The Whole Wide World

I’ve spent a fair bit of the past week bouncing between wishing time away and yet knowing that when my time to leave the ice comes, it will most likely feel too soon and I won’t be ready for it to end. It’s so hard to stay in the moment sometimes. The week leading up to Winter Solstice was a particularly emotionally draining one for me and I often felt like I did not want to be here anymore. Not that I wanted to run away from things, but also, I absolutely wanted to run away. An inner battle. Time is the only cure for that kind of uncomfortableness. And time always seems to slow down for those kinds of emotional lulls.

Rather than isolating and wallowing in self-pity, I leaned in. Something the fellowship of sobriety taught me to do. And that’s when the good stuff started happening. It started just before the synchronicity of that well-timed quote the other day and bled over to the next day and onwards and while it’s been a rollercoaster, things are better now.

That evening, before perfectly timed the quote came along, I spent some time with a good friend who is also sober down here. He said all the things I needed to hear. He reminded me to talk to myself as I would talk to a friend. That’s something I have to work on, talking to myself as I would a friend. My inner critic can be such a bish and it’s so true that the way I speak to myself is nowhere close to how I would speak to a friend. He asked me things like, what would you tell your best friend to do…questions that reminded me to stay true to myself. Questions that reminded me of all the hard inner work I’ve done in sobriety. Questions that made me rethink everything and gave me the perspective I needed.

The next morning, one of the first people into the store was a person I haven’t had any interactions with, ever. They approached me at the register and said, “I am not here to buy anything, and it’s probably inappropriate, but I was just wondering if you are a friend of Bill’s?” This is a way of asking if someone is in AA. I let them know I was indeed a friend of Bill’s and they then shared that they had celebrated one year of sobriety the day before. It was such a special interaction, especially given the person. It made me so happy that they sought me out and reminded me that there is so much more to be made of this winter down here.

Later in the afternoon a friend stopped by the store to help me with tagging new merchandise. We haven’t had a lot of one on one time and it was nice to have that time to get to know each other better. Before she left, she extended an invite to a pole dancing (yeah!) class that another friend was teaching that evening. I happily accepted the invite and although I was absolutely terrible at it, I had a great time hanging with some amazing women and trying something new. Then last night after dinner, I joined our winter site manager, Karen, for some one on one pickle ball, which was heaps of fun as well, and a great little cardio workout.

Six years ago, when I started going to to meetings and hearing people share things they are grateful for, it made me feel so uncomfortable. Like physically, skin crawling, uncomfortable. I didn’t understand their gratitude, because I didn’t have any of my own. I get it now. And I am so grateful for all the lovely people in my life. Near and far. You know who you are. ❤