This Is All Happening. Right Now.

This is the happy ending.  This is the new beginning.  This is everything in between, everything that came before and everything yet to be discovered.

I’ve finally made the shift.  Like that one day when you wake up and realise a bad relationship is bad – “what am I doing with this person??” – and a switch flips, and you no longer want them, no longer need them, there is an awakening inside your body that says, “hey, remember me?”  No longer do you long for them to love you more, or show you that light that you used to see in their eyes, or feel desperate to make situations better and make them please, please see how great this is.  You have clarity.  And suddenly they seem … banal, irrelevant, flawed, and pointless.

This is precisely the awakening that I had with alcohol exactly 10 days ago.

I realised this is going to end one of two ways: badly, or happily. And I want the happy ending.

I’m suddenly acutely aware of all of the things I’ve been missing out on in my daily obsession with making sure I could somehow, somewhere get some wine. (And it’s always been wine, white wine. Specifically shitty white wine like cheap pinot grigio.) Things I have forgotten, things I’ve never tried, things I’ve never even heard of. Small thing, big things. Old things, new things. And I’m excited – genuinely – about opening up my small world into this enormous universe.

I’m writing this blog not for anyone but myself. But I’m making it public as a means of forcing myself to do it. I also know that certain writings I’ve read over the years have been a comfort to me, so if my words resonate with anyone else, then great. I don’t plan for this to be a literary masterpiece. In fact, the less editing I have to do, the better.  I just want to get my thoughts out there as I go through this adventure. And yes, I am seeing it that way.

I don’t want to dwell much on the shame, the guilt, the embarrassment, the regret, the sadness, the disappointment, the disgust, the anger, or the loneliness that I have put upon myself (and others) as a result of my relationship with alcohol.  Because I have done plenty of wallowing in those terrible thoughts. I have decided that I have to try to leave them behind, though they are always there.  In this way, my existence is not linear but past, future, and that elusive present all tied up into one. I think this is how it is for everyone, every life, not just people going through a sobriety thing. We are our memories – good and bad – our failures, our achievements, and our dreams, our plans, and our right now at every given moment.

Sometimes in this blog I want to delve into the past to process or work through or learn from something that I’ve done and the horrible feelings associated with that memory.  Other times I want to get excited about what is to come, and plan for new experiences, and open my heart and mind. I think both can be true at once, and both can be reflected in these writings. That’s my current thinking anyway.  I’m just going to see what happens.

xxx