“Sunday For Me”

I’m inside at my regular coffee shop. It’s too hot to sit outside and smoke as I write, and plus some guy with a whole pack of huge dogs is sitting out there. So I’m in here enjoying a muffin, a carbonated caffeine confection, and a view of a very pretty redhead as she works on some type of school project. And wouldn’t you know it, my drink just spilled all over.

You gotta laugh. Or at least I do. What’s there to be embarrassed about, really? Was I actually going to try to talk to her? Most likely not. Does she care that I spilled all over the table, or that I cleaned it all up right away? Did she even notice?

So why laugh? Because of how seriously I still take myself. Because a pretty woman can still turn me right back into a insecure teenager. Because of all of that goes on inside my head while the outside of me is the picture of calm, like I got everything under control. It’s the strange dichotomy of knowing all the stuff that moves through my mind and how the surface rarely reflects any of it. It’s as one of my fellows likes to say: I still have all the parts of me inside, all the sides of myself I’ve ever been; the difference now is that (thanks to the program) they don’t rule me.

Although, I suppose if I’m still insecure enough not to go introduce myself to a pretty girl, then some of those things do still rule me. Guess that just means there’s still work to be done.

I’ve set today aside as a ‘me’ day. With all the stress at work, plus the other stuff I’ve been dealing with like the car, I knew I needed a day to myself for just... whatever. If I don’t take care of myself, then I’m no good to anyone else. I’ll take time to clean the apartment up, work on some music, and hopefully watch this long-ass movie I got through my Netflix that I’ve been putting off watching because it is so long.

Some people don’t have any trouble taking care of themselves, stepping back when they need a break. It’s something I’ve had to work to learn. Learning that’s it’s not only okay to take time for myself, but that it’s a necessary part of living, has been a very a good thing. Someone once told me a long time ago that being an adult means you have one job: to take care of yourself. That job entails a lot of different things--working so that you have money to eat, a place to live, etc. But also having good boundaries, dealing with your issues, and much more.

Lots of us in the rooms feel that we’ve grown up in the program, and that’s true for me as well. Though I think I’d phrase it a little more specifically than that. The program hasn’t taught me how to be an adult, it’s given me the tools to learn it for myself. It always seems to come back to that. The program hasn’t shown me how to live life, it’s given me a way of living clean and sober, a way that works, that provides me with the opportunity to change and to grow. I get the opportunity to live my life; whether I choose to do so is up to me.