Today I came home after teaching, and my high school-aged daughter (still gleefully on her school’s holiday break) greeted me in socks and a sweatshirt, dancing in my kitchen like a cutie pie. So naturally, I joined her. We must have danced for an hour…ending with an amazing finale of me performing shaker to the very rhythmic “The Heights” soundtrack. I should have been a drummer or been born in Cuba. I proceeded to create some empanadas with leftover pie crust my other daughter had left in my fridge from making a pie before returning to college. Then…this led to a, “If you give a mouse a cookie” afternoon. My younger son and I created a whole litany of empanadas from the left-overs in my fridge/freezer. Italian sausage and cheese empanadas with marinara sauce. Pepperoni and cheese empanadas with marinara sauce. I made these vegetarian empanadas filled with this faux-meat I make from ground up walnuts and chickpeas, I added sautéed onion, carrot and celery. These were so yummy. I made a few cinnamon apple empanadas. Lastly, I made some black bean and cheese empanadas for my volleyball daughter to have with guacamole. I cleaned my kitchen, put away the leftovers of the leftovers and I threw the last batch of empanadas in the oven before I needed to go pick her up from practice. I hopped in our truck and began to drive to volleyball. I didn’t even look at the time, I just assumed it was near the time to get her. I mean, that was a LOT of empanadas! So when I glanced at the time, and I had 45 minutes till her practice was done…my very first thought was, I’ll go by that cute little cozy bar and grab a nice glass of wine and knit while I wait (I am a nerd and bring my knitting everywhere with me, ha!). Why was this my first thought? I wanted to relax after hard work, and I wanted to be alone…and in my past, I did all that habitually, with wine.

What followed was what I like to call a new-ish thing for me…I started talking these things out loud to myself in my car before I could pull over and write them out. I drove past the bar and parked in the high school parking lot, got out my journal and wrote these very recent thoughts down. I wrote down, “I want to go to the bar to have one glass of wine because I worked hard today, I want to relax and have a moment to myself”. I then made three statements of belief from that one statement.

First statement of belief: “Hard work deserves alcoholic beverages”.

Where in the world did I learn that one? Um…media, advertising and marketing galore mixed with the cultural norm, wha-la! Commercials have in shape, good looking, hard working people drinking beer or wine or hard liquor. Social media is FILLED with meme’s depicting mom’s deserving to put their feet up and drink their wine…can I get an “Amen”! But if I pick that apart. If I practice presence…and take that statement and hold it up against the freedom and truth of my sober and sound mind. Hard work is hard work. I choose to work hard, not because of a glass of wine at the end, but because I find joy in hard work. I like to work hard. I like to sweat. I like to have a sore back. I find I am more fulfilled after a hard day’s work, because it is what I was created to do! Not because there is booze waiting at the finish line. So cross that one off as a false belief for me! Next statement.

Second statement of belief: “Wine will help me feel relaxed”.

Yes. One glass of wine would probably make me feel relaxed. But when has my habit been just having one glass of wine? No…it’s more like two or three by the end of the evening…which leaves me feeling sick to my stomach, which increases my anxiety ten fold because my worst fear in life is to vomit. I become agitated with my family and short tempered. I withdraw and am not engaging with my family like I truly love to do. Wine makes me sleepy but then I want to stay up late and eat things and watch TV which then creates an endless dialogue of guilt in my head leaving me far from relaxed. You know what makes me feel relaxed? Getting in my pajamas, having a hot cup of rooibos tea and knitting while I listen to audiobooks, or to read stories of survival, or watch a BBC murder mystery with my husband…this, this makes me feel so much more relaxed. So I can cross statement number two off. Next and last statement of today.

Statement number three: “I like drinking alone.”

Oh, I can just cross this one off immediately. The true statement is, I like being alone. Yes! I recharge when I have moments to myself of peacefulness and quiet. It’s never been alcohol…that just became a habit to have wine alone…but I’ve always enjoyed alone time, even when I wasn’t drinking. I can shake my shaker eggs and dance like a teenager in my kitchen with my daughter, but I realized from the moment I woke up this morning until I left to get my daughter from volleyball this evening, I had not had a moment alone. I was receiving the signal to power down and find some time alone when I had that first thought of sitting in that bar. So…instead of going to a bar and having a glass of wine alone, I drank water from my beat up Nalgene water bottle in a high school parking lot and wrote all this out…alone. And I feel really great about that statement.

The truths I learned from today. I was made to enjoy hard work because it feels good to work hard. I enjoy relaxing with hot tea and books and people I love. I need to carve out moments of alone time during my days to have peacefulness. Done and done.

I have never been a drinker ON airplanes. As life would gift me, most of my travels have been on LONG, LONG plane rides where I was hyper-warned and freaked out enough about staying hydrated that I have never been a plane drinker. Perhaps it was also because I love to help people…it’s my love language. And if the plane goes down…at least I want to help people as we crash. Africa, Switzerland, Brazil, Haiti…downing the agua while cruising at a comfortable, for everyone else, bazillion feet in the air…BAZILLION feet in the air. In case you didn’t miss that small detail. Which brings me to my next statement. I have, in recent years, been a for absolute positive pre-board wine guzzler and post-board wine guzzler. Guzzler equating roughly one glass pre and several glass post. I am not the MOST comfortable cruising at said bazillion feet in the air. People?! Metal flying birds…super heavy on their own, adding people and all that luggage, over OPEN water in the dark? What are we thinking? I’m bordering on a massive panic currently as I type.

The wine would calm me down beforehand. As I would chug water in air to hydrate, most assuredly sending me to -tap tap- my neighbor and say, “pardon me” and off to use the un-nerving airplane bathroom that makes my heart literally stop for at least a second when I flush. Not sure I even breathe while I’m in there. Then, upon decent, gleeful after the bump bump of some better than other landings…I would find vino and chug a lug as a “I survived…thank the Lord!”

I have an airplane situation approaching rapidly. The situation is:

• I’m sober
• Departing on 9/11
• In forecasted thunderstorms
• Returning on Friday, the 13th
• In forecasted rain
• I’m sober
• I’m
• sober

It’s not lost on me that people do this every single day. People fly. It’s what we do. People even fly in thunderstorms and live to tell the story. But I know what thunderstorms mean…it means bumpy. And when my car goes over bumps, and I AM driving…I can SEE why it’s bumpy and know that it’s okay. When you’re flying at 5 bazillion miles per hour, bazillions of feet in the AIR, and the hunk of metal you’re inside, and NOT in control of, bumps repeatedly and you can’t SEE why it’s bumpy…my heart stops. And thunderstorms mean lots of bumps. Lots of heart stops. Add in 9/11 and remembering the horror of horrors, throw in a little freaky Friday 13th and…we might all see the situation at hand. I won’t be numb from pre-board guzzle. I won’t be looking forward to post-landing guzzle. I will just. Be. I have two choices. One…to just drink. Drink that wine before and after that will numb me and relax me…but will leave me feeling more anxious later on, and leave me dehydrated and headachy. Or two…practice mindfulness. The airplane I will board, no doubt has been through a litany of checks and prods and inspections. The people flying my plane will have earned that right and therefore will be prepared, trained and clear-headed to do so. The tower peeps, watching all things in air and on ground will be able to see and know what bumps are coming and with those crazy little radios…will be able to let the pilot know where to go and how to fly if need be. And, I have this massive belief in a God who knows all and sees all and doesn’t walk in fear but runs with hope. So, no matter what…I’m golden.

So I suppose I will “treat” myself to an herbal tea in the airport pre-board. I will people watch…not creepily but observingly. I will read my book, or knit and listen to my book, or watch a funny movie on board while drinking water. I won’t arrive till super late, so I will most likely sleep like a baby where my head rests even later that evening. I will wake up clear-headed and alert and with joy the next morning. And I will do this all again on the return journey. Or…I will die and my friends will need to call the boot maker in town who is covering my Bible currently and find all the scriptures marked by Ebenezer stones in the margins to read at my funeral, make sure my husband Chris has food and water and love on my five kids enormously.

Everyone in my family is aware that I love white t-shirts. Since high school, having an affinity towards the simplicity of white t-shirts, has been my thing. Boat necked, long-sleeved, short-sleeved, v-neck, scoop-neck, high-neck, flowy, more form-fitting, undershirt, layered shirt…any white t-shirt pretty much makes my happy lights glow. Imagine my utter delight, when I was teaching in Switzerland one summer, upon finding another human person who also shared my affinity for the white t-shirt. I was 18 at the time and had flown across the pond to teach “outdoor recreation” to a bunch of boarding school children from all over the globe alongside other teachers, 10 years my senior, whom escaped to Europe during the summers to travel to all the countries cheaply, learn bits of different languages from tiny children and return to the States to talk about teaching in Europe during their summers. Enter co-worker Chris. (so many Chris’s in my life. Currently…there are four Chris’s in my life…I have a Chris situation) Chris was from California, had these blue-blue eyes that are the clear wolf type blue eyes…so so blue. Like bits of the sea surrounding Greece dropped into his eyes. And he wore the same exact thing EVERY day. A “hanes-her-way” white t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts and hiking boots. He was the original minimalist. He packed 7 shirts…for the whole summer. I was inspired, amazed…I wanted to be just like that when I grew up. When I returned back to the states…I donned my new found gay apparel of hanes white t-shirts, khaki non cargo shorts and my hiking boots and walked all over college beaming…much to the horror of my sorority sisters. I was perhaps, the worst sorority member of all the history of sorority people. I hated parties, big groups of people judging one another on appearances, I was a new Christian…totally excited and unabashedlely talking about my new faith with anyone who would sit next to me. They didn’t know what to do with this white t-shirt, Jesus loving person…so they put me on standards committee (the committee that slapped the hand of the “over-served” girls at parties on the weekends…or weekdays, or whenever and read them their rights). I’m positive they were relieved when I took a year break my Junior year of college to start an inner-city ministry…and never returned because my Senior year of college I got married. I digress…. Well…everyone in my family also knows that I’m a magnet for any stains on said collection of white t-shirts. Especially the chocolate stains in the beginning days of t-shirt wearing. How about a napkin? Or an apron? Or try eating over the plate? Maybe just wear a birthday suit instead? I did try to get stains out. Shout stick, spray n’ wash…straight up bleach were no match for my chocolate stains. (enter CK LOUIS girl impression) “If you would pour some club soda on it…” Nope…club soda just laughed in my face as it fizzed all over my chocolate stains. Enter my alcohol drinking days and chocolate stains gave way to the dreaded red wine stains…the ever so slight purple leftovers of my oopsies from the previous night’s relaxation. The cuff of my long sleeves would have little purple smudges from where I would wipe my mouth to hide the purple mustache…you know what I’m talking about? Or, my cute cotton white flowy nightgown that had the purple amoeba down the front from where I had oopsied from slipping to sleep whilst holding my wine glass on my belly. All the whites were stained. And all the remedies didn’t work. But…I’ve FOUND a remedy. The ultimate and fool-proof remedy! It works every single time. I currently have five white shirts hanging in my closet that I’ve managed to keep whitest of whites. For an entire summer, unheard of. Unblemished, untainted. I have found the secret. First…as SOON as I get home from wherever I’ve been in my white shirt…I totally do a “Mr. Rodgers” and take that shirt off and hang it up in the closet. But the surest of all ways to keep my shirts from the dreaded purple wine stains has been…I don’t drink alcohol anymore! I will never, ever have to fear the dreaded wine stain. I will never, ever have to worry that I will have an oopsie and spill wine down my front or have wine on my mouth, leaving the cuffs of my sleeves purpley. I can wipe my mouth and my sparkling water won’t leave a stain. And…I’ve also learned that I CAN use a napkin to keep the chocolate ice cream from getting it’s way at my white shirt…OR better yet…just wear a grey shirt.

So, since choosing to be sober since this past summer, following a season of obsessive reading about alcohol, all things sobriety, journeys of others, listening to podcasts, etc, etc… I find myself in a new situation. A sober situation. So. I decided to write my sober situations down here for those to whom might find them:

• helpful
• funny
• encouraging
• silly
• guiding
• life-giving
• urging
• annoying
• jubilating
• doable
• impossible
• breathable

I have dabbled with being totally sober. Periods of total abstinence, followed by the inevitable regular drinking habit sneaking back in. I find it über hard in our culture where it’s either A or B really. A, just beginning to drink alcohol and labeling oneself a “normal drinker”…or B, finding oneself at the end of a scary road of being totally dependent and addicted to alcohol. My nemesis: the moderate or occasional drinker aka, normal drinker. The “one glass only please” people or the, “only on Friday” peeps. I SO wanted to be you. For SO long I tried to be you and for a few first drinking years, I totally was you. But as said before…only Fridays turned into Thursdays and Fridays…why not add Saturdays too, it’s the weekend after all . And then Sundays are for relaxing so throw in that day as well. Mondays were that hard day of getting back into the weekly routine…so ok..Mondays too. Tuesdays are just Tuesdays. Why not Tuesdays? Wednesdays…hump day, a glass or three will do just fine thank you. And then…back to our lovely Thursdays. I’ve journaled and read and listened and read and journaled and chatted and cried and been round and round and round…and it has just had to stop. I found two things to be true. One, that I was at the end of the round and round and was ready for the end. And almost as important, two, through research, and being honest with myself and open…I found there was a new beginning. And this blog contains my thoughts, my sober situations, and perhaps, my not so sober situations as well. My end…but definitely, joyously, happily, thankfully…my new beginning.