Self Care (I think)

Photo by Emily Powers on Unsplash

I prefer my bath to be 10,000 degrees. Steam rises from the bath while I am in it, the mirror steaming, too.

I have sprayed Florida water, which is supposed to cleanse the energy of the space - I do this instead of lighting palo Santo because I worry about my son with asthma, about the baby. I do light a candle, and I pour my Dr. Teal’s elderberry bath bubbles into the tub.

My skin lobsters.

In the winter if I stand outside after a bath, steam rises from my skin.

I have always loved the heat, sweating in a sauna, sitting too long in a hot tub.

Out of the bath tub, I continue to sweat. I put toner and moisturizer on my face, beads of sweat emerging on my forehead, the back of my mom bun hair dripping down my back.

It is unclear to me if this is the same self-care other people are talking about or if this is just another means of experiencing intensity.

“You’re getting the pillow wet,” Llew says, as I lay down to read The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Birthday.

“But you smell pretty good,” Cade says, climbing onto my other side.

That was always my favorite, Too Much Birthday. I liked the pictures of “oodles of birthday goodies,” the dreams Papa and Brother and Sister have for the party.

I have heard alcoholism called the disease of wanting more. And I suppose I’ve always liked too much.

Which perhaps is why, in its cosmic joke, the universe gifted me a total of 8 kids.

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I am emerging from a time of exhaustion. I have taken the high road, really, almost all times but one in particular that I can think of.

My husband and I have been kind, we have been patient. But now we are battle-weary.

I have been tearful, so often, in fact, that it doesn’t even seem I could blame it on my cycle. And my baby is now one, so if there is any depression, it’s just normal, not the fancy postpartum kind.

My husband worries when I cry. I try to tell him it’s good to cry. It’s the body acknowledging that it needs to let go, to release. Nothing is actually wrong, really. In sobriety, I am just sometimes sad.

I am looking for ways to recharge that aren’t self-destructive.

The bath is where I have landed for now.

Two and a half years sober, the better part of four years, and that’s all I’ve fucking got : a bubble bath.

Eating too much ice cream isn’t doing for me what it once did in sobriety.

I am reminded of a phrase I hear in sobriety : that we trudge the road of happy destiny.

I feel like I am climbing back, coming back up from a dark time. Sometimes I stumble back. Sometimes I make almost no progress at all. Sometimes it feels like I keep trying to run on a broken ankle.

But as we do, we keep moving forward. We put snacks in the kids’ backpacks. We fill their water bottles. We sign their folders and find them socks and take them to taekwondo and ask them to cover their mouths when they cough and, and, and.

And always, a day that I don’t drink is a success. I have become something - not complacent, really, but perhaps ungrateful - of how little I think about not drinking.

I don’t drink, ever, one day at a time, no matter what.

And so I continue, emerging from the tub with my skin, hot to the touch - Llew saying to me, “You are really sweating,” while I get into their bed and they choose their bedtime story.

Another favorite of mine are the Little Critter books.

The Little Critter book ends: But there is one thing I never forget: I never forget to have my mom read me a bedtime story. And I never forget to kiss my mom goodnight.

And so I kiss my boys, my stepkids, and my baby goodnight, and all is well.