I was told that this year is going to be full of a lot of things that don’t make sense.  It is ringing true.  The new job I was so happy to obtain has brought a new set of challenges in that this office really likes to drink!  The office has a nice café in the center that not only includes coffees and teas, but also vodka, wine, champagne and a bevy of beers.  My coworkers are big on happy hours and routinely take the last hour of the day to congregate in the café and pour their drink of choice while talking about all the drinking they do when they are not at work.  I don’t usually go to these “happy hours” which has me singled out as the new girl who doesn’t like the people in the office.  I don’t know why I am so weirded out by it.  I have been in plenty of offices where alcohol and drugs were around… maybe it is the whole Memphis thing that has me feeling extra introverted.  I’m back in that muck of what I once was and I don’t know how to escape it.  My friends in LA wouldn’t even know what to do with me right now… I’m such a shadow of the person I was when I lived out west.
 
Maybe I am in one of those middle of the night moments I read about for the umpteenth time in my favorite book, Calm My Anxious Heart.  I find this book to be similar to the Bible and The Big Book in that every time I read it, I glean something new.  The author, Linda Dillow, talks about the night before God parted the Red Sea.  She speaks on how the Israelites were most likely freaking out… they were pegged in against the Red Sea with no where to run to, no where to go… so all they could do was listen and wait for their death.  She speaks of a little phrase found in the Bible with immense impact… “All that night the LORD drove the sea back…” God didn’t perform His miracle in daylight; He chose to perform the miracle in the middle of the night, in complete darkness, while no one was watching.  The entire night the Israelites had no idea their God was overcoming what was overcoming them.  Quite an interesting thought to ponder.  I don’t know why I am back in Memphis or why I have a job with a kitchen full of liquor for happy hours or why I am back to feeling more alone than ever.  None of it makes sense, but like I said – none of it is supposed to so maybe I am exactly where I need to be… Maybe it will all make sense at some point.  I was told that it would after certain things fall away from my life and new things emerge…  Maybe while I am sitting here dealing with loneliness, fear, anxiety and a general desire to leave planet earth… God is working on my behalf in ways I can’t know, touch or see at the moment.  I can say that I am putting my program to work in this situation just like I did in the last situation.  I am making sure I get to meetings, making sure I make time for things I enjoy like walking (it clears my head) and I am keeping busy.  I recently joined the media team at that church that makes me feel so uncomfortable.  This church does live, broadcast and web feeds so the opportunity for learning is huge.  I am currently training for a position in the control room and as much as I dread showing up, I find that I have a blast once I am there.  I often think it is crazy that a timid, shy and anxiety filled me would find enjoyment in speaking engagements, live show production and other similar things that scare most other people.  I just like the energy of making something happen and truth be told I am somehow good at it too.  I just have to get ME out of the way.
 
Another thought from this book is the creation of an Anxiety Box.  Not unsimilar to what a lot of people refer to as a prayer box, only instead of prayers, you place all the longings, desires and dreams that keep you awake at night and steal your joy during the day – into this box.  You hand them over to your creator and you allow Him to deal with them.  Just like in sobriety, sometimes you find yourself handing over these joy killers all day every day.  I know I have been deeply depressed.  A lot of my dreams seem to be dying as each year passes, at least they are dying in my own mind.  This marks another major lesson for me this year.  It was impressed upon my by my higher power (Jesus) that I need to stop making assumptions (jumping to conclusions) about how my life is going to go.  I have it in my head that I am going to get to a point where I simply cannot go on…  I guess I have it in my mind that I am going to stay single, never amount to anything, become homeless yet again and just have to jump off a bridge and become fish food.  It is a reoccurring and dominating thought in my inner life… It just seems that everything in my life is moving me toward this end.  This would be one of those moments where you think Sweet Jesus would appear and tell me how much He loves me, but no… He told me that I have to stop jumping to conclusions about my life, my abilities, about everything.  And there is truth here.  I will not lie.  No one takes me out of the game more than myself because I tend to decide ahead of time how things are going to go, how people are going to perceive me and whether or not I will be successful or liked or whatever.  I’ve always had this assumption that I am not wanted, not good enough, not smart enough, not fast enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not fat enough… just not enough, just not wanted.   Somehow everyone else on the planet makes the grade and I don’t.  This is such a deeply ingrained part of me that I make assumptions based on this thought pattern all the time and I rarely realize I am doing it.  All I can do right now is pray to be made aware of when I am jumping to a conclusion or making an assumption that I should not make.  It probably comes from some survival skill that is way too strong from early life trauma and while it serves a place in certain situations; it cannot continue to reign supreme in my life.
 
On a positive note, I have taken myself back off the Caramello bars!  LOL!  I am back on a decent schedule that allows time for the things I need and while I am still enjoying some chocolatey sweets, I am choosing healthy, low sugar options instead.  I guess choice by choice I am making decisions that prove to myself that I am worth it.  In life, just as in sobriety, we sometimes find that we have to find simple ways to override our brains.  Our brains are designed to retain system balance and system balance doesn’t always mean keeping us alive and healthy.  This tidbit is one of the best things I learned from my first sponsor.  Just because the brain wants to restore a perceived imbalance doesn’t mean you should follow its impulse.  It will reach for the easiest and fastest way to achieve its end, which usually means walking down a bad road. The same is true in life.

As I type this post, I am nearing the end of my stint in retail.  I never knew how important keeping a schedule was to my sobriety until I entered the world of retail at Christmastime!  I have worked nights, days and weekends with minimal days off and it has wreaked havoc on my soul.  I have always known that I was a lower energy individual and that my time to myself is important to my mental and emotional balance, but this time in retail proved just how important it is!  I have talked previously about how my ability to cope with any sort of perceived stress is at an absolute zero in my sober life.  During my stint in retail I had zero time for things I enjoy, zero time to veg out and zero time to well, breathe.  As a consequence I spent most of the holidays in a sustained craving for a release and the most desired form was the insane desire to cut.  I haven’t had this particular desire since I was a teenager.  It was like my mind just skipped over the whole alcohol and drug thing, knowing it was a road to nowhere fast, and opted for cutting to release the insane amount of pressure and anxiety building up inside me.  I cannot even explain this pressure, just that it was almost too much to bear and that I routinely daydreamed about jumping off a bridge into water and quickly drowning or I dreamed of cutting… the cutting dreams were actually bringing me some relief… they lessened the pressure a little bit.  I started to crave cigarettes again too, which is something I haven’t craved since I quit drinking back in 2012.  So how am I still here you ask?  Well I prayed, begged and pleaded with God to somehow help me AND I took myself to any meeting my schedule would allow AND I found some ladies I could confide in and I told them what was going on inside me.  I used the program of AA like I am supposed to when my world gets turned on its side leaving me wanting any escape possible.  I also ate a lot of sugar… I believe I was eating a large Caramello a day just to keep myself alive plus a lot of other sugar. I learned early in sobriety that there will be days that I will have to substitute sugar (alcohol) for sugar ( candy, chocolate, etc) and I did what I had to do to keep myself sober.  I kept putting one foot in front of the other by going to work, going to meetings and letting people in the program be my support system and I made it through… still sober today.  An extra tidbit for those who experience this same type of internal pressure/anxiety… I also started doing alternate nostril breathing multiple times a day.  It’s kind of a reset for your nervous system and it helps quiet the chatter.  I know of the practice from yoga, but I have not used it for anxiety/stress/anger until now and it does produce relief!
 
On a brighter note, I have finally landed a new job that will take me back into a balanced lifestyle.  And I have a generous amount of vacation to start with right off the bat!  I am not even sure I can use all of the vacation the first year!  I want a family trip, a ladies excursion and then maybe a fun trip somewhere to just visit life elsewhere.  We will see, I guess.  It was this job that saved me, really.  As soon as I knew I had it, I could see light at the end of my craving tunnel.  At least I am hoping that it is the crazy schedule and not Memphis that has produced this prolonged and deep rooted desire for escape!  I guess we’ll see on that note soon since my new job has me staying in Memphis!
 
And so it begins… New year, New Job, New Life… Back where it all started.  I want to complete my new years resolutions this year.  I have been working with my higher power (Jesus) to formulate a plan to make things better for myself and I have quite a list to charge my way through.  Some of the things on the list aren’t even fully conceptualized, but I trust that things will become clear as I approach and/or begin each task.  I don’t even fully understand each task, but I feel that the key to making my life and me better rests on the completion of these tasks and so I will complete every last one.  Understanding or not, makes sense or not… I just know I need to complete the list.  As of right now, I only have the first half of 2018 to complete, which means I need to get going, because there is a second half that will begin to fill up as I complete what is on the first half.  I kind of feel like I am at the starting point of what is to become the rest of my life and I have no idea what that looks like, but I am ready to try.  And so it begins… my next chapter…. How will you write yours?

Resolutions for 2018

• Pay Off All Debt – my calculations say it is doable!
  
• Complete first drafts of two projects
• Design & launch a third smaller project – pending funding
• Get back to leadership thru CR or Church
• Go on one excursion this year
• Take one vacation this year
• Register for Life Coach & Real Estate programs – pending funding

At the end of this month I will somehow have five years of sobriety!  What a whirlwind it has been!  I feel like I have been and still am on a tour through all of the things Jessica needs to improve about herself.  What can I say?  When you spend the most important years of your life in a bottle you just don’t learn to do life, much less respond to it.
 
At this stage of the game, I know I have to find some financial security for myself.  I am making financial security priority number one.  I have been focusing my job search on higher education in Memphis and in the not too far away cities though there is a part of me that would like to be back on a coast.  I know that staying in Memphis would be the best decision financially, but I also know one should never put all of their eggs in one basket.  I am also looking at a few other career options outside of higher education…both in Memphis and outside of Memphis.
 
I guess it is just time to do some adulting.  I have five years of sobriety, but I still have trouble handling stress and it has changed the type of jobs I go after.  I often find myself comparing myself to a hurricane…. I definitely feel as though I am one.  I roar into the office in the morning, wreak havoc all day, then roar out in the evening to the gym.  To be frank, I pretty much do this everywhere I go.  I expend a lot of energy that could be used elsewhere.  Someone said I should try flipping my schedule – working out in the morning and doing yoga in the evening.  I don’t know… I have very unstable blood sugar so I am not sure how that would affect things, but I might try it once I land a new job.
 
One of the bigger elephants in the room is the fact that I cannot seem to find a way to be happy.  Every city I have lived in had something I hated about it.  Every church I have attended had something I hated about it.  Every job I have held had something I hated about it.  One could argue and possibly win the notion that everything I have ever been a part of had something wrong with it.  It has always been after I have left a place or an institution that I could really appreciate it for what it was and continues to be.  And so after five years of sobriety, I have to ask the question, is it me?  The answer is most likely yes.  So then what?  I guess I must get to the adulting.  Find a career I don’t mind doing that will pay me a living wage and afford me the time off I need to do the traveling I want to do and start enjoying life for what it is instead of what it could be. 
 
For some strange reason “Happy” always seems to be in the future with me, but the problem is if “Happy” is always in the future, then it is never in my present and I cannot experience it.  That whole life on life’s terms thing in AA is my lesson right now.  I have to do life on life’s terms, be grateful for what I do have and find a way to enjoy the blessings I have been given.  How this works out in my day-to-day hurricane lifestyle… I do not know, but this is to be my lesson for year five of sobriety!  I guess, in part, I just realize my age and realize that I am far more emotionally stable than I have ever been (I know it doesn’t sound like it) and I want to capitalize on the gratitude I do have and enjoy every experience I can.  To do this, I have to find a way to calm down and stop complaining!
 
I don’t know if I will be staying in Memphis or moving somewhere else, but I do know that I have my work cut out for me in the year ahead.  I am looking forward to getting back on my feet financially and I am looking forward to enjoying all of the new experiences this year will bring.

They say if March comes in like a lion that it will go out like a lamb.  Is the same true for years?  Let’s just say 2017 roared in and all but brought me to a complete standstill.  For starters I had to say goodbye to the sweetest and fiercest cuddlebug I’ve ever known.  Rosie, the toy stealing Boston, became very ill very quickly and had to be put down given her age.  She needed a very invasive surgery that brought no guarantees so my roommate did the right thing by escorting her to the big park in the sky.  The day she left us I contracted what I am calling a stress response.  I have a neck and back trauma from flying off an overpass about a decade ago.  I believe my stress reactivated this whiplash so to speak and I found myself in constant pulsating sharp pain in the lower back part of my neck on the left side of my body.  I also had limited mobility and I stayed this way for about a week to ten days.  As soon as I was back to normal physically and mentally, my car overheated while I was driving home from seeing a friend.  The red light started flashing and an alarm started going off which I am told was meant to make me pull over, which I did not.  I saw no steam so I figured I would continue driving.  It turns out my radiator was blown and I had to spend a pretty chunk of money on a new one, however, my coolant light was still flashing.  Going on my neighbor and roommates advice I put coolant in with the motor running and found that the small leak I was eventually going to get fixed had turned into a shower under my car.  No Wonder.   I had put about three bottles of coolant in the radiator and people kept asking me if there was a spot under my car and there wasn’t and there never would have been since it only showered coolant while the engine was running. And back to the mechanic I went only to find out that I had two leaks and needed to replace the rest of the components of my coolant system.  My main hope now is that the transmission will last long enough for me to get my debt paid off so I can buy a new car and I know what I want when that time comes… if that time comes, God willing.
 
So as I said in my previous post, my two main resolutions were financial based and fitness based.  Both have been blown out of the water.  I had one credit card paid off and was making head way on the other, but those are both back up at the top of their limits thanks to Christmas and my lovely car.  Then there’s the fact that I have restarted workouts, but am having issues with my upper body.  I am finding it very easy to reactivate my injury and weights are just not in the cards right now.  Though, I am finding it possible to slowly ramp up yoga practice.  So you know there’s some light.
 
This past week I became very angry regarding a co-worker who is now my boss.  I don’t have any hate for this individual and I do wish her the best in life – I just wish her life didn’t have to intersect with mine.  We share an office and she literally goes out of her way every day to remind me that she loves everyone in the office except me.  I have no idea what I did to her but she has been hateful toward me from day one.  This hate drama and the fact that I really need to get out of this job and the fact that I am very unhappy doing this job are starting to take a toll on me.  I just can’t seem to shrug it off and enjoy my day to the best of my ability anymore.  I am beginning to get stuck in an I hate my life mode at work.  It seems that this holding pen I am in just keeps getting smaller.  Every time I think I understand the act of corralling I somehow find myself in a smaller space with even less to breathe.  Being someone who has been touched my cancer and being someone who has stiff armed cancer for going on ten years now, I know that we are not guaranteed tomorrow and that we should each make the most of the time we have on Earth.  And I actually think that it is this “life is too short to not enjoy it” mentality that is getting the best of me right now.  I haven’t been happy in Florida.  I don’t have a community here. My job doesn’t provide what I need on a social, mental, emotional or financial level.  Yes, there are some good things to point out like my living situation, my involvement in Celebrate Recovery and getting to love on Rosie and now Lilly. But, I am at a boiling point. I say all of this to share that this past week in a moment of extreme anger (sitting at my desk and going off on everyone inside my head) my entire upper back and left side of my neck re-clinched and back to pain and immobility I went.  This would be the moment that I realized that my neck and upper back pain and stiffness are in fact a response to stress. 
 
I have shared previously that I am trying to follow the adrenal body type plan in an effort to curb the effect of stress on my mind, body and soul.  It speaks volumes that I can now literally stress myself into immobility and pain.  I have to find a way to deal with the daily stress of life before I literally stop my own heart.  Yes, I am a yogi.  Yes, I know I should know how to calm and center myself.  Yes, I am a Christian and I should have the peace of Jesus.  But I was also an alcoholic for like 16 years so I never really learned how to deal with life, in fact, my way of dealing with life whether good or bad was to drink.  It’s like putting a band-aid on a wound that requires stitches.  Yes, you are covering it up, but it is never going to heal properly.  That’s what my drinking did for me.  Yes, I could get through some really traumatic events like losing my dad and facing my own cancer, but I never learned how to handle life on life’s terms and so while I appear to function appropriately and wisely, I am for all intensive purposes, a raging toddler on the inside.
 
So maybe my new New Year’s Resolution for 2017 should be to learn how to ride the wave of life without letting it steal my inner joy.  Well, you know how it goes… We tell God our plans and He smiles and nods and then He finds a way to tell us His plans… His plans tend to prevail.  I know that much.

In Memory of Rosie, the toy stealing Boston who was as fierce as she was sweet.  Her humans miss her very much.