Resolutions

A fellow sobriety blogger I read frequently wrote a bit about New Year's resolutions. "Resolution is just a word, it's about taking action." She is not a big fan of the word or the idea of it, really. Why on God's green earth would we want to set ourselves up for failure each and every year? If you must, pick a goal, a goal you are really ready to work on, and GO. 

I look at the calendar today - how can it be 01/11/2014 already? My last entry was on Christmas....but that was just a week or two ago, right? New Years slipped in and chaos ensued, now it is just 6 days before I am leaving for a mission trip to Honduras. I have known about this trip for 6 months now and it seemed so far away, until today....wow. Time is moving so quickly.

I started my final internship placement for my master's degree. I interviewed for this placement this summer. At the time, I was looking for a placement for the fall. I had set up a series of interviews. I loved the first place I interviewed at and took it the offer to intern on the spot. The second interview was the place I am currently at. I felt I should go to the interview and, again, an opportunity to intern was granted to me on the spot. So, here it is, already. Time is moving so quickly.

2014 is going to be an interesting year, I can tell. My classes will be done in April, January is going to slip by and February is short month. Welcome March, then April. Boom. Done. Then the unknown with the job and where I will be. My lease to my apartment will be up. While I would like to stay here, if I end up getting a job on the other side of town, I am moving. I just can't take a long commute. I have been terribly spoiled in the past 7-8 years. If I end up somewhere close, I will just hang here. This year was ushered in with a great deal of change and I don't think that is going to stop any time soon. I had an entry in my old blog called "I hate change". I proceeded to give the top ten reasons why I hate change and I don't want to go through it. I am happy to report that my feelings have changed at least a little in this arena. I don't care for change, don't get me wrong, I am just choosing to be a little less stubborn about it. I want to be more accepting of the change and not fight it so much. I am hopeful that change will not derail me as much this time around as it has in the past. 

On January 2nd, I felt the need to make some resolutions for myself. I didn't pick easy ones, I can tell you that. I want to lose some weight. I don't want to do any particular program or anything this time around. I have to make some life changes. I know that. Secondly, I want to finally quit smoking. I got to day 30 this summer and just started back up. I have significantly cut back to 2 cigarettes a day. It's time to move forward and just bury the hatchet with this one. I cannot smoke on the trip to Honduras so I hope to just not start back up when I come back. That will be the goal. I am re-enrolling in Quit Plan. As far as the weight loss, I haven't fully worked on this yet. However, I do have health insurance and I want to start exploring my options to get help. If Weight Watchers is the way to go, cool, if meeting with a nutritionist is the best way, super duper, if getting off my ass to work out is the answer....well...ummmm.....yeah, okay, let's work on it then. Like I said, not easy ones, but necessary ones. 

Outside of these, I have committed to something else very important. I need to slow down. I ended last semester with 3 As and 1 B, pretty lucky considering I didn't bother studying for one final and only put a marginal effort into the other one. I decided to do some praying and meditation about what was going on. About 98% of was because of me. Why would I try to start dating at that particular juncture? Full time grad student, working part time, trying to have a social life, etc. etc. I know I was feeling some loneliness. I also started freaking out that finding someone is never going to happen for me or it will happen too late to start a family. Alcoholics tend to be pretty impulsive people and this whole dating thing is a great example of my impulsive-type nature coming out. "I want it, and I WANT IT NOW..." Even when I was doing it, I knew it was a bad idea. I just wanted something and was starting to get jealous of everyone around me who has it. I learned some things, I really did, so it wasn't all for not. The timing could not have been worse, though. I used the dating to not deal with the fact that I was feeling depressed again. I just chalked those feelings up to wanting someone in my life. I also used it as a way to take of the focus from school. Last semester was tough. I had a hard time with 2 of my 4 classes. I was not thrilled with the content and one instructor frustrated me to no end. So, I wore myself out during the week trying to meet someone, only to not have enough energy to go to class. So, I didn't. By the end of the semester, there was no more dating, no boyfriend, a weak A going into a final, an attitude of "I don't care..." and work drama. 

I am sitting here right now, twiddling my thumbs, wondering if I should hit the publish button on this blog entry. Part of my program of sobriety is to be honest. Another part of great importance is humility. I think humility is going to play a huge role in my commitment to slowing down. I tell everyone around me "oh, I can do it."/"I am used to it"/"I need to do this". I talk a good game but I don't walk the walk the way I need to take care of myself. Let me tell you, it is humbling right now to admit that I was doing what I was doing to avoid feeling. No wonder I was feeling like my sobriety was shaky at times. I had done this a million times before, except with drinking. Dating gave me a different area to focus on instead of dealing with the real issues at hand. I worked too much, I was having trouble with an instructor and I wasn't enjoying my classes at all. So, I created a whole new world to focus that unhappiness into. It's not to say that my intentions were all malicious in my attempt to look for someone. I still feel like I want someone in my life. In my rational mind, however, I do know that trying to date with taking 15 credits and working 16 hours a week is probably not good timing. My impulsive/emotional mind thinks now would be a GREAT time! Take charge, do it now, it can't wait! Obviously emotion mind won the battle here. That is the main reason that I want to slow down. I don't want to see the patterns 6 weeks after the fact. I want to see them as they are unfolding and stop the progression right there and then. 

Got a few more things on my mind to blog about, just not tonight. I hope everyone had an awesome New Year and I hope you will stick with me for another year of blogging about recovery! I appreciate you, my readers, so dearly.

Julie

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