Pride Can Be Good

Today is Wednesday of the April Twenty First. Ooo, I have been in recovery for fifteen months. I don't really count the months at this point and I don't think I even thought about it in March but this morning Mr. Watch informed me of the date and I noticed it. I was also thinking of celebrating my birthday on my sobriety date for a couple of reasons. First of all I would be younger and thats always good. Second is that my birthday is the eleventh of September and thats a tremendously shitastic day to celebrate your birthday. I dunno, I mean I do like being a Virgo and I wouldn't want to give that up but I wonder. Then again, having a sobriety date is like having another birthday so perhaps I should just keep shit where it belongs.

It appears that it is going to be a bit more challenging for me to lose any more weight. Since I've lost the thirty pounds and I have not lost any more than that. Of course it could be due to the pizza and donuts that have been in my diet over the last two weeks so I am gonna stop eating that shit for another three months and see what happens. At least I have not gained any weight due to the amount of exercise I've been doing. I rode my bike fourteen miles the other day and while I was a bit saddle sore my legs felt pretty good considering that was the first time I've ridden in quite some time. I am going to start riding to the mbta station once my new locky-lock arrives. I think it will shave off at least fifteen minutes to my morning commute and perhaps by the end of the summer I will be able to ride to work every day. I am pretty sure that I could do that now but I'm not sure how the ride home would be. I'd love to be able to cut the mbta out of my commute all together and use the bike ride as my daily cardio.

The big surprise of the day was when I tried on a new shirt that I ordered from LL Bean. I had ordered larges and figured if they didn't fit then I would just wait till I dropped another twenty. Well as it turns out the larges are plenty big enough and it looks like I could wear a medium once I lost the extra weight. Are you kidding me ? A medium ? I can't even remember the last time I even tried on a medium size of anything. Its really going to be interesting to see what cool old clothes I will be able to wear when I finally get down to one eighty or so. I hope to finally shop at those vintage clothes shops for some cool threads that seem to have been made for super skinny people. I read somewhere that anorexia was hip in the early seventies and it certainly appears that way. I've never given much thought to how I dress and that is def not the case these days. I still wear button downs and khakis but there are not any holes or stains in them. I look at how I dressed in my twenties and I shudder, its not wonder I had a hard time getting laid. What woman wants to be with a fat kid who doesn't know how to dress himself ? Well, this formerly fatter kid is really going to change things up in a few months.

It amazes me how many things that I didn't like ten years ago I like now. The previously mentioned shirts are a good example. I would always shudder when I saw short sleeve button down shirts and now I just bought four of them. I figure why wear long sleeve button downs and have to roll the sleeves up every time I wear them. As long as I don't wear a tie with them I think I will be ok, if I ever find myself wearing a time with a short sleeve shirt I will jump in front of a bus. It is very pleasant to look at my face in the mirror and be pleased with what I see rather than bummed out. I remember always looking at my reflection after puking in the sink most mornings and being really ashamed. I would be beet red with bloodshot eyes and think to myself that this has to end. Then I would shrug and wipe the puke from my chin and go find something alcoholic in order to start my day. What a terrible way to live and I sincerely hope that it is something that I never have to repeat.

Speaking of relapse, I was thinking the other day that if I was to relapse all would not be lost. I am not saying that because I am planning on drinking or anything like that but rather if I was to drink again I would be a man about it and tell everyone in AA that I had slipped up. Previously I told myself that if I ever relapsed that would be the end of my recovery and I would never go to another AA meeting again. Today I think different, I may not attend the regular meetings I attend now but I would def get my ass to a meeting and talk about what happened. Such a big difference from two months ago when I believed that to drink again would mean my death, I would just shut everything off and never give myself another chance to live again. Now I know that is a stupid thing to think and that I would def give myself another chance at recovery. I have been thinking a bunch about meetings lately and I think that I am going to attend three meetings during the week and one on the weekends so that I am hitting four rather than six meetings a week. I am just not getting much out of the extra two meetings I attend and I decided that I was attending them for the wrong reasons. Those reasons were fine when I had a few months of sobriety under my belt but I need to move beyond that.

I ran into a guy I knew from my post detox program on the mbta yesterday. He was in the clink for a probation violation and he successfully fought for his release and after eight months he won it. He looked great and told me that he was going to marry a women who we both knew in the program. It was great to see him and it did not appear to me that he was still using. More importantly he had a part time job and was going to another interview. Every time I hear those guys from the suboxone clinic whine about not being able to find work due to their records I wonder how much to believe. Here is this guy, Nick, who is a felon and he is able to make his way thru the world without government assistance. I think that welfare is important and useful but I think way too many people abuse it and think thats the only way they will be able to live. Granted I come from a privileged background but that does not mean I have not had a job since I was ten or eleven. I used to work every summer and maintained a paper route during the school year so that I would have spending money for shit that I wanted.

I have not spoken about the xx chromo situation in a while so I figured I would remedy that situation. I am sure you are just dying to hear about it. There is this woman I hung around with last summer who I know is interested in me but at this point I am just not all that attracted to her. She is beautiful and I enjoy hanging out with her but I'm not sure if I want to date her. If I was a scumbag and just wanted to get laid I would pursue her and would probably be rewarded for my efforts. But I am a nice guy with a healthy respect of the fairer sex and thats just something I would do. Something I've never done. There is a woman in the program that I am attracted to and I really want to take her to a concert in August but I am not sure how I should approach her. She is a bit younger than I am and I have said time and time again that I won't date program chicks but of course there is an exception to every rule. She is super laid back and appears to enjoy music so I think we could have a good time together. I have a few months to develop my strategy and I also have a few other xx chromos I could ask to the show if I wimp out asking her. I don't think that my request would come out from left field, I do consider her a friend but this would be the first time it would be just the two of us interacting with one another. God, I feel like I'm back in highschool and its awesome.