Theme Music:
Summary:
- Running to the light. Can I/Should I stop running at some point?
- Purchased and renovated a cabin in western North Carolina
- Finally getting healthy after a two-year struggle with the chronic injury monster
- Got distracted from my college studies learning computer programming;
- Narrowly avoided burnout, getting back to level stable flight (see above)
- Still not drinking!
Running to the light
I try not look too far back in these posts, but this year will be different. I was looking at my old journal last night, and I shared a poem I wrote on day one of my quit. My friend Anthony commented on how dark it was. To me it's a snapshot of my life at a moment in time. I'm clearly no poet but I think I did a good job of capturing the unvarnished reality of my situation and the decision that I made to change it.
Here is that poem:
Day 1.
Thought maybe I would write a poem that summarizes where I am on this day, and why I decided to give up alcohol.
now I'm getting older
bad habits growing bolder
a shell of the man people once looked up to
the bottle has become my lover
coffee and asprin my mother
the local bartenders my best friends
they all know me by name
my drink is always the same
poured and measured, no questions asked, when they see me walking through the door
I have a good woman
but not for much longer
she moved away for she could not bear what I had become
the damage is done
the special feelings we used to have
just wisps of nostalgia - the process of painful loss playing out for both of us.
I open the folder
turn on the slideshow
Pictures from better days
Fit, focused, driven, smiling
surfing, diving, music, laughter
racking up passport stamps
But now my lover is my master
and I drink up the money ever faster
as days become months become years
This ends now.
As the sun clears the horizon
my heart pounding, the sand a blur beneath my feet
as I run towards life
For nine years, I have been running to the light with everything I've got. That has not wavered one iota. Even if it's just a blade of grass, for the last nine years my life has been defined by my desire to move relentlessly forward every single day.
I'm reaching a point where I'm maybe 10-15 years from being able to retire comfortably, and I'm not in mortal danger of my life falling apart from picking up and starting to drink again if I don't keep myself busy. Is there a point at which I can base my life on a somewhat more mellow and less intense organizing principle? I don't know the answer yet but I'm starting to give some thought to it.
Purchased and renovated a cabin in Western North Carolina
Last March when the message was 'pandemic is coming, prepare yourselves.', my response was to slash expenses, get my financial hygiene as good as I could make it, and embark on a crash course on macroeconomics. As a result, I came to the conclusion that real estate would be a really good investment on the front end of the pandemic. So I gave myself a crash course on real estate investing and worked out a strategy that made sense for my personality and situation.
The end result is I got my hands on a sweet little cabin in the mountains of Western North Carolina, off of one of the main ridges of Grandfather mountain.
The last owner had the place for less than two years and in that time the forest made great strides in reclaiming the property hahaha. Things grow like crazy in that part of the forest and we wanted to create kind of a 'moat' around the cabin to keep the maintenance effort down. It's pretty remote, and we had a heck of a time getting workers of any kind so everything took 3x as long as we thought it would. But we're pretty much done now and I think the place came out amazing.
Anyway now It's largely done and I've very proud of the results. At end of the month we're closing on cabin #2, but the details on that will have to wait for next year's journal entry.
Finally getting healthy
Over the last six months, the chronic injuries I got from overtraining had receded enough that I've been able to build up some fitness. It brings me so much joy to be able to go out and ride my bike the way I want. I got a mountain bike in the early spring and have been checking out some of the trails around the cabin, that's been quite a lot of fun. There's one trail in particular called 21 jumps that's sooooooo much fun holy crap! Our handyman has been riding these trails on motorcycles and bicycles since he was a boy and he's schooling me up. he is so fast wow.
Even though it would be totally irresponsible financially since I just got a mountain bike, I'm looking long and hard at a gravel bike. I've been using a road bike with 32mm tires for mixed-surface riding, but it's not fun at all to descend on twisting gravel mountain roads on a stiff twitchy road bike. The mountain bike kicks ass, but it's heavy and slow for climbing, like a lot. A Gravel bike will open up many more route combinations so it's probably going to happen. It''ll be an awkward conversation with my wife on account of all my whining about cabin renovation expenses :).
A close encounter with the burnout monster
One of the background things underpinning the drinking problem was I've had this combination of ambition and not knowing how and when to engage in self-care when things get to be too much. Even though I've taken the drinking away and learned some self-care, that dynamic of taking on more than I can handle and driving myself into the ground is still there and I still have to contend with it.
Over the last nine months, I had the cabin renovation, a burgeoning interest in programming, my college studies, plus work and my marriage and all that, and it was simply too much. It really hit me about mid-march. so I've throttled back and I'm slowly returning to normal. It was a close call though. I was well and truly empty. Those are the exact situations where I would have used alcohol in the past, which ironically just makes things worse.
Still not drinking
Welp, here we are. Still not drinking, still building a good life, trying to be a decent human being.
The life I have today exceeds the wildest fantasies of what I thought was possible when I quit nine years ago. If alcohol is fucking up your life, understand that you can have this too. Resolve to hit the pillow sober at the end of every day, and get some help.
May you care for yourself with ease,
-s
