… and that I can do

i am well. i am strangely at peace. it is very quiet in my head and i can assure you that NEVER happens, so i have to take note. it’s momentous.

nothing like a bit of young-kid-dying-too-young to make the penny drop. does tend to put one’s life into perspective.

and it’s like the 20-year-old’s “serene, can’t be rushed, all is good” energy has been distributed amongst her friends and family. all at once. you should see her FB page. we’re all feeling and saying virtually the same thing …

So yesterday and today, for whatever reason — because i’m grieving or because i’m awash in 20-year-old’s serene spirit — i have simply stopped resisting alcohol. the white knuckling, counting days, feeling tempted, trying to distract myself — it has all simply stopped.

abruptly.

Facing backwards in a car never suited me, anyway, as I get car sick. And now i’ve stopped facing backwards, I’ve stopped yearning for the thing i’ve left behind (wine). when i face forward i realize it’s not part of my world view. it has just vanished.

why? because i realize now, thanks to everyone, that living sober is NOT about resisting booze. It’s about dealing with life without having blurry edges.

I can do that.

It’s a weird sense of relief.  it’s like i’ve just been handed the ticket to understanding and surviving sobriety:

Here’s the HARDEST part, Belle.  You can no longer stuff down your feelings, and you can’t numb yourself with booze.

Hooray! I’m not wanting to make light of the situation here, but man-oh-man my response to that is it’s WAY EASIER to confront my emotions than it is to resist drinking. Resisting drinking is freaking nearly impossible.

[I wonder if that even makes sense.  If i was 3 days newly sober i’d think that Belle was delirious.]

Let me try to explain it again.

It’s a relief to know that the way THROUGH a life without wine is entirely within MY control, within my ability, and is something I can DO. There’s an action I can take that makes this easier.  It’s called: living life in its natural state. No artificial coloring, no additives. No booze, no smoothing the edges, no hiding.

Fuck man. Really? This is great news because I CAN DO THAT. 

yeah, i can’t do it all at once, and I can’t do it all today. But it is something i totally have within me to do.

cuz white knuckling and feeling tempted by wine and continuously having to turn away … that I can’t do.  I just can’t do it any more.  it’s exhausting, and unfulfilling.  I realize that’s what I was writing when I said that I was tired and couldn’t do this any more.

for today at least, i feel like i’ve got the ticket out.  it’s accepting life. No artificial colors, no additives.

and that I can do.