This is the party I had for myself last night for my NINETY DAYS today. Well, really I had a clumsy tea party with my four year old and played crazy eights for an extra twenty minutes. But this is kind of what it looks like in my head. And you don't even want to see what's happening in my heart!
And then I read that. I was around at bath-time? I played cards with the children at the END of the day? Holy shit, I must be sober. It's when I think about the living I'm doing that I realize how fucking important these days have been to me. And then I feel excited and actually smile out loud because I get to keep going.
Now, look. It's not all crazy eights and tea parties around here. The night before I put the four year old to bed mad and crying. Sometimes it's goodnight and good riddance. But I knew it. And I wasn't outside on the porch swilling wine and chain smoking twenty minutes later, I was in kissing his tear stained face and pulling the covers up tight while he snored. (Oh! Tired. No wonder he was being such an ass. I was too. Tired, and an ass.)
There's nothing more annoying when you want to do something that someone else is already doing than reading about their successes. Then you think: "That won't happen for me." Or: "But my life is different." Or just: "But. But. But. But." There's also nothing better that reading about other people doing it because it means if they can do it you can too. I mean, I hate all that "You can do it!" shit as much as the next guy. "If I can you can, rah rah rah!" Shut. The. Fuck. Up. But.
But (ahem) you can. And you will find nothing else as satisfying as getting some power over your life. You will pile up hours then days like stones and blocks until you start a wall. You'll look over the wall and see booze over there lonely and sad and you will turn your back. You will turn your back and tend to what needs tending because that's what sober people do. You will stop drowning. You will breathe. My god, how you will breathe.
You will no longer feel like a liar and a cheat. You will wake up in the morning and know exactly what you said last night. You will feel the best and worst you have ever felt and you will not climb back over that wall no matter what. You will become beautiful not because you lose weight but because you can see yourself and you feel proud. You will peer over the wall and see shame over there too and you won't give it another thought. You will not go back.
You will realize that there is no way to build a gate in the wall. You cannot drink again. Ever. You will hate that. WHY ME? How am I going to celebrate blah blah's whatever if I can't drink? Then you go. And you have seltzer and feel uncomfortable and people think you are charming not sloppy.
Getting sober, on paper, is pretty dang easy. It's free. You don't have to travel to a certain place to find it. It doesn't require a degree. You can be any age. Any sex, race, or religion. You can do it any time you want. I'm pretty sure there aren't laws against it.
I cannot do it for you. I am already doing it for myself. And this shit is hard, so only one per customer. But I will tell you this: if I did it for you, it would not be as gorgeous. It would not be yours. And that's what it is, really. Yours. Yours for the taking.
