On the two year anniversary of my sobriety I take a long walk and set out on a day devoted to rewarding myself and celebrating this huge thing I did.
At lunch I sit facing a window, eating Al Pastor and watching the rain fall. Behind me are two groups of women who take turns laughing too loud and shouting across the small tables at each other.
“If it’s what you you want, take a stand.”
“If I hate someone, SHE hates some one”
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Choruses of laughter that grate on my nerves and I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve been those women.
Landside comes across the speakers and suddenly the volume of everything else is turned down. Fleetwood Mac playing at random in public has long felt like a symbol of my mother being here with me.
I enjoy the song.
I finish my lunch.
I gaze out the window and watch the rain fall listening to Stevie Nicks talking about time making us old. When the song ends the volume of the space catches up as though it never changed.
_______
Woke up this morning to my 720th day without a drink.
720 days where I didn’t wake up or go to sleep vomiting
720 days where the night wasn’t spent on the bathroom floor
720 days where if I made a shit decision it was mine to own and I couldn’t shrug it off by saying “oh, I was really drunk”
720 days without a $60+ bar tab
720 days where I may have said “I need a drink” but then really had to evaluate those words and dig the fuck in and figure out how to deal with it.
If you would have told me in 2013, and definitely in 2009, that this would be something I was proud of and actively working toward, I would have laughed in your face.
Two. Years. Sober. and hopefully many more to come.
a t r a i n w r e c k w i t h w o r d s 
Congratulations. What you have achieved is amazing. Keep fighting 🙂