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Grief and Sobriety

This is the post that ties it all together. When I started this blog I talked a lot about my journey with grief. Then I moved on to this journey of sobriety and today is about both and how it all ties together.

I have 10 months of sobriety under my belt and only a few days away from 11 months. I have been thinking a lot about my journey to this point. Part of the reason this has all come up for me is that I am in the part of my sober journey where all my emotions that I spent years trying to suppress are starting to surface. When I first quit drinking I had emotions pop up here and there and I called a sober friend and asked him how he copes because I was really struggling and his response was ” I think its easier to deal with all of that now that I am sober”. I was baffled. How in the hell does he think this is easier? Well now that I am further along and these emotions are coming at me almost daily I understand. They still hurt, I still cry(sometimes ugly cry) but I have the capacity to deal with them now. When I was drinking and my body was riddled in alcohol the only thing my brain would and could process was to drink and that will make it better.

I am reading a fictional novel right now about a widow which I generally steer away from but this author is a widow so she’s writing from her own experience. There is a paragraph in there about how everyone tells this widow, now single mother how strong she is. She then goes into how exhausting the reputation is to uphold and she is not strong she just doesn’t have a choice. I wanted to jump up and down and point at the book and yell “YES, EXACTLY THAT”. But the clincher is how she wants to collapse in a heap, drink herself into a stupor, hide under the covers from the very thing that stole her future. FUCK, that is exactly what my “STRONG” self did once my kids became adults.

On my Mothers death bed she took me by the hand and said “you need to be strong because that baby(my daughter who was 4 1/2 months old) will react to your emotions. So, if you are crying all the time she will cry all of the time.” That set the tone for the rest of my motherhood, stay strong for the babies. Her intentions were good but her advice was incomplete because at some point I had to grieve or my whole world falls apart. There it is, the beginning of the pile of grief. The reason I mention this is because this grief is also coming up for me now. Not just because there is a lot of unresolved grief but also because I will be the age my mom was when she passed next month. What a reality check that is. I cannot even imagine how ugly this would be if I was still trying to drink stuff away.

Turns out my friend, who at one time could not function without a drink first thing, was right. It is easier to deal with these emotions sober than it is when your body is littered in alcohol. It doesn’t mean that it’s easy because it all still hurts tremendously but I can have the emotions, let them in, process them until they move on. They don’t stay long and I learn and grow from them every time. What a concept.

As I continue to travel this journey I am learning new things all of the time. Things about myself as well as things about others. I am learning that as painful as grief is, I can allow it in and allow it to hurt until it passes again. Just like grief, drinking and sobriety is different for everyone. Everybody’s journey is personal. I share my story to help and inspire others. If your journey is different than mine, don’t give up just keep trying things until you find what works for you. I wish you all a path of healing!

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Happy New Year, 2024

Happy 2024! I hope that all of you set and obtain goals this year that increase your quality of life. This is the second year I have brought in sober. Last year I was doing my 100 days sober. This year was much easier than last year. It’s true what everyone says, the more sober time you have under your belt the easier it is.

December we embarked on a 10 day vacation at the beginning of the month. Not my first vacation since I started this journey but the longest and because I was 8 months into my journey I felt more prepared and less like I was missing out on something. We were in Hawaii and I will say it was probably one of the best vacations I have had in years. We both got the flu while we were there and it was still the best vacation I have had in years. My anxiety was very low while traveling, we did not overwhelm ourselves with a bunch of plans, we just took each day as it came. We hiked some amazing hikes, we drove to some incredible places, found some fantastic little places off the beaten path to eat and we spent a great deal of time at the beach. This was all very big for me because vacations in the past were driven by drinking, which meant less time exploring, passing up good places to eat because they didn’t sale alcohol or getting back early to sit and have a glass of wine or a cocktail.

I had not prepared for Christmas before we left and I was not at all concerned about it while we were on vacation. I hosted Christmas so we had a lot of prep work to do when we got home but I just made lists and prioritized . I did not allow my anxiety to take over, I still made time to take care of myself and honestly I felt like the holidays went down with out a hitch. We went camping for New Years weekend and again I had not prepped for that until after Christmas. We managed to get Christmas put away and prep for camping without any hiccups. I encountered plenty of drunk people during the holidays as well as people just having a few drinks and although it did not bother me that they were drunk or just drinking , I do recall at one point appreciating that I was not in that state and that I would be waking up the next day feeling fantastic.

I feel like I have moved mountains in my own life since I quit drinking. I really haven’t, I am just a functioning human again. I get so many things accomplished because my head is clear and I sleep well so I can get up in the morning and do functioning people stuff. For example, my solar quit working and I learned this shortly after I embarked on this journey. I went back and forth with Customer Service about this before I finally ended up seeking legal advice. All and all I filed an arbitration claim and then sat down with a lawyer and a paralegal from this company to resolve the issue. When all was said and done I was content with the out come and extremely proud of myself for following through. Two years ago I would have just kept fighting with customer service. I would have never looked for legal advice, I would have let my anxiety take control. But life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows just because I quit drinking. As a matter of fact some piece of shit punks have tried to steal my sons car twice in two months. The first time after all was said and done, we talked to the police, had the car towed to be fixed I remember thinking how nice it was that I wasn’t drunk when it all went down and never at any point did I feel like I needed to drink. I can deal with hard stuff without having to try and numb. What a huge feat! I am also very pleased with how functional I am in any situation and I am not concerned about whether I will be too hungover to deal with things.

So, here I am 9 month into this journey and I realize although, I set a goal of one year I am at the phase in this journey where there is no longer and end date. I will not pick up a drink after my 1 year goal, I will keep plugging along, soaking in the happy, the sad, the brighter, the hard stuff, the functional stuff and feeling it all. That’s what life really is and I am in it and I’m gonna keep enjoying it for as many circles around the earth that I have left. That’s my goal to improve my quality of life.

Wishing you all A Happy and Prosperous New Year!

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What Drinking Really Does For You

“It’s 5 o’clock, I think I will have a glass of wine. I am only gonna have 2 glasses though, 1 while I cook and the other with dinner.” These are the things I would tell myself when I was drinking and then that first sip would hit my lips and the dopamine would kick in and I would already be thinking about the second, third and fourth glass of wine. I would undoubtedly finish the whole bottle. With each glass I would get louder, more talkative and far more carefree (as a matter of fact my husband banned me from making plans while I was drinking because I always regretted it the next day). Sometimes if I was triggered before drinking I would become angry or sad. That would most likely spill over and whomever I was with would be the recipient of my unloading. Then of course there was the next morning… guaranteed a hangover, feeling like shit about however I acted and the process of trying to remember. Honestly this is hard to share and hard to see in black and white. Not my proudest moments.

The hangovers alone are something to be acknowledged, talked about and gladly left in the rearview mirror. I understand that mind altering substances are addictive. I understand that you cannot will power addictions away and I also understand that addiction is a sneaky little fucker that tricks you into believing you are not addicted. So, when I tell you that hangovers are reason enough to quit drinking, I mean it with the knowledge that it’s easier said than done. I would wake up around 2:30am after an evening of drinking and my mouth would be dry and my heart would be pounding and I’d have a terrible headache. I would start by telling myself that I had to quit drinking, then I would start trying to piece together my evening and I would call myself horrible names. I’d usually toss and turn for at least 2 hours. I would go back to sleep and wake up only feeling slightly less shitty then I did at 2:30am. I would start the process all over again. I would undoubtedly loose a whole day because I could not function. I would be exhausted, I would feel sick to my stomach, have a raging headache and just an overall feeling of sluggish, heaviness. The sun would be shining, I could hear the world functioning outside while I lay in bed nursing myself back to a state of just feeling ok again. What a miserable existence. I knew it then and yet I still repeated my behavior over and over again.

The amount of money I spent on alcohol alone is absurd. That doesn’t take into account being out and paying far to much for a glass of wine or a cocktail and then getting shitty and buying everyone else’s drinks. In the sixteen years I spent trying to numb my grief I could have probably paid off my house. I am not exaggerating. I would have had a house at the end. After all the money I spent on alcohol trying to numb, I accomplished nothing and I have nothing to show for it.

I think health is the most important topic here. I worked out at least 3 days a week while I was on my drinking journey but I was only putting in about 70% and I slowly but surely put on 30lbs. I was over weight for my 5’2″ stature and I was bloated. I gaged every time I brushed my teeth(I have never had and issue with my gag reflex), my head was always foggy, my memory recall was disappearing, I know part of this is age but it seemed to be happening at a very fast rate and I have always had a very good memory. The thing that scared me the most is my cholesterol sky rocketed. My doctor was so concerned she immediately put me on cholesterol medication. My heart would race all of the time. I remember the first time I decided to take a break from drinking and after about 10 days I walked outside and the sun seemed brighter, the trees seemed greener, the sky seemed bluer and suddenly I was aware of the birds chirping the noise from traffic, all my senses were magnified. Alcohol steals so much and gives absolutely nothing in return. I think its worth mentioning that my cholesterol went from 256 LDL to 151 LDL since I quit drinking. I also work out 4 days a week and walk 3 days a week and I am giving 100% every time. My heart no longer races, I don’t gag when I brush my teeth, I have lost 10 lbs. without changing anything else and I have started remembering things my foggy brain had hidden. The only time I spend the day in bed is when I am sick.

I recently hung out with my siblings and we are an abrasive bunch. But its always in good fun. I said something to my brother and he gave me this look and I started laughing and responded with “turns out I am just an asshole, I don’t need alcohol for that”. We both laughed. But when I woke up the next morning I wasn’t wondering what I said or if I offended anyone. I felt fantastic the next day and I had a productive day, functioning with the rest of the world.

If you are reading this and you can relate to it, I don’t need to give long explanations. You understand. I just hope by telling my story, sharing my raw truth that someone will benefit from it. I recently decided I will not be ashamed or waste time on regrets. I honestly had some good times with friends sometimes while drinking. I also had to go through all of that to discover who I want to be today and the benefits of being sober. This Thanksgiving instead of fighting off the demons of drinking I am gonna relish in my sobriety and enjoy my family.

I wish you all a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Day 197

Today is 197 days since I had my last drink. I hit my 6 month mark 2 weeks ago and celebrated this milestone at Disneyland with my adult daughter and a mocktail. It was one of the best trips I’ve had to Disneyland in years because I remember it all, we laughed and people watched and enjoyed all our moments together, I woke up each day feeling great and ready to enjoy another day.

I have an App on my phone that tracks your days for you and there is a community that you can post with on this App and the community you are linked with is people who are at the same stage you are as well as people who are quitting the same addictive behavior you are. I popped on the community last week and was reading a post that said “I cannot believe I made it 6 months, I have been drinking for X amount of years and never thought my life could be full without alcohol, I set a goal with an end date but I can tell you honestly right now that I am never going back, life is too sweet without alcohol.” This stuck with me because I could not agree more. When I started this journey I wasn’t sure what would happen after my 365 day goal but after 197 days I know that my life now has no room for alcohol.

I shared with you a little about how my drinking really started. I think the thing about any addiction or over indulging is it never happens overnight. It literally sneaks up on you. First you are having a few drinks here and there a few times a week, then suddenly you are justifying another day during the week, then you don’t want to drink tomorrow so you polish off the bottle. Before you know it this behavior is repeating itself over and over. Your sober head is telling you one thing but that part of your brain seeking the dopamine rush is in control and it is winning every time. I remember being in the shower getting ready for a BBQ or some event and thinking I am not gonna drink, but then we would get there and I would have a drink in my hand and then two and so on.

I also had issues with triggers. If something triggered me that day, my very first thought was I need a glass of wine. I can honestly say now that it didn’t do what I intended it to do. I would drink and stew and drink some more, not getting rid of the trigger or even numbing it. I can now look at those triggers, whether it’s a person or a situation and I think “wow, you gave all of that so much power over you”. In the last two weeks alone I have had several triggers and I am happy to share with you that never at any point during any of these triggers, big and small, have I had an urge for a drink.

I think it is really important to mention that I have found non-alcoholic alternatives. As I walked this journey I realized that part of my drinking was social , so participating in social events made me a little anxious in the beginning so I researched non-alcoholic options. I have found a variety of things that I can bring to a BBQ, or camping, or to a holiday party and feel like I am participating socially without the side effects of alcohol. I also have found that many restaurants have started listing mocktails on their menus. I think (no evidence to back this up) that more and more people are starting to give up alcohol or taking breaks from it so there are more non-alcoholic options than were available a few years ago. This is an option but it may not be an option that works for everyone.

Overall, I was very anxious about starting this journey but I was ready to leave the hangovers, the self doubt, guilt, shame and self berating behind. I will say this over and over because it’s true, quitting is NOT easy but once you find your grove and the things that work for you, it is worth it. For me getting to the other side has proven to be such a reward, life is simpler, life is manageable, life is beautiful from my new clear lenses.

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As Of Today…

I want to start by reminding everyone this is my own experience speaking, I have no training or formal education in this area.

This time I want to share with you how much my overall life has changed since I quit drinking. I think this part is really important to hear. Although, full disclosure I read about other peoples life changes while I was trying to find my sober path and I did not believe it or at least my addictive voice in my head didn’t want to believe it. I will talk about that too.

My mental health is considerably better, my anxiety is almost non existent I don’t fly off the handle at situations out of my control, I’ve been able to take a step back and look at it before acting. The things that would have triggered me and sent me into a spiral followed by drinking no longer have that kind of control. At 120 days things seemed to be coming at me in every direction, I was very aware of it and I was aware of my anxiety and stress. I was reaching for my tools but could not seem to put them to work, so I was able to take a step back, reach out to my therapist and get help that way. One thing that stands out about this is never at any point during this cycle did I think about reaching for a drink. Now, had I still been drinking I would have been unbearable and miserable for 2 weeks before I figured all that out.

Another positive change for me is I sleep really well most nights. I still have an occasional night where sleep is disrupted and my head wanders and before you know it two hours have passed and I’m still awake BUT I am not thinking about how I need to quit drinking and it only happens every so often not every single night. I wake up refreshed every day and ready for the world.

Lets come back around to not believing other peoples positive life changing stories. When I was drinking I could not possibly fathom how anyone could be happier not drinking. I mean how do you go to social events and not have a drink or two? Or how do you go on vacation and arrive at your destination after a day of travel and not have a glass of wine to wind down? How do you go camping and get all set up and not have a drink to celebrate relaxation? How do you go to holiday functions and not participate in the drinking and visiting? All this seemed absolutely impossible to me. I could not have a good time without participating in drinking and there was absolutely no way my life would get better. I really believed that, until I tried it.

The most important change is that I have become my whole self again. When a mind altering substance such as alcohol becomes a regular part of your routine you eventually become half the person you were prior maybe less than half. For me I was unrecognizable to myself in the mirror, I was very mean to myself, my self berating was ugly and cruel. I could not be sympathetic to other people because that part of me was completely shut down. I was angry all of the time and sad and broken. It changes your behavior, your feelings, your relationships and the way you see yourself. Today I have a much healthier relationship with myself, my husband, my adult children and my view of the rest of the world isn’t a shade of grey anymore, it’s colorful and bright.

I start most days with a positive attitude, I have tons of energy to complete several tasks a day. I don’t feel like chores are building up around me and I don’t feel overwhelmed that there isn’t enough time or energy to get everything done. I have found that hobbies I enjoyed prior to quitting I completely love now and have started improving and growing in those hobbies. No matter what life throws at me I am very thankful for my sobriety and a clear head to deal with things.

Speaking of clear heads now that I have been alcohol free for as long as I have the fog in my head has lifted. I am starting to remember things that were buried behind the alcohol fog and my recall is getting better. Age of course has put it mark on these things but it is so much worse when you add a mind altering substance.

These are just a few of the positive changes in my life since I decided to embark on this sober journey. I would have never believed it based on other peoples stories. I was to attached to my addicted voice who was telling me lies so I would keep feeding it. BUT I tried it and my life has improved considerably.

If you have read any of my other posts you will also know that I did a lot of mental health work on a lot of different areas in my life making this step the next logic part in my healing journey. As I said in my first post quitting isn’t easy but its doable. One thing that worked for me was reframing. Instead of looking at all these events without alcohol as a punishment I started looking at it as a reward. This idea changed the game for me. Then all the positive changes started to occur and I realized that it truly is a reward to myself.

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My Sober Adventure

I just renewed my blog for another year specifically so I could write about the next chapter in my life. I then procrastinated about actually putting words down. I finally decided that when I was in the worst drinking shape I just wanted some person going through their own sober journey to share with me what works for them so I had somewhere to start. Sobriety is tricky and when I reached out to a few people I knew going through the sober journey they were very vague leaving me feeling abandoned and alone. So I am going to share my adventures through the sober journey just in case their is someone out there that needs to hear another story to kick start their own journey.

I am gonna start with some important stuff. First thing is if you are an over-drinker you are not alone. That voice in your head that you argue with and lose to 99% of the time, lives in other peoples heads too. If you’re hiding how much you are drinking, you are not the only one. The person you least expect to be struggling with drinking probably is. Quitting is not easy but once you get 60-100 days under your belt it gets easier. AA isn’t for everyone but there are other support groups out there and there are numerous blogs, podcasts and apps. Get rid of the people in your life that are judging, we are all human, nobody is perfect and it is easy to judge someone else rather than look inside and fix your own shit. Knowing all these little things helped me tremendously because suddenly I wasn’t alone and abandoned on my own over-drinking island.

I was never much of a drinker, my dad and my step-dad were alcoholics. Growing up I hated my step-dad, he was verbally abusive and a compulsive liar and he blamed everything on being drunk. My dad left when I was 8 and moved across the country and was absent most of the important years of my childhood. As an adult our relationship was strained and I didn’t allow him to see my children while he was drunk. I refused to expose them to what I grew up with. I did drink occasionally but I was never an over-drinker.

Life kept throwing wrenches and I never dealt with any of it. If you have read any of my other posts you’ll know that my breaking moment in life was loosing my husband, my best friend at a young age. After he passed away drinking became a common occurrence. I still had it under control, I never drank more than 2-3 glasses and I did not drink daily. Then my kids grew up, became independent, went off to college. The dam broke, all of life’s crap came flooding in and all I wanted to do was numb it all. I absolutely did not want to feel any of the excruciating pain from all my loses and all my trauma. And so it began.

We all have a story and we all have reasons why. It is a reward system, it is a numbing device, it helps with the physical pain, we like the way it tastes, etc. In some cases all of the above and then some. I heard something recently that really resonated with me. You have to know what needs to be fixed before you can work on recovery.

This is how my journey started, figuring out what the problem was that I had buried, deep under alcohol and digging myself out.

To Be Continued…

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Kitchen Talk With A Wise Man

I was recently lucky enough to be in the kitchen of a very wise, young man in his 80’s and had some of the best conversations with him. He dished up little tid bits of wisdom throughout the few days I was able to spend in his kitchen. I wanted to share some of the things he bestowed upon me that left me feeling both lighter and full at the same time.

This wise man told me a story about getting out and meeting people, people who are older than him and bestowing their wisdom. He talked about what amazing friends these people had become in the short time he had spent getting to know them. He also talked about love in a different context. He talked about it in a way that is not stingy but in abundance to all of his friends and family. He of course had different levels of love for different people but he was very generous with loving all the people he considered a part of his circle. The thing that really stuck with me about this was that I don’t pass out love like that. I somewhere obtained this belief that my love was like gold and I should be stingy with it. Does this mean I should be giving it to everyone no matter who they are? Absolutely not. But there are many kind, loving people in my life that I do adore and can say I love to some degree and I should not wait until I’m staring death in the face to relay this.

We talked about life’s purpose. As you know I have struggled with this for some time and he and I chatted in length about this and how your purpose changes over time. He talked about his career when he was working and how much he enjoyed it and he was good at it. But the time came when he had to hang it up and find something else. He learned that you don’t have to have one purpose. If you find something that suits you and you enjoy it and it gives you purpose then put it in your tool box. This was a life altering conversation for me. It changed what I was looking for, it ended my struggle with self worth and made me really reevaluate what was important to me right now. It also gave me permission to stay flexible and keep room for other purposes.

We talked about relationships, and boy does he talk my language. Because I was able to reframe my own relationship after this and it has made my struggles with things so much easier to deal with. I had a hard time writing this one because I can’t remember the exact numbers he used. His wife sometimes reads my blog so she will get a giggle out of this weather I’m right or a bit off. My friend spoke about how it isn’t possible to find a partner you like everything about, you will never like 100% of the whole package. So, his rule is if you like 85% of the whole package you can live with the other 15%(it could be 80/20) but you get the point. This just clicked for me. I am in my second marriage after losing my first husband and I am a perfectionist who is trying to give it up and this little piece of wisdom gave me the space to do just that in my relationship(my husband will argue I am still a crazy perfectionist, but that’s in my 15%).

We talked about creating. I started this blog in 2020 during the pandemic. I have always enjoyed writing, so I had a friend who used to tell me that I should write a book about my experience of loss and becoming a widow of a firefighter at 36. I couldn’t wrap my brain around a whole book worth reading based on my experience so she suggested a blog. So, here we are. I enjoy sharing my experiences as well as references of things that have helped me. I taught myself how to make the blog and get it started. I also taught myself how to crochet back in 2019, that is a constant evolving thing that I enjoy doing. I have a beautiful Nikon camera that I learned how to use and took a class to learn how to take better pictures. I am still learning because somedays I see something and I want to capture it exactly as I see it. My point to all this is I had not realized how much my creative side plays a roll in my happiness until a conversation with my friend about all the things he was creating and how much joy these things brought him. Actually, until that conversation I hadn’t considered myself creative.

We talked about age. One of the last conversations we had was about age and how it should not get in the way of pursuing new things, learning and growing. We shared our own ages with each other and he said “you could be my daughter, if I ever had one” and I responded with “you could be my dad, I no longer have one” and we both laughed. Well, I felt very blessed to be on the receiving end of the wisdom he decided to dish out. I lost both of my parents too young, so it was nice to have the fatherly wisdom of a very kind and loving soul. I hope he knows how valuable it is that he shares these little side dishes with people while he’s creating in the kitchen.

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Finding Purpose

I think that at some point in everyones life they wake up and feel as if they have no purpose. I have nothing to back this up except what I have heard from a few others here and there throughout my life and from my own experience of this overwhelming feeling that I don’t have a purpose. I also believe humans thrive on two very important things in this life. #1 is love and #2 is purpose.

I cannot put a pin in the exact time when I stopped feeling like I had a purpose but I want to say it was about the time my youngest finished high school and moved away for college. However, I was also dealing with an overwhelming amount of grief at the time so I think the lack of purpose didn’t really present itself until I really started making progress on my healing journey.

I started working when I was 15 and had a job until I got pregnant with my son. This is when I went into full time Mom/House Wife mode which I will tell you I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved taking and picking up my kids from school, taking them to all their extra curricular activities, I loved working in their classrooms, arranging play dates, cleaning, cooking, etc. I loved my job. The difference between this job and other jobs is the choice to quit or retire versus the job just coming to an end. I wasn’t ready for my job to end and I was lost without my purpose everyday.

This lack of purpose follows me around like a dark and gloomy rain cloud. I still have the house to maintain, my husband works full time so I manage the house stuff, the laundry, the cooking and the dogs. But honestly that is not a purpose, that is just busy work. The one question I absolutely hate is “what do you do?”. Why do I hate this so much because I don’t have an answer that I feel is worthy.

If we dig into that a little more it is obvious that my purpose also drives my self worth. If I dig a little deeper somewhere I have picked up the idea that having a degree or a title makes me more worthy than without. That simply is not true. I have sat with this mild dilemma of mine and peeled away at the layers and I have finally made peace with it. My purpose does not need to be some fancy title attached to a degree proving I am capable of sitting in a classroom and completing assignments and then going out into the world and carving my path in the world. If that is what you need then you should pursue that path. That is not what I need or desire. I am not suggesting in any way that college isn’t a worthy path but I am suggesting it isn’t the path for everyone. And if the path you choose doesn’t involve a degree you aren’t any less worthy than the person standing next to you with a degree. I think these words are worth saying and being heard.

I am 51 years old and I am standing on the porch , getting ready to knock on 52’s door. My mom died when she was 53 so my mortality is front and center right now. I guess you could say that I am going to start living like I am dying. This helped profusely with peeling away with the layers. What I concluded is I have absolutely no desire to spend any part of whatever life I have left, weather it 1 year, 10, years or 50 years, sitting in a classroom finishing a degree I have no desire to do anything with.

I have also learned that I am an intelligent individual who is capable of teaching myself new things and learning new things. I also have discovered that I would rather tap into my creative side opposed to my intellectual side. Now that I know this about myself I plan to spend my time nurturing that. I am also an introvert so my wants, needs and desires may be vastly different than those of an extrovert. Your purpose may be something entirely different. I know people who went back to school well into thier 50’s to finish that degree. That is what they needed to find their purpose.

In closing after lots of self care, peeling back the layers and examining my inner self I have discovered my purpose. My purpose is to slow down, soak it all in and live every single day and nurture my creative side. What do I do? I create, I travel, I write, I crochet, I read, I listen and I support. I do whatever it is I feel like is going to bring me joy and I encourage you to do the same.

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It Is The Journey NOT The Destination

Here I am sitting in front of my computer only two days into a New Year. I feel like I have learned so much about myself and my journey over the last 3 years but lately I have been really sitting with a lot of it and just absorbing.

I finally put a finger on the exact day of my own demise and as soon as I had that I walked right into that memory and took a look around to see what the triggers were. The things that pushed me over the edge. It actually makes my stomach hurt to identify the triggers which just reminds me that they are still triggers. Knowing that, I hope that the next time I am faced with that type of situation in the future that I will stop and take inventory of what I need and take care of myself rather than start digging myself a hole.

On March 17, 2017 I worked rapidly at becoming my own worst enemy. The thing about self destruct is you usually work really hard at making everyone else your worst enemy as well. I was on a roll. I probably didn’t alienate as many people as I could have but I at least left a bad taste in everyone I cared about. That is a really shitty thing to admit to. I have also learned that I am capable of apologizing. I work everyday at being the best version of myself without being perfect.

I don’t want to say I did an injustice to my kids by putting my grief on hold because I did teach them how to gather themselves and move forward. However, I believe there was away that I could have taught them that and allowed my grief to be present. I can honestly say that I allowed it to a small degree but not anywhere close to the degree I felt it. My grief was so deep and I was in so much pain and I denied it and refused to acknowledge it until it refused to be ignored. I also believe by acknowledging my mistakes and poor choices and trying to rectify them as well as working at being my best version of myself is paving a path for my adult children. That is the thing about life, we are all imperfect and all capable of screwing up, it’s how we handle it after. Regret changes nothing and it’s useless in the big picture.

Part of my demise was this illusion that we are all moving toward something. If I could just get that job, if I could just get that car, if I could just buy that house, if I could just make it to the vacation. If I could just be HAPPY. What I now know is it is not the destination or the goal, its the JOURNEY. This knowledge alone has changed my entire outlook on EVERYTHING.

My other illusion was perfectionism. I found a picture of myself yesterday. It was a before and after picture. I was doing another of my fad diets. My before I was thin, in the after I almost looked sickly. It was never enough and I could never achieve whatever perfect weight I thought I should be. It finally contributed to my jump over the edge. I have a lot of great things in my life but I could tell you how all those things are imperfect. I’m starting to understand the very thing that makes those things great is the imperfections. I have also learned that I am not the only one who has to retrain my brain about perfectionism. Somewhere in our society it is an unwritten, unattainable rule.

The most valuable lesson here is life is all about the journey not the destination. If I can look back on my life and evaluate the good and the bad and all the in between then hopefully I can move forward in a positive way. I will continue to make mistakes and poor choices occasionally but as long as I can take responsibility for my actions and continue to be my best self I will be ok.

Happy 2023 my faithful readers, I am excited to continue my journey and I wish the same for you!

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Looking Out the Rearview Mirror

I recently became aware of the fact that I have spent far too many years looking out the rearview mirror. I feel that on some subconscious level I was vaguely aware that this was happening but I don’t think I was aware consciously about how it was affecting my life in a very negative way and trapping me in the past and stunting my mental growth until recently.

I am always so moved by these epiphanies and how they present themselves in the strangest moments. For example, I have been cooking a lot lately. I have started trying new recipes and going the extra mile on learning to cook things such as enchilada sauce or pizza sauce instead or buying canned or jarred. So, I spend a lot of time in my head while I am prepping and cooking and moving around the kitchen. When suddenly it occurs to me that I have spent years looking back at the past instead of looking forward. In that very moment I understood why I kept getting tripped up, because I wasn’t watching where I was going.

One of my dearest friends and I always seem to have life altering conversations. We used to call them “saving the world conversations”. The other day she was talking about reflecting on what the next chapter holds for her and she was trying to decide if she should set an intention. I commented on how setting an intention made it so I had no wiggle room(one of my many imperfections). She then followed with the idea that it could be a vague intention such as doing things that bring her joy, not just because she has to or it is required of her. She then moved on to talk about how after 50 years of life there is a good chance we don’t have 50 more so we need to be intentional with our time moving forward. This shook me a bit, I really have no more time to waste looking behind me, this need to be my intention.

This is an incredibly hard habit to break, I have been looking in the rearview mirror for so long that I have trouble keeping my eyes focused on the road ahead of me. The trickier part of this is that grief is life long so I have to figure out how to walk that tight rope balancing grief when it presents itself without getting my eyes locked on the rearview mirror.

It is naturally embedded in us as humans to glance in the rearview mirror and try and figure out how we could have done things differently. Such as spending more time with those that we lost, or not wasting time on that toxic person that took up too much space, or enjoying our children more when they were little, etc. But it is a complete waste of time. It reminds me of the quote by Lily Tomlin “Forgiveness means giving up all hope of a better past”. Why is it we try so damn hard to change what’s already been done? Turn back around and move forward.

So, this is the intention I am setting for myself, rip the rearview mirror off the damn windshield and throw it out the window. There is no more time to waste on looking back. Since life is unpredictable I am sure I will still get side swiped but I will deal with that when it happens. For now I am gonna turn up the music and move forward and enjoy the view!