SUNNY DAYS

There’s a sadness mingling with these last sunny days, and it is simply knowing they are going to end soon. It’s been such a beautiful warm summer and I am grateful for it. Winter has its’ comforts, fires and hot chunky soups, roast dinners and fluffy jerseys and cool leather boots, but these days right now are the ones we need to enjoy. I bought myself a “fitbit” for my 200th day anniversary. It counts the steps I do each day and so far I have not let it down, and have done over 10,000 steps each day for the last 17 days, which is about 7 and half K’s a day. I get up early and leave about 6.30 or 7.00am and walk up to one of the parks and then run around the park and walk/run/walk home again, usually adding in an extra block here and there to get my numbers up. I am enjoying the time for contemplation it gives me before starting the busy day. I have another smaller walk after dinner to get it up and over the 10,000. Unfortunately I haven’t lost even a smidgeon of weight which is a bit disappointing, but at least I know myself that I must be getting a lot fitter than I’ve been for many years. I don’t know how I will cope as it gets colder and into the depths of winter, perhaps I’ll have to make another plan. But for now I am quite enjoying feeling good about myself. The more well I become in body, mind and spirit, the more I see what a lot of work there still is to do. I am realising that just giving up alcohol is not the solution to fulfilment and contentment. It is only now when the alcohol has left the equation that I begin see the reality of the way I’ve been living my life. I have been just “getting through it”. Doing all the things I need to do to maintain a home, a business, a social life, children when they were here, helping others where I can. I have made myself perpetually busy my entire adult life. Is this normal? I did it in my marriage, with a busy business and children and social life. I have always had one busy business or another and I see now that I might use it to kind of give myself substance or self-worth. It is a way that I have been able to have respect for myself, and possibly gain the respect of others. It is a way of avoiding the real essence of myself, which in itself is perhaps a “void”. I do not know what has caused me to unconsciously do this, but between constantly working, then drinking in the evenings, and also by being in long relationships and nurturing the needs of others, I have left myself by the wayside. That is not to say that I have ignored my desires for holidays, movies, books or other luxuries that satisfy those external comforts. It is to say that I have always hungered from a young age for the illusive fulfilment of the spirit, or heart. Perhaps everyone does to a degree. I have searched and I have read and I’ve attended courses and explored all sorts of beliefs and had thousands of conversations with like-minded people. I am realising today that perhaps all I have needed is to slow down. To just sit with myself and feel grateful for the life that I have and the wonderful people in it. For the sunny days, and the flowers and the smiles and the oceans. To give myself the great gift of “time”. Time for me, to grow into the “me” I want to become. Time to appreciate all the goodness and love in my life. As my business slows down after the silly season I will have more time to invest in others as well as in myself, and for the first time ever in my adult life I will have the clarity of a completely alcohol free brain with which to enjoy it.