Tag: alcohol free living

A Changed World-Day 733

Well, it’s certainly been awhile. Sitting here on April 19th my world has changed in so very many ways. I am now 9 months pregnant. My little baby bump has taken over and I’m in a full swing waddle. I really can’t complain though as I’m still getting along very well and still able to work. We still don’t know the gender, go team green! I am really curious but it won’t be long now. So many people have said to me that they instinctively knew the baby’s gender when they were pregnant, or had dreams. I can honestly say that I have absolutely no idea. You could tell me either way and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. I’ve been very fortunate (knock, knock, knock on wood) that I haven’t had any trouble or complications. Especially now.

It’s hard to believe that a few short weeks ago, back in February, my husband and I traveled a few hours to see friends for a much needed weekend away. We met with three different groups of friends, hit up ALL the restaurants and stayed in a small but very reasonably priced hotel. I am so grateful that we took that trip.

As my belly has grown so have my fears. I’m less than a month away from my due date and I am so excited to meet little one. I just wish it didn’t have to be in the middle of a pandemic. But we don’t choose these things and I am still so grateful to be getting good care and that I am feeling well. It certainly is a changed world. It hurts to think of what kind of world I am bringing a child into.

I don’t know many things but I do know that I am not drinking and that I am present. Yes, now I am pregnant but soon I won’t be and I’m strengthening my resolve to remain sober and present. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about going through the pandemic while drinking. I can see it sometimes and how it would go so clearly. The beginning would be ok. I’d secretly be super excited to be spending more time at home so that I could drink more. With all the stress of the pandemic I’d need to drink for sure. But it wouldn’t be a glass of wine or two at night before bed. It would begin earlier and earlier and I would feel more and more awful. I know that I would have put myself at a higher risk because I would be going to the stores more often. A lot more often.  I feel that making clear decisions about my business would be much more difficult and pivoting to online sales and deliveries would’ve been just that much more challenging with terrible hangovers.

Things are far from perfect but I still truly feel that I made the right decision for me by letting go of drinking. With all the craziness in the world I’ve had a few fleeting thoughts about drinking after the baby is born. I’m not going to let it bother me too much. The thoughts can creep in but that’s all they are. Here’s to the future and hoping things sort themselves out sooner rather than later.

 

Day 321

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I do write and I have notes on my phone for every single day. They are not always coherent notes to anyone but me though and sometimes it’s really just blurbs and highlights of the day or some thoughts I’ve had. I really like the practice actually and I have been finding that it does force me, for some period of time, to stop for a minute and think about the day. It’s not always pretty or even noteworthy (no pun intended) but I think it will be interesting to look back on one day.

However, in the spirit of my unrelenting perfectionism and lists of 1,001 things I didn’t do today (insert eyeroll here) it has been stressing me out a little. I feel like I really want to start posting regularly but I don’t have the time right now to go back and update everything from 2018 and the longer I wait, the longer it becomes, the more there is to update and the cycle continues. Big sigh…

So, while I was at the gym running this morning, I decided to start posting daily and get caught up when I can. That’s it. Problem solved. The perfectionist in me is slightly irate and not happy that the full posts aren’t up. The pragmatist is me feels like this makes the most sense. There is another part of me that feels excited to have a solution and the list maker in me is relieved.

As I write this, it is also making me laugh. Even with a silly little decision, there is this dialouge between all my internal personalities and the needs to be satisfied for each, or dissatisfied, as the case may be. It really makes you aware of the thought process in general. It is also making me wonder how anything ever really gets done.

It’s still too icy to run outside yet so on Sunday mornings I head to the gym. I’m eager to get back to running outside but happy I’ve stuck with it. On Sundays I open the store later so I have  time for my long run. Last week I made it to 5 miles but usually I run a 5K, or 3.2 miles. We are expecting another snowstorm tonight but I’m really hoping that Spring makes it way really soon. I’m getting really tired of the cold, gray days and wearing so many layers. On my way back from the gym, the sun came out and I got a picture of this bud waiting patiently to bloom in the midst of all the snow and ice.

It’s been almost a year now since I stopped drinking. It’s become a normal part of life which is nice. I won’t lie and say that I don’t think about it at all or that I don’t want to drink once in awhile but those thoughts are really so fleeting. If I look back and I’m honest with myself, there are so many things that I wouldn’t have done over this past year if I had still been drinking. And one of them is getting to the gym, or the path when the weather is nice, by 7:00am, every single Sunday morning to run. Right now running really helps with my sanity and replaces the “me” time I thought I was taking when I was drinking.

Pro Tip: When you feel really run down, find something that you love to do. It can be anything. The only rule is that it can’t make you feel like total crap in the morning! Lol

And with that, I am going to start my day.