Day 55-75

No. I haven’t fallen off the wagon, or gotten back on it, or whatever that expression is. I mean, I’m still sober.

In the last twenty days I’ve… moved, found a new church, auditioned for four pilots, fell in love with frozen custard, mastered the squat, built Ikea furniture, made new friends, bonded with old friends, defferred my student loans, went record shopping, started a new workshop, got sucked into the Target vortex (twice), and even managed to squeeze in a day at the beach. Warner finished two treats labeled “everlasting”. Needless to say…. we’ve been very, very busy.

And yes, we did this all sober… (although Warner was walking a little funny a few nights ago, so I can’t really say that with certaintiy on his behalf).

All kidding aside, I am astounded by how awesome my life is right now. I guess I haven’t written much because I’ve been out in my new world, wide eyed, jaw dropped, enjoying every single second.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been a few bumps in the road. Duh. I’m still human. But my sobriety mixed with my faith, taught me an unexpected lesson recently about said bumps.

I realized I need to let it go. I need to stop thinking that I can control what happens in my life. I can’t. No one can. Sure, I can make certain choices that will affect my day. But in the long run, there isn’t a thing that will affect the big picture stuff. I can’t control if I book a job or get a flat tire or run into an ex at the gym.

This may not sound revolutionary to you, but this was a giant light-bulb moment for me.

I’ve spent the majority of my life with an unrealistic cause and effect mindset. My sobriety is a great example. I’ve talked a lot about why I made this choice and where it all stemmed from, but basically, I thought that if I stayed sober for a year, this would be the year my career would just take off. I thought, I’m doing something good for myself, and the universe/God must reward that.  So for the last three months, every time I got an audition, I’d think, “This is it. It’s finally paying off”. And then when I didn’t book the job, I would get frustrated with myself and mad at God, and I’d beat myself up over it.

Ok. So when I type it out loud, it really does sound completely ridiculous and somewhat OCD.

My sobriety is not going to decide my big picture stuff because the big picture stuff has already been decided. I believe I was put here for a very specific reason, and that reason will show itself when the time is right.

Being sober is not going to affect the outward stuff like how many auditions I get or if I’m going to get stuck in traffic on the 405. Being sober affects the inward stuff, like how I cope when I don’t get the job, or how I treat the person who just cut me off. Being sober makes me brave and happy because it forces me to strip down and really get to know myself and make myself better.

I don’t know what I’ll be doing ten years from now, but if sobreity has taught me anything, I know that no matter what it is, I’m going to be pretty freaking happy doing it because I’ll still get to be me, and well, I’m growing pretty fond of that person.