Things I’ve remembered that I enjoy..

You may notice a little time-lapse of about, oh, um, a year, has occurred since my last post. I won’t go into detail now; let it suffice to say that the reasons for this delay are at least as boringly predictable as the plot of the most recent Star Trek film (which I had the misfortune to sit through at the weekend). I have avoided visiting my blog at all due to a fairly large dose of shame and a sense of failure. I now feel more shame at seeing all of the lovely comments people have left on my last post, and the times where folk have reached out to check in on me, and received radio-silence back. For that I’m very sorry, and I thank you.

However, to kick things off again, here’s a quick list of some things I’ve remembered that I flipping LOVE about being sober:

1) Sleep. 8 solid hours, unless woken by small people.  No tossing and turning and the old wake-checktime-fallbackasleep-repeat.

2) Waking up in the morning, doing a quick body scan, realising I don’t have a pounding head/ sickly stomach and being so bloody pleased I didn’t booze last night.

3) My tongue and mouth have stopped being extremely sore. I’ve no medical basis for blaming this on drinking, but it’s too coincidental that it started improving on about Day 2 sober.

4) I’ve started losing weight; my face is less bloated. Hello, cheekbones!

5) The leaden ball of non-specific anxiety has left my chest.

6) Enjoying a morning coffee without wanting to hurl 15 minutes later.

7) I can taste stuff again!

8) Films. I no longer fall asleep 15 minutes into every film night we attempt to have. Switching off the lamps to create that “cinema vibe” in our living room had become the equivalent of popping the cover over the cage of an elderly parrot. Snooze (and quite probably drool) time!!!

10) My environment is beginning to feel more serene, mostly because I am more organised and can be arsed to clean and declutter all of the shizazzle we accumulate.

11) A big one. I am officially having A Lot More Fun with the smalls. And I have a shitload more patience with them. (Just to clarify, I have “more” patience.. not necessarily “lots of”. I’m working on that, and there are three of them, FFS. Don’t want to leave any of you with the misconception that I’m Mother Teresa now). Oh, and I have the energy to do things at the precious weekends, which don’t now revolve around praying that the kids will play nicely without any input from me, until I can legitimately crack open a bottle.

Which leads to 12) I’m losing the ever-present feeling of guilt, and I’m starting to feel proud of myself occasionally.

Feels good to be back.

Love, Red.