500 Days of Sobriety

Day 300: Simplest breakfast yet. Uno banana and a glass of kombucha. Didn’t want to be late to the farmers market.

My sobriety journey has been going on since long before I realized it and I was never one to really keep track of the days… but I think it kept me going this time. A number as arbitrary as it is important. Like most things, it is both things. Like when you realize that perceived weakness of yours is a strength. So, 500 days, 12,000 hours, 720,000 minutes.. what have I learned? A little bit of everything, luckily. I learned a lot about the passing of time, perfectionism, codependency, healthy relating, resistant starch, vitamin and nutrient deficiencies, the thing we call god, the stars, my body, inherited trauma, the many ways I manage to get in my own way.. just to name a few. Turns out each of them is an obstacle or an opportunity to be taken or traversed. To lean in to or overcome. The hardest thing I have had to overcome in my recovery though has been the belief that I could THINK my way out of my feelings. Once drinking my feelings away was no longer an option my brain set out to manage things. It was an act of dissociation. A habit that kept the raw parts of me at a seemingly safe distance. I have complained in the past about others not taking my feelings seriously. Once I recognized that I, myself wanted little to nothing to do with them.. well that explained everything. If I didn’t want to deal with how I felt why would anyone else? I had to find a way to own and legit FEEL the things that I had been pushing down my whole life. So I did. Which has often been super uncomfortable and fucking frightening - to be frank. I begin by acknowledging the feelings as they came up in my mind. Which my brain is down for. Then I try to place where I feel it most in my body. My gut? My shoulders? In my chest? My face? Wherever it feels heaviest is where I place my hands. I keep them there for a while and try to name the feeling. Like maybe my shoulders feel hot and tight so I’ll give them a little rub and name it - Anger. Then I get to explore the feeling more. How intense is it? What triggered it? When have I felt this in the past? Placing my hands on the area really helps me feel it - rather than just simply analyzing it. Seems rudimentary but it has helped me warm up to the fact that feeling is okay.. and often pretty good. Can you relate to thinking your feelings? If so, how do you go about bridging the gap?

To celebrate my 500 days I am having neighbors over for dinner. Cabbage rolls, big salad and sparkling kefir for all the b vitamins, probiotics and CBD a girl could want. I went to the farmers market to pick up the kefir from Mircalo and I got to see one of my favorite farmers who makes the best kimchi and say hi to the zen-ass dude that runs the mushroom stand. I also took some time today for a little light gardening and harvested all the berries off of my Malabar spinach plant. They don’t taste great but they make an awesome natural and edible dye for anything from pasta and pastries to clothes. Not sure what I’ll be dying just yet but.. stay tuned!

One Year Soberversary

Around the sun and back again. Today makes 365 days without a hangover. No late nights with superficial friends. No 2 am whataburger. No hangxiety or wasted days recovering from round after round of tequila shots. No staggeringly high bar tabs or forgetting my debit card at the bar. No shame. For all of its beauty out weighed the bullshit this year and I really needed it. I have gotten to reconnect with myself and feel through things I never wanted to feel. I finally learned how to truly be alone with myself without checking the exits or relying on distractions. It is funny how the older I get it is not the things I do that benefit me the most. It is the things I quit doing. Having to do less// having less to do allows me more time to just be. Giving myself that time has me feeling so creative and in turn optimistic.. despite the current circumstances of the world. Sobriety and the pandemic has finally allowed me to get what they meant by..

“You are the sky. Everything else is the weather.”

nothing is happening to us.. it’s just happening around us. How we choose to respond or engage is is up to us. When drunk (or hungover) I was prone to taking things personally.. on a professional level. It is a gift to be clear enough and open to learning how to catch myself, quit that shit and spend that energy elsewhere. Like.. on the yoga mat or in the kitchen or going to school or making art or calling my state representatives or riding my bike or improving my relationships or talking to my plants or reading books or starting a breakfast blog or befriending all the neighborhood cats or foraging for food or playing badminton or writing run on sentences… Remove the hangover and the chip on your shoulder and man, you can really make some moves.. learn some new ones too. So here is to another year. To clarity, stability, gratitude and sanity. I think I’ll celebrate with some Sweet Ritual ice cream, a long bike ride and a longer bath. “Cheers!”

Day 178: A few of my favorite things… Kale, kimchi, mango and bloobs.