still sober after all these years

writing here feels weird. it’s been so long, but i do have the urge. mostly the urge to go too fast, like when you’re chewing a chicken salad sandwich and you realize it’s suddenly stuck in a moist mound in your throat, one so right-sized you may not be able to swallow it down because you ate it too fast. and you panic. and you jump out of your chair and push away from the table. and then it works itself down.

but not before your life flashes before your eyes.

that’s what it’s like when i sit down here now. my life flashing before my eyes. there are so many small places where i’d like to hit pause, but they’re small blips. they could be easy to miss amid the tedium.

the bigger parts of our days flash by with workworkwork and sickness and bad pre-packaged food and getting here and getting there and not enough silence or stillness or husband. i guess it’s a good sign that there’s never enough husband (i mean, i’d hate to feel like there’s too much). but then, when he’s here, i pick fights out of missing him because i’m incredibly stupid like that.

sigh.

i guess i’ve been chewing long enough to move forward and talk about hitting eight years (!!!) of sobriety. today. officially. it’s weird when you get this far along, it starts to feels like it no longer has anything to do with alcohol. in a way, i feel like it’s really time to get over myself in a way. while i will always know drinking would lead me back to dark places, i also live a sober life. and as long as i choose to stay here, then i have to live with what i’ve got. and what i’ve got today is *not* a day-to-day relationship with red wine but this feeling that i can’t get past. i’ve tried to explain it to a few friends, and all i can articulate is that i feel “dead inside.”

dead inside? gosh. how awful! yes, but i’ve been here before. it’s not even really a sad place. more a numb place. it’s THE HOLE. the hole i filled with drinking eight years ago and the hole i try now to fill with creative projects and nature and friendships and my boys and all the small goodnesses. it feels sort of like wanting to run but having nowhere to run to. i’m not sure what’s next, but i know something’s next. i want for not one thing and i want for every single thing all at once.

some days it’s so much easier to think i’ve got something tapped. like not drinking! not a drop in eight years! but i know i’ll never have that one tapped either.

so i’m still trying to figure out the latest rumple in my existence. you know, i do aim to get past the “dead inside.” it’s not where i long to be. i’m trying to find the dream. the hope. the want. the contentment. the right filling. but more than anything, i’m trying to make space for the hole. cause i don’t think it’s going anywhere. sometimes i will find a way to fill it, and other times, i must learn to get along with its being empty.

maybe i can string up some lights in there. paint the hole teal blue. no matter, the next project ahead is finding comfort in the empty. accepting the numbness. maybe it’s normal. maybe it’s part of the process. maybe you all have one too. either way, mine is gaping wide open today. and i’m trying to get used to that being okay.

:: let’s see what brilliant things i had to say at seven years sober and six years sober. at five years sober, i was completely immersed in the third miscarriage scare that led to my leo. that amazes me.