That’s a Wrap 2024!

12.29.24

I may be jumping the gun a little early, but I don’t fight the urge to get things down on paper when they come to me. Yes paper – all of my blog entries start early in the morning, on a spiral notebook with an extra sharp #2 pencil, drinking way too much coffee, cuddled up in my recliner, after reading an assortment of daily affirmations.

I started 2024 spiraling out of control, emersed in depression, guilt, and self-pity. I was fine, I was ok, damn it! Struggling from the end of a relationship I didn’t know was ending with someone I thought was my forever love. I did everything possible to escape reality and bury my emotions. I worked an obscene about of hours, isolated inside my house, didn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and drank a lot to numb the pain. I made a couple of half ass attempts at sobriety, but my good friend denial was always with me reminding me that I didn’t have a problem with alcohol. I was just going through a rough time in my life and that was normal. I still worked, took care of the animals, cooked meals for my daughter, tried to keep in touch with family and friends when I had the energy, even cleaned and managed this fucking plantation I live in. That’s a whole other story for another day. I do love my home; it is my sanctuary.

The shit days became more and more frequent until that is all there were left. My daughter was nineteen, working and going to college full-time, in love, and struggling with her own emotions over my breakup and the loss of her father figure in the house. I was so self-absorbed that I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. No wonder she moved out, I would have too. As a mother, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to overcome that guilt, or how I can make amends for being a really fucking shitty parent.

Early November I was forced to be honest with myself and acknowledge that I had a problem, that my addiction had completely taken over my life, and that I was powerless over it. On November 7th I was admitted into rehab and started on my road to recovery. I’ve been home since December 5th, and as you’ve been reading doing everything possible to stay as busy as a back-alley hooker on crack, but sober as a nun. I can’t rewrite 2024, and given the opportunity, I wouldn’t. Despite the paint I’ve inflicted on others and myself, not to mention the complete shit show, I wouldn’t be able to embrace my sobriety and new way of life today without it all.

“Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.” Garth Brooks. Take a bow 2024, you’ve earned it.