Day 39

Saturday with three cats looks like a lot of belly up to the ceiling fan, frequent trips to the feed trough and an irresponsible amount of coffee.

The rather large queen in my featured image is my totem for the weekend and certainly day 39. But I’ve been clean long enough now to see the clouds of restlessness rolling in. The need to fixate on something. Couple that with chronic insomnia and before you know it I’ll be selling afghans at the Saturday market.

I neither crochet nor am 100 percent positive I know what an afghan is. (It’s a blanket; I googled it).

So here I am.

And tonight I have peace. Candles, cats, and mediocre horror movies. Please, if any of you are horror buffs and have recommendations, I’m all ears. Just finished Blair Witch 2016 and on the hunt for something else. Popcorn bar is open. Was going to comfort watch the 1931 Dracula, but it was a rental. Seriously?

Why do classic films feel like warm milk and a woobie anyway? (I’ll take film recommendations on that score as well).

Deep sigh.

Been reading over pieces I’ve written. Some cringe-worthy, others less embarrassing. Still, I never delete anything. Without the past I have no reference point for progress.

I take that back, I did delete two pages on this site because that person from sobriety attempt number 865, however well intended, was, in three words, a complete dipshit. Please. I was going to help anyone navigate the minefield of addiction three months in? I was a kid painting on mom’s department store make up.

And I hated the person I was fresh out of divorce. So desperate to be seen. Called beautiful. Just looked at even. Even the way I talked wasn’t me anymore. Social media has a way of thrusting those realizations in your face like a parent sharing an embarrassing story about you to a group of strangers.

7 years ago you said this. I did? Good Lord. A lot of it was alcohol, but so much of it was the residual haunt of my dead family. The unit of three I thought I’d grow old with. Instead I was sliding down the wall of my kitchen with a bottle after watching my “husband” drive off for the weekend with our daughter and dog, in the car we drove on our honeymoon.

Today, I realize my truth is being alone. My natural state even. Maybe I’m a link in evolution and we really aren’t social creatures after all. Typing into the void doesn’t really count.

Solitude is a gift I have no plans to return.

I am whole.

But I have to stay sober or I won’t be. Everything I love about spending time with myself will become hell on earth if I don’t make day 40, 50, 60, and 18, 250.

I will keep counting. That’s something else I hated when I first tried sober. All the god damn sober clocks. I thought that too was “one day at a time” AA mumbo jumbo. But it’s real too. It’s power that starts as a seed and grows. It’s accountability. One more rep at the weight rack. C’mon, push yourself, one more than yesterday.

Give me one more, girl.

Love,

Sobriety Poet