ME, MYSELF AND I

A slow contentment seems to be arriving.  It’s been ages since I’ve written here as I haven’t really known what to say.  Just getting on with life. A rather extremely busy one at the moment.  Being in the tourist industry this time of year creates a lot of pressure and I have to be well focused every day to keep on top of it. Not complaining, just making hay while the sun shines!

Tomorrow it will be five months since my last pleasant little night drinking here at home by the fire, with music, reading Mrs D’s book, knowing I was going begin life alcohol free the following day.  And I did.  It has been quite a bumpy road in parts and has resulted in a number of changes, but on the whole it has been easier and way more satisfying than I expected.  The biggest changes are that I am no longer in a close relationship with my partner of nearly five years.  I miss him a lot, but I chose what I needed to do for me.  My daughter has moved out of home and is living with her boyfriend, and I miss her heaps too, but it is the natural course of things and we both knew it was coming up.  I have realised that becoming sober, in my case anyway, is quite a selfish or self-indulgent experience.  For me, this is the first time in 27 years that I have lived on my own, without children or a man to shop and cook and keep house for, as well as laugh with, cry, love, learn, and enjoy excellent company with.  It is taking a wee bit of getting used to……as I write I have 2 little lamb chops and 2 baby potatoes cooking and will knock up a baby sized salad.  It feels like a joke after all the thousands of meals I’ve cooked, and I don’t always even bother, but it is actually quite enjoyable.  I can eat anything I please, I actually decide what to have for dinner by considering only myself. Cleaning up takes approximately 2 minutes. Shopping is also a joke as I hardly need anything because it takes so long to use anything up. (apart from chocolate and my new love of sweet things).  I watch whatever I like on TV, read or watch movies in the middle of the night if I can’t sleep, hardly ever have to clean up anyone else’s mess, and never wait for the bathroom.  In a way it all sounds a bit sad I suppose, and who wouldn’t much rather be at the centre of a big loving home and family? Well me I guess.  Because I have been there and done all that and come out the other side, with wonderful children who are grown up and in their twenties and happy in their own lives, and with whom I have fabulous loving relationships with and see often.  We’ve always been close, I have done a good job, taught them good skills and values, shown them good qualities, set good examples, shown them great independence and survival skills, and while I have always drank too much throughout their lives, I haven’t exactly been a total train wreck either.  So it seems like now is the time in my life that I can concentrate on Me.  It will be interesting to see how things unfold from here.  I don’t think I have ever slowed down enough to ponder much about why I am so partial to alcohol.  I accepted when quite young that I have an addictive personality and left it at that.  I am not going to navel gaze too deeply, or be too impatient with myself about any of my downfalls.  I am going to try very hard to get through this busy season and the summer months without touching a drink, and that will be enough of an achievement for me.  For the rest of it, I am just going to relax, stay as calm as I can, and see how it all rolls.

A very Happy Christmas and a Fun Fabulous New Year to anyone who might happen to read this.