Before bed last night I saw a friend had posted about celebrating 12 years of sobriety. I went to bed thinking about how I don’t really talk about my sobriety much in a public way. And that maybe I should. The sun stretched through my windows this morning for the first time in a week. I took that as a sign that today is a good day to speak up. We say the sunrises but it’s us, spinning forward into another day. Unstoppable. I think about all the mornings I woke up criminally hungover, pulling the sheets over my head. Hissing at the sun wishing it would drop out of the sky and leave me the fuck alone. I think about how I showed up in my life. Feeling obligated. Constantly pretending everything was ok. That I was ok. Excuses and hangover cures. Superficial relationships with others and myself. Dragging myself out of bed and counting down to the moment I could climb back in. So much stress and anxiety created by not taking care of myself. Stress and anxiety that I managed with happy hour and post shift shots. There was a lot of no food or bar food and chugging water before bed. The mornings were triage and tacos. Chaos and starting off a step behind. I always looked tired and my skin was dry. I remember actively not wanting to make eye contact or hold it for very long back then. Not in the mirror, not in the world. Not without a drink in hand, anyway. And I think, it wasn’t really the drinking. It was that I used it to avoid my feelings. The things that hurt. The disappointments I felt. I drank socially and I believed it was a way to connect with people. I look back and wonder how I thought it would be possible to avoid myself AND have real connections with others.. Often, the results were over connecting with people that only brought me more hurt and disappointment. On some level they avoided me, because I avoided me. Like a board game where every card you pull makes you go back to the starting point. Yourself.

These days I feel grateful for all of it and genuinely connected to myself and the people around me. Truth, there are far fewer people. Accepting that has been incredibly difficult at times but, I have more of myself. I have more sun.

Day 44: Kimchi and pineapple with seeds. Sweet, spicy, sunny, simple.