Feeling teeny-tiny hints of a new normal.......
(breaching whale close to shore in Maalaea Bay)
I read an Instagram post that said "Sobriety is my life. I embrace it and I love it". I literally believe my sobriety thus far is because of these quiet summer mornings I cannot WAIT to wake up to. Even though my damn dog wakes me up between 5:45 and 6:30, even on vacation, I still tell myself "but look at all that extra quiet time you get!".
I light a candle, play some spa music, and just read, and click and post........It truly is magical. I have literally done the same thing every single day for 28 days. Well, I didn't do it on Day 1. Day 1 I was so hung over, I went to yoga and then toa girlfriend's to tell my story out loud.
These last 2 days have been the closest to 'normal' so far. I have just busied myself around the supper/wolfie hour (or 2). I am drinking lots of tonic water and then it's gone - poof! My youngest (23) was around, sunning herself in the backyard. She is so responsive to my new mood, so engaging, so absolutely grown up. At 23 I have to hold myself back from telling her too much. I don't want her to feel responsible for my sobriety, and I don't want her to feel responsible for my happiness. That's how I was raised with my mom - an unhealthy relationship where I have always felt that I am here so she can feel loved, not the other way around.
One of my flaws is that I am impulsive (no kidding drinker!). I am not only impulsive in action, but can be impulsive in thought. When I have a 'good idea' or wisdom I think needs sharing, I share it right away, sometimes without considering my timing whether the person is in a place to hear it or not.
But yesterday we were talking about some of the young women in my daughters' lives and how they have put on massive amounts of weight over the last few months (because of trauma they had experienced). My girls, on the other hand, have found their fitness and a balance of healthy eating and are very healthy (and no trauma). I took the opportunity to congratulate my daughter on how it appears that she's learned the secret of self soothing from an internal perspective, unlike me and generations before me. I was honest at that point, sharing that my self soothing began as a thumb-sucker, eater, smoker, then eventually, drinker. I didn't want to lecture her but just plant a little 'nugget' of awareness. So that if that moment comes where she finds herself dealing with trauma, or just even in the low moments, that she can somehow find self-soothing behavior within, not externally.
It was such a gift; sitting there with my tonic water, clear headed and wise - and know that I was literally not 'over-talking' through a buzz......plus I remembered exactly what I said to her. It was freeing.
Then in the evening I met a bunch of women for a meeting about a church retreat. There were 5 of us. The hostess and one other nursed a glass of wine for an hour (which, as we know already, I would have arrived at the meeting at least 2 glasses in, and yes driven the 3 blocks to the meeting) and had that glass of wine done in 10 minutes. Myself and the other 2 nursed the water bottles we brought with us. We laughed, I was silly, I was funny, I got off-topic, just as if I had a couple glasses of wine in me. Except I didn't. It was such a magical aha moment for me.
Sober with gratitude, xox, me