate, space-consuming process of putting it together.

After the epiphany, I outwardly expressed gratitude for my father-in-law’s wise statement and even said aloud: “This will inspire what I write about this week; I can feel it.” I elaborated on the gut feeling I often have when newsletter inspiration flashes into my consciousness. I also realized and shared with the group that inspiration almost always comes with the help of other people. Heyo, paradox nugget: I write alone, but my writing is not a silo. I am not siloed. I need community. I will take this note as an opportunity to remind my readers that Seeing Upside Down is meant to be a space that is shared. It is my hope that you always feel free to reply directly to me over email, leave a comment, or join the subscriber chat in the app with us. When you respond with your thoughts, questions, musings, experiences, jokes, exclamations, ah-ha moments, etc. it only enhances everything happening here and in ourselves.

When life becomes like the disjointed puzzle, right out of the box, it can start to feel really overwhelming really quick. This can be the case whether we’re talking about a devastating tragedy or a beautiful, new birth of a person or thing worthy of celebration. If we compare the beginning of what has just happened to the desired final resolution or outcome, the unattended gap in between those two places has the potential to paralyze us. One could easily see the pile of puzzle pieces for the first time and start to think of 83 other ways to spend their day. Many times to begin is the most difficult step. I don’t even know if I would enjoy puzzles if it weren’t for my dad introducing them to younger me in a way that broke down the process into practical, digestible steps.

Pour the puzzle pieces out of the box. Spread it all out. Flip them over. Find the edge pieces. Focus on connecting the edge pieces first. Then find shape and color patterns in the other pieces. For most of the time, you are dealing with abstract shapes and colors. You are building something that you can’t see yet. You are trusting both what you can and can’t see. You are trusting the puzzle maker that all the pieces you need are here, and that it will lead to something coherent and beautiful. You see that the little boot shape of that piece fits into the little boot bucket shape of this piece. You see where the fluffy edge of that cloud piece fits with the fluffy texture of the other cloud piece. It comes together bit, by bit, by bit.

I remember a dark afternoon in 2016 when I was rolling around in the figurative pile of my life’s puzzle pieces. The drinking made it more like a pool I was swirling around in, far from making any real progress. I spiraled into an emotional fit with Dom, complaining about my job, feeling stuck, and not having what others had. He asked me a question I wasn’t expecting: “If you didn’t have to work at this job anymore and you could do whatever you wanted, then what would you do?” It was the first time I felt the weight of the responsibility it requires to know what I want. I remember a long pause. He could tell I didn’t know yet but was gracious enough to let me think for a few moments. To my surprise, I accepted the challenge and let my brain scramble. I remember wanting to say I would write. I wanted to be a writer, but it was the most impossible thing for me to imagine at the time. A lone puzzle piece appeared in my brain, and I said: “I would find writing workshops.” Dom’s eyes got big, and he actually smiled. “That sounds great. Writing workshops. Good. Follow that idea.”

Life is not linear. That’s why we call it a rollercoaster. In 2016, saying “writing workshops” out loud planted a seed. It stayed buried in the ground over the following few years because my drinking got worse. I was not nurturing the soil with what it needed. I was in the throws of destructive cycles that would take some time to break. I have tears of joy as I sit here now, writing and witnessing the first little sprouts popping their head out from the ground.

I am finally piecing together the puzzle of why I am here. I got sober and started a program of recovery which required me to go inward and pour everything out... pour out the puzzle from the box. I started a vision board in July this year. Laying out magazine cutouts and glueing them onto poster board helped me piece together the edges, the frame of my thinking. I did not realize how soon the middle pieces of the puzzle would start connecting. I don’t have the advantage of seeing the picture on the box. I don’t know how long it will take or what the end goal will look like. One thing I have learned from experience is that what I think is the desired outcome in the beginning will mostly likely change over time.

I surprised myself on Friday and finished the literal puzzle on the coffee table by the end of the night. My heart whispered that it came together quicker because I was relaxed and enjoying it. I embraced the process, which allowed it to flow with ease. I did not cling to the puzzle with desperation, obsessing and forcing myself to finish it before thinking about anything or anyone else. It was the opposite. I took my time. I took moments to pet my cat. I got up and made a cup of coffee. I left for a couple hours to go hang out with more family and my nephew. I came back to it. I made another cup coffee, decaf this time. I let the puzzle reveal itself to me.

Dear self and anyone with whom all this resonates: where can we soften our grip on what we think is “supposed to be?” How can we lean back into the process? Are we remembering that age old saying of stopping to smell the roses? Are we bringing people along or shutting them out? The puzzles of life require much more than the space of that limited box in which we keep them. They require us to spread out and take up space. We must be willing to look at all the little pieces- the details. We begin when we accept that it takes time.

Let’s connect all this back to the bacon grease part of the puzzle. Going and buying a second new sweatshirt was one possible way to rid myself of the pain that came with staining the first one. Nonetheless, it was a shortcut that would have robbed me of so many things. It would have robbed me of the bond I now have with the sweatshirt I bought- the first one that was “meant to be.” It would have robbed my sister-in-law of the opportunity to help me. It would have robbed me of the opportunity to be helped. It would have robbed me of the satisfaction of working through a difficult situation and coming out victorious.

Our life is continually being determined by our choices. It gets even tricker when I see there is not even a “right” or “wrong” choice in many situations. It is simply my responsibility to choose and move forward with what I choose. Fear kept me from choosing and stepping for a long time. Not anymore. I am choosing. I am stepping. There is no guarantee of anything. I can’t see the ultimate outcome of slowly connecting these pieces, steps, choices. For the first time, the process feels so good that I am finally okay with “end results” remaining in a perpetual state of TBD.

with love, Jeannie