A Reasonable Chunk

“Create the kind of life that has you waking up on a Monday morning feeling excited”.

Well, this is what I’m working towards. Can’t say I’m bubbling over with excitement just now but I feel good and I’m definitely optimistic and excited for the future. My impatience does not serve me, as usual I want everything NOW – all at once at furious speed – but I’m learning to pace myself. Had Drunk Me taken a glance at the life of Sober Me that I have now, I don’t think she would have been excited about it – envious of my sobriety yes, but she would have rolled her eyes at the rest. Where’s the fun? And what a ball ache to study counselling one day a week for THREE YEARS! Bloody hell, come on! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s gooooooooo……. Build up experience of how a rehab is run by working exhausting shifts at mindbogglingly poor pay with a goal of getting a couple of years on the old CV? Kill me, kill me now.

Sober Me feels differently about it. I know I keep talking about myself as two different people but this is what addiction does. Addiction forces us into a really uncomfortable position where we have no choice but to go fast or not at all – there is no middle ground, and it’s the middle ground we get back to when the fog lifts. And so now I do get excited about all the things Drunk Me would have scoffed at. I feel excited about slowly working towards a move that probably won’t happen for another five years. I feel motivated by slowly working my way to a good spot of work experience and study combined – yes, excited at what this might get me to in three years’ time. It doesn’t feel like a long slog at all. Sure, it’s a long time, but whereas addiction has you hurtling at lightning speed or not at all, sobriety allows you to enjoy the journey.

Sometimes old habits make themselves known and I find myself doing a little job search on occasion when Rio has really driven me up the wall and to the brink of my sanity, but I always come back to the same spot: stick with it, girl. The dude has taught me a lot. Perhaps not so much through his wisdom (although, he does have plenty of that too) as how I have to really work hard at not losing my patience at his chaos, but it’s been good for me. Sort of in the same way, I imagine, as it’s good for you to learn how to deal with a really difficult child when training to be a teacher.

It’s already been seven months. Seven of 24 that I set as a reasonable chunk of experience. Before I know it, it’ll be a year and I’ll be half way through. I’ve already had another job offer following an interview I half-heartedly went for, so I know that even the experience I’ve accumulated has taken me a decent part of the way, but I know that a longer stretch of sticking with this one will be much better. Besides, it’s such a lovely little rehab and I genuinely love it there.

It’s all good. Dunno about excitement in the wild and exuberant kind of way a la Drunk Me, but I definitely feel very happy and content on this a-bit-cold-for-August Monday morning.

Today I’m not going to drink.

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