Today I am 332 days sober!
It’s about time I took a minute to not work and just enjoy myself. This week I did just that. I packed up the car with my family to take a week off from life and enjoy the sunshine and beauty of Lake Chelan. Y’all don’t even know how badly I needed this trip after my crazy quarter at school. Having spent so much time and energy into work, it’s nice to get away from it and pretend like it doesn’t exist. As I sip on some iced tea and let the sun bronze my body, I don’t have a care in the world. Real life ceases to exist. It’s the little things, you know?
That being said I’ve always had a hard time with vacations. Before you call me insane let me explain. I honestly have a hard time doing nothing. I have to be doing something all the time. I am coming to accept the fact that I am a workaholic and could in fact have an addiction to working. All the recent successes I’ve had are only fueling my drive to work harder and more tirelessly. A vacation is something I almost have to force myself to take. I’ve been working so hard now for so long with not only sobriety but other aspects of my life that contribute to my personal growth and success. I’m so obsessed with improving my life that I often forget and overlook relishing in the successes that I have achieved.
It’s so bad that the first night of my vacation I had an anxiety attack and slight breakdown. I freaked out because I was now in an environment where I couldn’t work or be productive. I’ve internalized this idea that vacations are some kind of a period of stagnation and stalled efforts. This is a recent thing that has happened. I believe it to be a response to my drinking period where my life really did flatline and never seemed to move. That period was a vacation from life. I put everything on pause and worked to “sort things out” when realistically I did no such thing. I think because my life has taken such a drastic turn of events in a more positive and fulfilling direction, I fear that any amount of time I don’t put forward into moving it further in that direction could be harmful. Harmful in the sense that it has the potential to stall me again on my journey. Now almost done with my vacation, I feel quite differently.
Now settled into this freedom to do nothing, I keep telling myself that vacations are something I have to learn to take as a period of rest. I am not superhuman and eventually I will burn out and be unable to keep up with my life. If anything, this vacation has given me an opportunity to clear my head and have a change of pace. As someone who gets bored easily and becomes depressed in mundane circumstances, I desperately need this opportunity to keep my creative juices and productivity at its highest capacity. I do feel better. Spending time for me and forgetting everyone and everything else has allowed me to relax tremendously. It saddens me that this is only temporary, but that makes it all the more special. So I am going to spend the rest of these days spoiling myself and taking it easy. I’ll be back to reality soon enough. Until then, I’m going to be lounging poolside, listening to my summer playlists, basking in the sun, and escaping into my summertime fantasy.
Relishing in the Relaxation:
Taylor James
Sobriety: My Fight, My Truth 