I find myself these days in a positive, self-reinforcing cycle of good choices. I am heading into the ninth month of not drinking alcohol, the first month of autumn and with it, summer, the season I feared the most, is over. Autumn is a place of beauty for me. Yes, it rains. Yes, it’s gray. Yes, it gets colder. But it is also the last spell before a very long dark slumber, a spell of serenity – where everything turns cooler in shades but everybody still has this remnant warm summer glow. The cycle of life comes to an end but the mood has yet to subside and probably won’t before Christmas has come and gone. I can begin to feel the end of this year.
I don’t know what this end will bring for me. But it’s only within the last month that I really feel like I am hitting my stride. It’s like all my choices – the not drinking, the clearing of my belongings, the reflections and rising energy – are coming together and starting something new in me. I have a renewed force and a joy in starting new projects. I am seeing much, much clearer where I’ve been or am wasting my time, and where I need to put my efforts going forward. Releasing expired wants and wishes, letting go of old dreams, it’s all allowing me to see my life from a different perspective, a mirror of opportunities shining back at me.
This venture has been a reset button, but it is only now the reboot feels like it’s taken effect. It’s been a long slow haul. It is not over. I know this. And I have this nagging feeling that the actual work is only just about to begin. For almost a year, I have decided not to drink at all. One decision removed the many smaller ones. But if I decide that alcohol has a place in my life after all, I also bring back the individual decisions, the weighing and assessing each time I am presented with the choice to drink. I fear underestimating the toll this could take on the scaffolding I’ve built these past months. I fear it will all come back and bring me down again.
So why not just decide not to drink? Indeed, why not. And then again, the drag is so, so present. I wonder if I will ever be rid of it?