Swimming Upstream
“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.”
~ Many Oliver, Upstream
I have always been known as someone who does things her own way. I needed to hit the wall hard with my head so many times in life. That’s just how I learn. By experiencing and feeling. And by making mistakes. I am not even sure I would call them “mistakes” today, since I would have never moved forward in my life and grew in the way I did if I haven’t made them. So, in my mind, they’re not mistakes but opportunities that I wholeheartedly embraced.
I don’t remember much of my early childhood, but I have heard that as a newborn I did not want to suck and I rejected my mother’s milk very early. Growing up, my mother would say that I would push her hand away whenever she wanted to help me out. Although I don’t have many clear memories, I have the inner understanding, this deep knowing that I was always a highly sensitive person, since I was very little. Easy to get upset, get angry or overwhelmed, and often picking up on the energies and moods in the room. I look at the photographs and I see that in her eyes - she felt a lot, always, and often more intensely than other children. I look at her now and I know that she was not understood and fully seen for who she was, and she often felt like she was too much. It must have been difficult and challenging to have and to raise a highly sensitive child.
Very early I knew what I do and don’t want, and I desperately wanted to be independent. I was four when my parents sent me to a winter camp with kindergarten group where we got snowed in and were trapped for days. Shortly after that, at six, my father moved to Libya, North Africa, for work, and my mother and I stayed in Yugoslavia while they were both working on getting visas for the two of us, so we could follow my dad’s steps; all the while bombing in Libya was about to start. We lived in a tiny village in Sahara desert. I was home schooled and spent afternoons playing outside, riding bike with other kids, often losing myself and disappearing in African neighborhoods, and regularly ended up being scolded for it. At eight and a half my parents sent me alone back to Yugoslavia while they completed a few things in Africa before their final return. I started school in my hometown just before second grade ended, lived with my grandparents and was regularly getting in trouble at school for beating up the kids who bullied me.
At eleven I had my first drink (well, the very first sip of beer was when I was 4), at fourteen I was already going out, and by the time I turned sixteen I was working at bars on weekends and/or during summer breaks. My parents never understood why I needed to work, but I wanted my own freedom, money and independence, and they didn't stop me. I was always a good enough student in school and in my mind that allowed me to do whatever I wanted outside of school. I thought that just like any parent, my parents too want to see decent grades, and what I do with my spare time is none of their business. And so I did abuse this relationship in so many ways and on so many occasions.
When it comes to addiction and obsessive/compulsive behaviors and habits, I certainly tried it my way. It hasn’t been that critical in the beginning. Well, maybe it was, actually. I remember being fourteen and drunk in a bathroom of a night club, throwing up my soul along with vodka, and thinking - I can’t wait to do this again next weekend! That could have been a sign that something’s off. But I was way too young to recognize it. And I lived in a place where drinking was completely normalized. I have experienced many blackouts, drove drunk and high for years (almost two decades, actually), got arrested, dated drug dealers, and all along I was responsible, going to work and also maintaining a decent social life, and even got a scholarship for master studies and moved to the States. How did I manage to do all this in life is beyond me.
I have always felt that disconnect in me, as if two different people reside in me - one, dark, heavy and self-destructive, always walking on the edge; and the other one, motivated, responsible, curious, and wants more from life. As much as it has been fun at times, for me and for those around me, it hasn’t been easy living like this - as the dark and heavy parts show up when I least expect them, and the bright ones pick up when they left off like nothing happened. Even today, when I am six years sober and almost ten years in recovery, mental health is something I don’t take for granted and I take a great care in it.
When I moved to the States in my late twenties, my addiction picked up. As an international student, my living expenses were high and I was almost always broke. I worked two jobs - one part-time at a school lab, and the other one (under the table) at a local bar. I worked at the bar almost every night, and it would almost always be a late night gig. Often I would go out after work with my customers and/or friends and party till morning. Still, I would manage to get up and go to school. Additionally, there is partying with friends on the weekends. Overall, I was either drunk, high or hungover non stop. This kind of a lifestyle continued after my graduate school, and well into my thirties. It’s gotten worse in the summer of 2014. I started questioning my choices and lifestyle more, and when I came home to Serbia to visit that summer it took my mother one look at me to comment something along the lines - you seem to have a problem, Marina. That was probably the one time in life where my mother and I were on the same page about my choices. I had to stop fighting.
After that summer in Serbia, I got back to US and started my recovery. But, it hasn't been an inspirational spiritual journey right away. It was simply an abstinence from mind altering substances - alcohol and drugs. And then, when that worn out, after three months, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I needed a replacement for substances if I am going to have a decent life. And I didn’t get sober for a shitty life, for sure. I didn’t know at first how to live without the crutches. The desire and obsession was still there, strong as ever. But, as Mary Oliver puts it, “attention is the beginning of devotion” - I put all of my attention to this struggle, it became my priority in life, and I devoted my life from then on to something else; something more wholesome, more honorable, and way more satisfying.
Ram Dass says that, on the spiritual journey, renunciation means non-attachment. The one who renunciates no longer thinks that she is her desires; she no longer identifies with them. With time and practice, they just fall away. The simple and direct type of renunciation would be to give up the satisfying of your desire, for example staying silent for one day, or giving up alcohol or sex for a certain amount of time. This requires discipline, of course. But it is also against the stream, against the popular opinion. And, for me, it took a while to understand this concept, believe in it, and embrace it.
I remember contemplating on the concept of renunciation. At first, it sounded too radical for the worldly life I was living. As long as I was questioning if I am an alcoholic or not, I could not have opted for renunciating anything. I believed that my life was great, that I was by any means not suffering, and that partying and using is something I could never let go, give up. I mean what would my life be without these things?!
But, you see, in order to be free, we first need to know that we are in bondage, we need to really see, understand and believe that we are enslaved by things, situations, people. The worst of all our mental afflictions (conditions that bring us great suffering, pain or distress) could be ignorance; ignorance is not absence of knowledge but rather thinking that things are a certain way (when they’re actually not). As Lama Marut nicely puts it, “ignorance is thinking that my own unhappiness is someone else’s fault, and my happiness is someone else’s responsibility”.
So, it took me years, decades rather, to realize that I have a problem with alcohol and drugs (and relationships, for that matter). And then, it took me years to finally look for help. It was on my own time, when I was ready and not before, that the whole world of different opportunities and support opened up for me. But, the first step, what needed to happen, was my own renunciation - me letting go of one thing that used to bring me pleasure and happiness, one thing that would smooth all the anxieties and insecurities and angst, and make me feel OK. Booze (and drugs, but mostly booze).
“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside - remembering all the times you’ve felt that way …”
~ Charles Bukowski
And it’s been tough, at times. It still gets tough. But it’s tough because life can be tough, not because I am hungover and cannot function properly. Not because I feel shame waking up in a stranger’s bed or I’m feeling embarrassed because I was so drunk that I was hitting on a potential business partner. These things, these situations, these feelings, I no longer experience.
Each time I let the self-pity in, each time I feel bad about myself and the fact that I am highly sensitive, that I can’t handle my alcohol, and that I can’t “have fun” and party with my friends - I had to pause for a moment and bring in gratitude instead; gratitude for being able to experience so many wild things in life that most people never will. Gratitude for experiencing them earlier in life so I don’t have to feel the FOMO - that (false) belief that others live better lives, more satisfying lives and that I am missing the opportunities of a lifetime. I know I am not. But, it has been a long journey coming to this place of peace, swimming upstream and resisting popular opinions and beliefs.
I remember when I first met my Heart Lama. There was something in him, in the way he spoke, that gave me hope instantly. Something about him ensured me that things will be alright from then on. I remember one of his first teachings, when he said to me (well, to all of us, but I had a feeling he is talking to me directly): “Don’t trust me blindly for what I teach you here, you try it yourself and see if it works for you. And if something doesn’t sit right with you, maybe don’t reject it right away but rather put it on the shelf and revisit it later”. And, so, I listened. And my life got a very different meaning, with a very different livelihood.
“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life …
And I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. I made it. And can do what I want to with it. Live it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes.”
~ Mary Oliver, Staying Alive