Not Afraid of Bees

On Wednesday (July 8th), I celebrated 4 years of sobriety. A big accomplishment and a long journey. For today, I want to focus on how I choose to celebrate and not on the full deets of what got me here, but for context, the TL;DR of me getting sober is this:

While I am not an alcoholic, I developed a problem with drinking. In the Spring of 2022, it was especially heightened in how it was mixing with my mental health. This wasn’t the first time this had come into play, and it was getting worse. In a moment of clarity in the back of an Uber on the night of July 7th, 2022, I decided to remove alcohol from my life. I don’t know what clicked into place in that moment, why that moment was so much clearer than others, but I am grateful for it. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself and has greatly improved my life. It’s not always hard, but it’s certainly not easy. Clinging onto my ‘why’ and my support system has made it very manageable. 

Now onto how I celebrate. Clear markers of time tend to be a dip for me (birthday, New Year’s, etc). Even though I am generally a hopeful, optimistic (though pragmatic) person, I am known to get overly self-reflective (surprise, surprise) about such things.  A couple of years ago, I committed to using this new marker of time as an exercise in focusing on everything I had accomplished in the past year and was proud of. So far, this has worked. This year, it was a bit of a struggle.

A few months ago, I saw my friend Rob’s solo show. Rob is a fellow writer I admire (check out his blog here) and someone I relate to quite a bit, so it was no surprise I enjoyed his show and that it spoke to me. But one particular moment caught me off guard by how hard it hit me. He was speaking about the loss of his parents and how that, naturally, affected his views on his mortality. And how it led him to commit to focusing more on building a life around things he truly enjoys. Exploring his passions and creating community. Leading a life well lived. He, of course, stated this in a much more eloquent and moving way than I am now, and while the concept is one I believe we all try to adhere to, it’s so easy to get lost in obligation and survival in adulthood. True enjoyment becomes something we have to earn rather than a priority woven into our lives like work and chores.

This moment is one that I have thought about a lot. I am at a stage now where I am on the other side of many of my struggles with C-PTSD and sobriety, and in maintenance mode. A stage where I realized I was missing the distinction between a life well lived and survival. I was and am proud of all the work I’ve done to become a happier and healthier person again, but I’m still rebuilding the pieces of a truly full life. And that is something I committed to in the last year; an area where I have made progress. But when I sat down to write out my list, I found myself disappointed. I don’t know if I’d just been in an off headspace or what, but I kept comparing my accomplishments to others’ and downplaying what I’d done. I kept putting pressure on myself to believe that a life filled with enjoyment and passion needed to be grander than what I’ve been doing. That what I’ve done isn’t enough to put on my list.

Struggling with downplaying and feeling not enough isn’t an uncommon world for me with what I went through with trauma. And while getting to a place where I can build the life I want again is exciting, it’s also overwhelming. So I decided to put off writing my list and this post until I snapped out of it (said in Cher’s voice).

Last night, my best friend, Brian, treated me to see Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway starring Tracee Ellis Ross. This is a show I wanted to see for a while, and was particularly excited to see with Tracee (I have a post in the works that touches on how incredible and influential I find her). Every Brilliant Thing is about mental health and fighting the stigma against things like depression and suicide. It’s a beautiful, intimate, and interactive piece of theater. The show has a recurring theme of listing brilliant things in life. This list includes the small (ice cream) and the grand (falling in love), and everything in between. I walked out of the theater ready to put my list on paper. It was the reminder I needed that whatever is brilliant and meaningful to you is brilliant and meaningful. What may be a risk to some could be a piece of cake to others, and vice versa. Your life well lived is just that, your life well lived. It’s important to let yourself be inspired by others and have aspirations. But never at the cost of diminishing yourself.

Thanks to Rob, Brian, Tracee Ellis Ross, and me, I present this year’s list:

1. I started this blog, and I’m keeping it up. It’s making me a more honest and better writer.
2. I got myself on stage twice in the last year, singing, which I love, but terrifies me. And I’m gearing up to do it again.
3. I finally made my apartment the home I always wanted it to be.
4. I am exercising consistently and enjoying it.
   • While not as structured, but in some ways more important, I am dancing it out more with myself. Something I’ve always loved to do, but stopped doing consistently because I no longer felt comfortable or free in my body.
   • I’m meeting my body where it is while continuing to reclaim my physical health.
5. I’ve formed a few new intimate and valuable friendships in the last year because I am more willing to let people in again and let the right people in.
   • I like myself more and allow myself to accept being liked by others.
6. I’m open to dating again.
7. I am finally over my subway anxiety and hypervigilance, and now genuinely look forward to my subway commutes because they give me more time to read.
8. I am about to complete another year-long playlist project.
9. I am thinking ahead to new creative projects I want to tackle (one will be featured on this blog).
10. And, as I feel every year, I am madly in love with my family and friends, and so proud of the people I surround myself with.

While it’s impossible to know exactly what would have happened had I not made the decision I did on July 7th, 2022, I am quite confident this list wouldn’t exist had I stayed on that path. I’d most likely still be in survival mode and fallen into isolation. I wouldn’t have made the new connections that I love so much. And possibly wouldn’t have reconnected with my creative self. It does scare me when I think about the cliff I was on, but at this point, I’m just excited to keep looking ahead and building a killer list for next year.

If you or anyone you know is struggling with substance abuse or mental health issues, you can call 988