Numbers are swirling around my head. Phone numbers, dates, account numbers, passwords, and how many dinosaurs are lined up in my living room {the answer to that is "eleven-teen" according to Fynn... }
And the number of the day: 90.
I'm sitting with it, meditating on it, saying it over and listening to how it sounds as it rolls of my tongue with slight hesitation and maybe a hint of pride.
90
90 days sober
90
I'm not a fan of numbers. Wrapping my head around numbers is not my strong suit. But today I'm okay with 90. More than okay.
Because it means much more than a tally of days gone by without a drink. The journey of 90 has brought the realization that this is all so much more than life without booze. Life without a numbing agent. It's about quality of life. My life.
There's a need to pick words very carefully when talking about sobriety. Every journey is different, every path unique as the footprints that linger. And my journey might sound similar to others who haven't walked the road of alcoholism, because we all have some underlying demons, and some that are similar to mine might not have chosen alcohol to bring to the fight.
The past 90 days has partly been about getting reacquainted with me. The me that got tossed aside when I became so fully aware of what other people thought, and felt. The me that got left behind when I got caught up in becoming someone I wasn't. The me that got pushed down and numbed and told she didn't matter.
I'm riding waves of emotions, daily. Feeling every swell, crash, and peaceful break upon shore. That's the change. Before, I had stopped feeling. Stopped noticing. I swam against currents and when my arms got heavy and tired they would buckle and the only thing that could save me was reaching for drink. To numb, so I wouldn't feel what had come up around and tried to drown me.
It's being mindful, noticing what feeling is taking place at any given moment of the day. Acknowledging it and giving it a name. Even if no one but me hears when I say I'm overwhelmed or I'm going to explode I've said it, and I know it's real. I'm on top of the waves, on top of the current, looking and seeing and feeling the rise and fall.
And even when it's bad, it's good.
While that sounds simple, it's anything but. It's a constant practice, a constant learning and expanding in my practice of being mindful. And I fall into the surf, huge bumbling clumsy falls, but it's a lot less than I did 90 days ago, or even 30 days ago. For that, for the process and the chance, I'm thankful.
90 days.