When the 'boring' life is the ultimate fantasy
on the many times I moved, growing up with alcoholism, and the 'what ifs' of tomorrow
When you have lived in chaos, a quiet life seems like a faraway daydream.
Many years have passed since I gotten off some of the largest emotional rollercoasters I unwillingly rode, yet sometimes the memory of those ride seep in like a cold chill. I start looking for phantom fires to put out. Thankfully, there are none, it’s just an imprint of the past.
When I was young I grew up surrounded by the constant repercussions of having one alcoholic parent and a kind but permissible second parent. My daydreams around that time were not your typical ones: they mostly consisted of a stable adult life, and although it sounds like a boring use of a fantasy, it was a tool for survival in my book.
Even back then, as a young person, I somehow felt that deep down I had the resilience needed to finally break generational cycles.
This post has been hard to write, because I still have a long way to go in terms of healing. I am recovering from people-pleasing, enabling behaviors, misdirected anger, and lack of understanding for my loved ones; the typical recovery of someone who didn’t do the drinking but grew up with it.
Image source: H. Erwan on Unsplash
We moved about a dozen times when I was a kid, I got so used to packing things in boxes that when I discovered minimalism in my early 20’s, it seemed like a no-brainer to me. My mother would encourage us to donate stuff every time we moved, ‘menos para cargar’1, she would say. I learned not to attach myself to places, people or things, in other words I learned to build walls.
For some reason I was always placed in charge of the kitchenware, it was as if my mother trusted me with the most delicate stuff. I would gather old newspapers and ask for boxes at the local supermarket. I remember carefully wrapping each dish in layers of yesterday’s news.
Then I would wrap those same dishes again and again, every time we moved. I would do it carefully, as I had been taught to do.
I learned that instead of facing problems, one must run.
I lived for others.
I lost my voice a little more with the passing of time.
I tiptoed around my parents, feeling lost and unseen. Yet I always found a space to read, write, and dream.
A couple of months ago I was in the car listening to one of my favorite podcasts when I had an ‘aha!’ moment. I realize that when things are hard or uncomfortable, I still run away. I don’t do the running by physically moving homes but I run away inside my mind.
Sometimes I do a strange count in my head of how many times I’ve moved as an adult (5 times ) and I panic wondering if it was too much. ‘No!’ I quickly tell myself, it hasn’t been ‘too much’. I have a loving partner, the funniest little daughter, and a stable routine and family life- sans the alcoholism. Still, when I feel sadness or loneliness, normal human feelings, I run away into a daydream more times than I wish to admit.
I engage in what the podcaster, the brilliant Kara Lowenthal, refers to as tomorrow thinking.
Tomorrow thinking is referred to as the thing perfectionists do to avoid challenging moments or less-than-pleasant emotions. We start to think of the next big thing, oh and by the way, that next big thing will be “perfect”. It is the party we are going to next week, the vacation we are going to start planning, the clothes we are going to buy to elevate our wardrobe, the home with that 3rd bedroom for guests.
After engaging in tomorrow thinking, we get a surge of dopamine from the thought, according to Kara, and after that surge there is no need to confront the very thing we are running away from. There is no need to write that chapter in your novel that has left you feeling stuck, since you already feel better after daydreaming that it already became a best-seller.
My own 'aha!' moment came when I realized that I had engaged in tomorrow thinking in the past when I desperately needed it to cope, and I recognized that I was still participating in the behavior today.
It's funny because when I was a kid, my tomorrow thinking consisted of a scene that closely resembles the life I have today. You can say that presently I am living out that scene; I have a peaceful and loving home with the family I created. My former daydream is now my reality and I although I don’t need any more daydreams, as I am now an adult with an arsenal of tools, I do thank my habit of daydreaming for giving me a space to breathe.
Thinking of the 'what ifs' of distant tomorrows is no longer necessary for my survival, so I will learn to let them go. There will be joy and there will be sadness in the present moment and I am willing to accept that, I also know I will be moved to tears by both, because I am so grateful for it all.
Most importantly, there will be discovery, reader. Discovery of who I truly am outside of the places, people, and things that were a part of my past. My present, seemingly quiet life is not boring to me at all, it is a celebration of inner peace. It is the safe haven I created for myself in order to heal. It is a beautiful life that I fought hard to have.
As always, thank you for reading.
P.S. Here is Kara’s podcast episode for anyone who is interested =) The podcast is call Unf**** Your Mind and the episode is titled, ‘Perfectionist Fantasies + Tomorrow Thinking’.
Less to carry
Thank you for this post. I’ve never heard the expression “tomorrow thinking” before, but this is exactly what I do. Will listen to that podcast episode asap.
Helen, this was such a beautiful read that made me feel so deeply. The most vivid image that has stayed with me is your memory of you wrapping delicate kitchen ware in layer after layer of yesterday's news - and that one action connecting the past, present and the future for you and your family.
What you shared about learning not to attach yourself to people, places or things, also got me to reflect on how through my own childhood experience of instability (mostly emotional rather than geographical), I actually ended up attaching deeply to things and places (perhaps people too, or my ideas of who people were) that I imbued with a nostalgic longing for the stability I did want. In my adult life, especially with my most recent big move abroad, is when I started learning to understand more about what motivated my attachment to the material and also learnt to give myself what I actually needed that I'd tried to substitute for with material things.
It was very moving to read how in reading, writing and dreaming, you learnt to build a different type of safe and stable home and centre for yourself to return to, and that built the bridge between where you were to the beautiful life of inner and outer peace you've now created for yourself. I'm celebrating you and your continued journey of self-discovery in the present moment! ✨✨💖