In our apartment you can hear the rain outside as it trickles through the pipes that run through our walls, close to the ceiling.  The constant running and “tick-tick-tick” of that water reminds me of the thoughts in my brain as I try to articulate the last 30 days.

I have had no alcohol in my system in 30 days.  Wow.  I particularly knew I could do this, as I have done it before.  However, my situation is now different.  I have a greater appreciation for myself and for the reasons to why I have stopped all together.  As I have mentioned in the past, when I stopped drinking before – I never planned on it being in perpetuum. This time – I am sober today.  I plan on also being that way tomorrow and the next day, and the next.  You’re catching my drift – but, it is daunting to think that far ahead into the future, as we cannot control anything except the moment for which we are currently in.  Every night during these last 30 days, I have gone to bed proud, relieved, and humbled to be in a place of such growth at my age.  I am not worried about the “what ifs” in my future; and the guilt of things I have done in my past because of drinking is slowly dissipating like the sound of the rain in the pipes near the ceiling.

I am a “human-being”, not a “human-doing”.

This is a quote that I heard in this past weeks AA meeting, and it resonates within me so.  We (maybe it’s just me, but doubtful) get so caught up in every day on the “go go go” mentality.  Overbooking, overlooking, and really feeling inadequate if the high standard mold we created doesn’t quite cut it, we get upset and down on ourselves.  Can it be possible to break our molds of self depreciation and to just be “ok” – just being?  Being happy, and healthy, and satisfied – even when the dishes don’t get finished, or if the day didn’t go according to plan.  I think it is possible.  As I become more pendulous through my days, I see every one as a chance to live.  I am trying my hardest to not bombard my brain with useless thoughts of not being enough, and congratulating myself instead on a job well done because I am surviving.  I don’t have to fog my feelings with alcohol to feel “better”.  I don’t have to pretend that everything is okay when it really isn’t sometimes.  How cool is that.  At that same  meeting I also heard that in fact, some flowers bloom when they have been placed under stress.  It is quite amazing that we as humans are much the same, rising time and time again after we fall.  Blooming like the beautiful flowers after little light. 

So here’s to another 30 after this, but taking it one day at a time.