A brighter shade of gray

Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.

John Maxwell

It’s safe to say most of us don’t like change. And yet, if stuck in the same rut for too long, we begin to crave something different. When I quit drinking, it was a summoning of courage I didn’t believe I possessed. Blind faith; trust in God and my own desperation to lead me down a different path. Change was painful at first, stark and blinding. I chose to fold inward and lick my wounds for awhile. Six months in, I decided to start this blog and reach out to others in my situation. People who had reached the point where change is the only viable option.

Once I embraced my sobriety journey, I met some lovely bloggers, my sober online community, who understood the feelings that pop up unexpectedly when you don’t drink. Like me, they were mastering the techniques required to move through life sober on a drunken planet. Whether you come from the mindfulness school of letting feelings come and go like clouds drifting across the sky, or espouse the whack-a-mole approach to dealing with feelings, you learn to face life unfiltered. And unfiltered is where the magic happens.

Two years into my sobriety, I had faced (and conquered) huge challenges, with my one-year soberversary falling on the day the world shut down. Year two was full of stretching, pulling, and bending, but thankfully not breaking. The drinking weight had come off and I felt comfortable in my own skin, even at boozy social occasions, even on VACATION! I began to feel like I could handle anything and remain my sober, insightful self.

A few months ago I celebrated four years sober, and can testify to the fact that, just when you feel like you have something mastered and are riding that bike without training wheels, you will be asked to back a big-rig truck down a steep and narrow street in San Francisco. For me this new, unaccepted challenge came a few years ago when I hit 45 and began to feel…different. It started with a general moodiness followed by days of malaise. Monthly cycles that stretched into two weeks at a time. Weight that jumped onto my body when I merely walked by a Crumbl store (ok, I may have had a cookie or two). Sweaty nights not from anything fun. Sweaty face that made my glasses fog during a work meeting. Loss of interest in things that used to bring me joy and the constant feeling that I had lost my spark.

I lamented to my mom, to my girlfriends, to my husband who I’m sure wishes I hadn’t. Why didn’t anyone warn me about this??? What made it worse was that, I finally felt like I was my true self, sober and at peace with myself and the world. Then, this. So the weight came back on. My alarm stayed off and my Bible closed. My camera gathered dust on the shelf. The piano sat quietly, feeling the opposite of used. My blog, as some have noticed, withered on the vine.

And yet, a few months ago I began to notice a change. A lighter shade of gray. Have my physical symptoms changed? Not really. But my mindset has and that is leading to a break out…a break through. I don’t know if it is God picking me up (yet again) and dusting me off even though I am once again not worthy of any gold stars. Or if it’s Newton’s Third Law at work, for every force in nature there is an equal and opposite force. But where before, I didn’t care how I looked, what I did or didn’t do, or how I spent my time, now I am starting to. It isn’t a switch being turned, more like the slow glow of an ember fueled by a subtle breeze. But I can feel its gradual warmth.

I’m engaged in the uphill battle of losing weight again, where before I had no motivation. It’s a tug-of-war between burning and consuming with my slow metabolism in the middle of it all, doubled over laughing. My approach is logging calories on a fitness app and staying in a calorie deficit, and even that doesn’t lead to steady progress. I have the time over the summer to exercise over an hour a day, either walking hills, jogging, and strength training. And even that doesn’t lead to steady progress. But what’s weird is I’m not giving up. I get on the scale and might be pleasantly surprised, or quietly defeated (it’s a crapshoot), and still, I keep going.

I’m saying yes more, spending a bit more time on my appearance. My mind, my Bible and my laptop are open. I’ve even stepped out of my work comfort zone and applied for an administrative position. That interview required big girl pants, pun intended. I am awaiting the outcome but proud I took the risk.

I look outside, and instead of seeing the dark night of the soul, I see a lighter shade of gray. And I realize I can conquer this as well.