I Really Want to Drink, Day 18, The “Me Project”

(My WordPress blog site has collapsed under the weight of my feelings (I’m paraphrasing the error message), so we’re here for now. For anyone just finding this whole venture, the day after I turned 39, I decided to focus on my health and wellness for my 40th year of life, meaning no booze, way less sugar, daily movement and creative pursuits, drinking lots of water, and actually seeing medical specialists to tend to my needs. I also committed to posting daily in a diary sorta thing. Enjoy and follow along! For the previous posts, and all other blogging efforts for many years, I’m at bigtroubleblog.com, if it’s working. If it’s not and never will again- eh, new day, new start, nbd)

Normally, having single-parented for a week while Robb went to China on business would mean WINE. And then, when he returned, he’s worked 12–14 hour work days, leaving me stuck in the house with these loud, frantic child people, so WINE. Plus, a snow day tucked in there (WINE) multiple difficult marketing events (WINE), and the shittiest of shitty gray, cold, miserable weather (WINE WINE WINE).

That all would leave me trying to fix my pain with alcohol. Probably bottles and bottles of wine. I would have started early in the evening and gone all night, all the nights. It would have helped in some ways, and I miss those ways. Drinking (the right amount) makes me feel less taut, less terrified and stressed by each singular small thing. It lets all the individual needy, painful, challenging, sharp points just sort of smear together, dulled under a fuzzy blanket.

But drinking also makes me tired and even less tolerant of the kids, because they care about each of those sharp points- they need questions answered, immediate needs tended to, decisions made, problems solved. They need my focus, and when I’m drinking, I don’t want to give it, and I can’t. Plus, in the scant few hours where they’re asleep in a given 24-hr period, I got my own stuff to do, that’s also better without the fuzzy blanket dulling the points.

Anyway. I’m proud of myself that I’m sticking to this even though the stressors of the past few weeks made it tempting and hard. Drinking water and tea, apple cider vinegar, using a little CBD, and always my vitamins and Zoloft, stretching, walking, reading, writing. These are my blankets for now.