You know how much I love to fly … well, we flew back to Europe last night on an overnight flight. The plane was on time, the trip was brief and calm. There were two tiny bits of bumps, nothing very interesting.
During the first bit of turbulence, I closed my eyes, and tried my “pressing the down-volume button on my ipod shuffle trick” to get the bumps to stop. It worked mostly. I closed my eyes and tried to hear three things around me (whirring fan, baby up front, arabic woman with gigantic boobs sighing behind me). I tried to smell two things (is someone eating doritos?). I tried to taste one thing (mint gum).
And out of fucking nowhere, I heard a voice.
Now please don’t go thinking that I hear voices all the time, because I don’t. I once heard wolfie very loudly and clearly though. Mostly I have ‘noise’ in my head, like me reminding myself to do things, and replaying conversations, and just general static noise. But i don’t hear voices. Well, not usually.
But last night, on this overnight flight, as I had my eyes squished shut and I was worrying about it being bumpy, I very clearly heard a voice say:
“Stay Here.”
Like … stay in the present, don’t go off worrying about tomorrow, or worrying about later, or worrying about crashes, or worrying about what-ifs. Stay here. Don’t worry about things that haven’t happened, won’t happen, aren’t happening. Stay here.
(I love also that the voice wasn’t saying stay there – which would imply that it was coming from outside of me. Because it said “stay here” I know it was coming from inside of me.)
So hooray, instead of hearing fucking wolfie’s voice, i can now hear “My Best Me, Talking to Me.”
Stay Here.
There is no forever, there’s just now. There’s no worrying about later, there’s just this moment.
There’s no “how will i not drink at the wedding?” – there’s just today. Stay here.
There’s no “how can I quit forever?” – there’s just today. Stay here.
There’s no “what if i get squished and my husband doesn’t know the PIN to our shared account?” – there’s just today.
Stay here.
~
Love this post! I needed to hear this; I need to hear this every day. ‘Stay here’ and not worrying about how I will not drink at a wedding, at a block party, because I had an awful day, because the sky is blue…my ‘here’, my ‘right now’ is pretty darn good…I am present and able to recognise that it is pretty darn good because I didn’t pick up a drink. I think I will ‘Stay here’ and not drink again today. Happy Thursday, all!
I so needed to hear that message TODAY … to ‘stay here’ and get through today… hoping to just get through day ‘1’ yet again 🙁
Life has been incredible challenging and I know that while I profess having control over the drinking – it’s not helping my well being so I need to get back to the sober ride.
What an awesome experience! It’s amazing that two little words can have so much meaning. I just wrote ‘stay here’ in the front of my journal.
Thanks for sharing that.
~Jami
Goosebumps! Thank you for sharing this – it is such a powerful reminder. I think it’s those “what ifs” that have driven me to drink in the past. Thank you for reminding me to stay present, and for your emails -even while on vacation, you are there! Big hugs.
And a big shout out to those who have reached 100 days. Bravo!
Welcome home. I’m glad the trip was safe and sound. And I loved the story about your father-in-law. I love it when people are thoughtful like that. Means so much more than some fancy, schmancy generic gift.
Wow, so many 100s! Amazing! We should have a Team 100 honour roll 🙂
Glad you made it home safely and congrats to SoberJournalist, Lane, Christina, Diane, Gindy and Lawyer Anne! Nice work y’all!
I love it when I hear voices (you know what I mean)! I especially love it when they are this clear and this powerful.
Bravo!
Sherry
I love this post and those two simple words and how powerful they are. Could have used that voice yesterday when I was having a meltdown over something that hadn’t happened yet, but I will take this as a sign today. Thank you.
Love this Belle. Just stay here. I love being here…right now. It’s a good place. Glad you had a safe trip home. Hugs.