day one of not fighting with strangers on the internet

Turns out, not starting your day watching videos of people getting ripped from their cars and pepper sprayed in the face was a great idea. I slept straight through the night last night for the first time in months. It feels as if in just making that decision, that no, I'm not going to look to social media to structure my day and thoughts, that my brain went YES finally let's do the things we've been wanting to do.

Today I woke up and when my hands went to the phone, I stopped. Just laid there for about ten minutes. "See? You woke up like this for thirty plus years. This is just waking up. You literally can't do it wrong."

My brain has a lot of trouble with decisions, you see. I don't know if I have adhd, I don't know if it's the perimenopause or my medications or who I am as a person and that's why I have the anxiety or if the anxiety causes the decision spiral/paralysis over every. fucking. thing. imaginable. Sometimes I'll stand up and literally short circuit - start heading towards the bathroom but also toward my plants to water them and then I remember I was thirsty, leaving me standing like a robot who's had all of its buttons pushed at the same time. (And also like a fucking maniac, as it's winter and I'm just a giant moving pile of blankets currently.)

I don't go to a therapist. The gasp and horror, I know. I recommend it to literally everyone, think everyone could benefit from it, but me? Nah. Obviously I'm fine, right? It’s not pride. It’s not that I don’t believe in help. Part of the problem is that my experience with alcoholism and recovery doesn’t fit neatly into the usual boxes. If you have a history with substances — which I do — you’re often steered toward addiction-focused therapy. And the assumption there is that the drinking is still lurking. Waiting. That it’s going to come back for you, and you need to stay vigilant.

That booze isn't ever going to fucking get me again. That is the one true certainty I have.

That isn't the reason I don't go, though. The reason I don't go is that I'm not ready. I spent nearly two decades with all of my decisions clouded with alcohol. Most of that time, I was functioning perfectly fine. Not thriving, for sure, but I was also very fat and it was very easy to blame everything on that - I'd "get healthy" and everything would be fine.  I never thought alcohol was driving my decisions — which, it turns out, is exactly how alcohol works.

It fucks with your brain. Your brain accepts whatever justification fits. You don’t see the connections even when they’re obvious to everyone else; it’s not denial, it’s distortion. You don't see how it's all related, even though it's as clear as a bright sunny day to everyone else. It's not that you're ignoring it - you literally see it differently.

So in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm twenty five and just now trying to figure out what to do with my life. When I was drinking, real life was always "after." After I lost weight. After I quit drinking. Both of which were easily attainable, and I would get to that, right after this holiday. Or this vacation. Or when I got a new job. Or after we moved again. Or after we got back on our feet when Tony got a job. After Christmas. After my niece is born. Once this all calms down.

The outside world? It ain't calming down, and I have a hunch it's going to get worse before it gets better. But "this," the this being my particular life, has finally settled a bit. I have gotten better, and stronger, with these teeny tiny infinitesemal baby steps that felt awful and weird and hard and, most of all, useless while I was taking them. I'm seeing them build something, and while I don't yet know what it is, I want to find out for myself what it's going to be. I took those steps and I laid those tiny stones that became solid footing on my own, through my yoga and journaling and meditating, through sleepless nights and howls into pillows and three mile walks to the beach in ten degree weather blinded by tears, on bike rides and late night furious and terrified stream of consciousness writing, and fuck if I'm not stronger for it.

Those were the things my body craved and my brain needed, and I needed to find them my way - I'm not going to do what people tell me I should do, I'm obstinate and stubborn that way. I also don't trust my sobriety blindly. Alcohol, I'm not worried about. Xanax? Adderall? That's another story. If offered, and guys I know myself, I'd make sure it was offered, I wouldn't say no.

I don't want to do that. I just don't, and it's the first place I've learned to stay strong: my life is going to be on my terms, whether I'm right or wrong, and it's going to be honest with myself and everyone else. I don't have to explain why.

Would you look at that? Two hours have flown by as I wrote this, and I haven't been able to write a full post easily in years. I think maybe I've put down another tiny stone.....

a song with the lyrics "stone by stone" started playing while I was taking this.