Hello my friends!
Welcome to another week of Growing Pains: Sober Girls Edition :)
If you’d like to read this on the website or you can listen, too: Sober Girls - Time
I’m feeling super existential today so hold on to your hats…
Today let’s talk about time and all of the things associated with it - Things take time. Somethings just aren’t at the right time. Timing didn’t work out. What time is it? Overtime. How much time do you have? Time is earned. I don’t have time for x,y,z. I ran out of time. I was right on time. Etcetera….
But, what if we lived in a world where there was no time? (Insert existentialism here). What would it be like if we lived by the sun rising and setting and there were no days, months or years? Quick side note - we’d still have our phones, laptops, and Alexa’s in this world..I’m not envisioning going back to being cave people here.
My point is, would it still matter what time of day it was? Would we stop working based on when we are tired vs what time it is? Would the pain of things taking time not exist? Would timing always be right or would some stuff still be like two ships passing?
I’m going on this tangent because the most overwhelming growing pain I have experienced in this last year is that some things just take time. Time to heal, time to learn, time to grow. I swear to God if one more person tells me it’s going to take time I think I might get violent (kidding of course ;))
But, would it be so overwhelming, frustrating and at times painful if I didn’t have this made up timestamp in my head? If I just let it happen vs feeling like things should have happened by now, or they should have happened yesterday or they should happen by x (x would be a day/time/milestone I’ve made up in my head).
I recently heard a woman share at a meeting about how she heard her sponsor speak about having unwavering trust that things will all be okay and the woman wanted that. Years later she has it. And I found that to be super comforting because deep in my brain I know that I will eventually have it, too. But I lack faith and I lack patience and my own will is still so strong.
With that said, God/ he/she/it…whatever is up there, has shown me so many times that it really does always work out. That things just do take time, as much as it tortures me to hear that. That some things just aren't meant to be, but there is something else around the corner. That the timing that didn’t work out was actually protecting me from something.
So, I know that I'm just in the throes of the growing pains right now and there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. That the small moments of growth are guiding me to the place I was always intended to be in.
I don't actually want to live in a world with no time (I need the structure I wouldn't be able to handle it), I just would love if the growing pains hurt a little less…and I know they will.. in time :)
With so much love always,
Jane
Thank you for reading always ❤️ always here for anyone who needs !
I went back to your post to reread what you had said about having felt like you were protected by not having something happen too soon and then could not return to what I had already written.
I guess it went a little something like this:
It sounds like you have been making good use of your time in these often difficult days of early recovery by meeting with your sponsor, attending meetings and writing these posts about what you are doing and thinking and feeling which adds up to an indication that your attitude is one of a healthy honest, open mind and a willingness to make the effort that will carry you, one day at a time, to the happy life you have always deserved.
I have often been told by someone who has made it through the travails of early recovery that someone along the way had told them
" you are right or you're supposed to be right now at this time" and they not only found that comforting but later realized it was exactly right. One person was even in jail at that time and later realized ready to face the stress of the outside world and still stay sober at that time.
A group called * a beautiful day* has a song called *time* that explores in the notion that whether you think time is too short or too long depends on how you are feeling about what's happening in your life