Surrender
On day 305
There’s an old 1970s disco song by Gloria Gaynor called “I Will Survive.” It says, “At first I was afraid, I was petrified.”
That’s how I felt about sobriety. I was so scared. Not drinking was frightening.
Truth is, I thought sobriety would be so boring, but it's not. It’s very eventful and downright exciting to face life sober.
I was scared that I would never have fun again. But there is a lot of joy.
I also thought that that my life would be constrained. I would be boxed in. But there’s an openness and freedom to do whatever I want.
Sobriety is the opposite of what I believed it would be.
The rooms are also very different than what I thought. I love my meetings. They make me happy. I feel more accepted there than anywhere in the world.
The other day, I was thinking about what I could do when I retire one day. I thought, and might have even said aloud, I could be a playwright. I really could if that's what I want to be.
As a little girl, growing up blue collar, a playwright seemed like something out of a movie. Playwrights came from New York or Paris, not from Ontario. But I've already adapted my book into a short little two act play, so I am a playwright. Now I haven't had a staging or even a table read, but if I am a writer because I write, I am a playwright if I have written a play.
I define myself. So there.
It all starts with the written word. My biggest gift from the universe was my writing. It is my destiny. I love it. It frees me. When I write I lose myself in it. It’s a complete surrender.
And I can't be the writer, playwright and person I want to be, ahem that I am meant to be, if I am drinking. So here's to sobriety and creativity. Day by day. One word and one day at a time.
On day 305.
