Restless Soul

I feel restless today.  Something is in the air.  This has been a hard couple months but as usual things are bad until they're not.  The sun is breaking through for me today.  Excuse me if I wax poetic for a quick second, but I feel as if I have awoken from the fog of a dream into the real world.  And I am alive.  Breathing is possible.

I am sitting at Starbucks marveling at my life.  I have it pretty good.  A great husband, a job that fulfills me and my writing.  I never thought I would get this far in life, I really didn't.

When I was in my early twenties, all I cared about was partying.  It was all about the fun and while I know how the song goes, it was not all fun and games.  In the end, all partying and drinking is a way to escape the drudgery of an adult existence.  In my teens, drinking was how I coped with the chaos of home, in my twenties it was how I escaped being a real adult (if all you care about is going to the nightclub and what you are wearing out every night, and making enough tips for your drinks, then life seems easy) and in my thirties, drinking was how I decompressed from a stressful legal career.

In my forties, drinking is not an option anymore.  It is not that I would say I had a drinking problem, it is that I knew I didn't want to get one.  I come from a long line of alcoholics on my father's side and after seeing first hand the havoc it wrought, I have decided to abstain.  This is the first time I have written about that choice.  And it is a choice.  Everything is.

Choice is what makes us have a soul they say.  I believe it.  And I choose to be the sober, soulful and fun loving punk rock chick I am today.