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I listen to a podcast called The Rewatchables, which is dedicated to movies that the hosts deem rewatchable. So it’s not always Oscar-winners. There are a lot of Sylvester Stallone action movies, and plenty of Tom Cruise films. It’s right up my alley.
Well, they recently spent a good two hours talking about the Tom Hanks classic, Big. I loved that movie so much as a kid, and I still watch it once a year, maybe more. I found it so heart-warming and an endorsement of the idea that you never want to lose the kid in you.
However, as the podcast touched on quite a bit, it’s a little problematic as an adult to watch because of how weird a concept it is to have a 13-year-old in an adult’s body, having an adult relationship with a 30-year-old woman. And—spoiler alert for an old movie—it is even stranger to watch it now and see how nonchalant Elizabeth Perkins’ character is when she finds out the truth. Which is that she had been having a lot of sex with a 13-year-old. Doesn’t seem to bother her as much as you’d think it would.
But as I listened to the discussion of Big, it really hit home for me about my sobriety. One of the most startling things to me about getting sober was the “hole in the donut” problem, which I have discussed 400 times on this newsletter. To recap, it’s the fear that many newly-sober people have—including me—that by getting rid of drugs and alcohol, and then avoiding people, places and things that caused us to drink and drug, and then working through resentments, and then praying, and then getting rid of character defects… I remember wondering, “What will be left of me? I’ll just be a blank sheet of paper.”
In my experience, it did kind of break out that way. The good news, though, is that a blank sheet of paper can be a beautiful thing. It was for me. It’s an open road to figure out who you were, who you are and who you want to be.
There’s definitely growing pains, and I felt those. I worked really hard for a few years after I got sober to get rid of the bad parts of me, and I got to a place where I was pretty happy with those results. But I also struggled to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. In a weird way, I felt like I did when I was 16-17-18 years old, meeting with guidance counselors and touring colleges to figure out what path I wanted to take in life. This time, I was in my mid-30s, already was married, already had kids, already worked a full-time job. But who did I want to be?
I didn’t know, and that was scary. Did I want to be more reserved? I’d read about the power of stoicism, and that sounded very cool. Did I want to do my current job? Did I still love sports the way I used to? I honestly wasn’t sure about a lot of those things, especially when it came to my personality. I always have been a goofball, pretty immature for my age, but I kind of liked that, and I think other people did, too. I really believe life is a mix of joy and pain, and if you don’t have the joy in there, it’s just 100 percent pain and bitterness and suffering. Who wants that?
So that brings me back to Big. One of the things that makes Josh Baskin so appealing to adults he interacts with is that I think he is a version of an adult that most adults wish they could be. But the older you get, the more you realize that people might look down on your if you seem immature. You start to get self-conscious about singing karaoke because people might think you’re not good at it. How many of us don’t take any chances whatsoever because we’re worried what other people think?
Basically, insecurity floods in as you get older. So most adults cave in and let their inner child die off. Or worse yet, they keep that inner child locked in a cage inside them, and that’s painful, too. In Big, Tom Hanks’ character just lets it fly, and you can see other characters start to be drawn in by that because they wish they could do that, too.
As I listened to that podcast, I realized that at some point, probably in the last five years, I decided on what I wanted to be for the rest of my life. I want to be sober—that’s first and foremost—and that comes with a certain amount of spirituality and pause and restraint that I want to keep. But No. 2 on the list is that I want to be what I am—which is a total goofball who seeks out the joy in life. I’m going to abide by societal norms for acting like a clown as a 45-year-old, but I feel secure enough in myself that I am going to be who I am and be pretty comfortable about that. That led me to try standup comedy, which is the ultimate test of whether failing will affect you self-esteem. I mean, even the best comedians you’ve ever seen have gotten on stage many, many times and eaten s**t so hard it would break a lot of other people. And I had my share of s**t sandwiches when I was doing standup on a regular basis. I tried my best and worked very hard on it, but I would walk off stage after totally whiffing and I’d go home and I’d be fine. I credit sobriety for that, and I specifically credit recovery for letting me tear everything down and build it back up. So here I am, a 45-year-old semi-responsible child.
So sobriety has been so cool in that regard. I figured out what I couldn’t be any more, then I figured out what I didn’t want to be, then I figured out who I wanted to be.
I’ll give you a good example of what I mean. The other night, my older daughters drove to Target at about 9 pm. When they got home, they needed me to pull my car into the driveway so they could park on the outside. I did that, then I stood beside the driveway and waved them in. As they pulled in, I ducked down and went around the back of the car. We’re pretty playful about chasing each other around the house and trying to scare each other, and they giggle and run away. It’s one of those goofy family things that only makes sense if you see it every day.
So I was hiding back behind a running car—always a great idea, I know—and they were both gawking their heads around to see where I was at. I could hear them in the car going, “Ahhhh, where did he go?” Eventually I jumped up on the passenger side and made a growling noise, and I could see them in the car laughing their asses off. If you’d have been watching this scene from next door, you would have bought a straightjacket on Amazon and had it delivered to my house.
But eventually they shut down the car and got out, and we all walked in together. My 14-year-old said, “You are the biggest idiot on earth,” and I nodded. Yep, I am, and I’m fine with that.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
"I really want to thank you for sticking with me through all the years of drinking, and the first five years of my sobriety," said the AA to her spouse on her fifth-year anniversary. "But I'm curious. If I started drinking again, would you still love me?"
After pondering the question for just about a tenth of a second, her husband responded, "Of course I would still love you. I'd miss you, but I would still love you!"
(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2008, by Richard M. of Golden, Colorado)
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