Softening the Edges.
On Being Alcohol Free for 7 Years.
When I first stopped drinking I wondered how long it would last. I wondered how I could go to a weddings and not drink. I wondered if I would stop being fun.
Well, it’s been seven years.
Our youngest daughter had my favorite non-alcoholic beer behind the bar at her wedding reception.
While I may have been fun, I was also sloppy and that was not fun. Sloppiness led to shame and shame is not fun. Now, my sleep is easier and more restorative. My anxiety has lessened or is not exacerbated my alcohol and I’ve realized my health is more important than being “fun.”
The main reason I liked drinking as a teenager, then young adult and adult was that it softened the edges. The edges of anxiety. The edges of being so self-conscious. The edges of an often harsh and chaotic world. Alcohol ensconced me in this little bubble where I felt more at ease. Less jangly.
When menopause hit, my body said, “That’s it. Enough. I don’t care how jangly you feel. No more booze.” It wrecked my sleep. Made me even more anxious and then threw in heart palpitations to really scare me. So, I stopped drinking. Even through the pandemic. Even through grief.
Then this year started off with a back injury in January, Shingles in February and a worse back injury in March. Not to mention the ongoing horrors in our country and around the world. I really, really, really needed/wanted to soften the edges of all of that.
Luckily, I came across this poem:
Reading this, I wondered if softening the edges was actually a good thing. I realized that alcohol provided a fake smoothness. A fake softening of the edges. Experiences that I didn’t dull with alcohol are what have shaped and softened me. Feeling the anxiety and going to therapy. Feeling shattered when my best friend of 40 years unexpectedly died. Losing various relationships for various reasons. Hitting a wall in my writing. (Many a writer have turned to drink when that happened.) Dealing with health issues.
What I once thought was a softening of the edges was actually a numbing. There is no growth or healing in numbness. Feeling and dealing my way through it all is what has created the soft edges. And those edges are beautiful and luminous, just like sea glass.