rooms to tidy

If you’re lucky in a life, you get the opportunity to reconstruct it. I am here, surveying my life. I am finding what to make better. I often do this in my home: look around the rooms, find what can be cleaned or tidied or consolidated or organized.

Finally I am doing it in my habits and behaviors. It’s been a long time coming, no doubt.

I’m starting my quest for betterment with sobriety. Today marks my tenth day of complete sobriety and I’ve got to say, I’m starting to feel myself again.

I know enough about story to know this is where readers want sordid details (what am I getting sober from? How addicted was I? For how long? What negative impacts did it have on my life?) This is the salacious gossip section, that necessary part to require redemption.

That isn’t the part I want to tell right now, but with some more distance, more days of sobriety behind me, I will divulge that information. Basically I was self-medicating with booze instead of becoming healthier, which I’ve decided now to do, in body and mind alike.

David Foster Wallace once exclaimed, “I’m a depressive, and guess what? Alcohol is a depressant!” I do not want to feed that sad that lives in me anymore. I’ve chosen to feed my joy instead.

There are other parts to my betterment as well, but for now, I am this. Ten days without so much as a sip of booze, my sweet tooth raging, my mind already a little clearer, my attention more focused. I am writing like a fiend and thinking of tomorrows instead of just todays. I think I’m onto something good here.

So far to go, so much work to be done, but for now, enjoy this picture of me and my boys at the zoo. I’m chubby-faced still from my drinking days, but also, most importantly, I am smiling.