Day 228

Another good day.

Woke up out of the blue - not just weird-dream half awake but all the way awake-awake at 3:30 in the morning then tossed and turned for an hour before getting back to sleep but got up just fine at 6:50. I was annoyed of course but as I was doing the morning stuff I realized that I used to -always- do that...and down a lot of water and try frantically to get back to sleep and hope I wouldn't feel too terrible when I did finally have to get up...and have all sorts of unpleasant emotions and about zero self-worth. Now? Not a big deal. Huge plus for sobriety right there.

Work went well and I walked downtown as planned. Didn't even care about the rain; I had an umbrella. Made the leg ache a little but I was due for more Aleve anyhow and that fixed it up. It felt so good to be out again even though it was slow going.

At home I not only cut out a pair of pants but had another major sewing triumph besides. My dear friend - another only child so we have become "sisters from different misters" - lives on the Big Island of Hawaii and sent me two pieces of yard goods in aloha prints. I love them of course but wasn't sure how to lay out the pattern to take advantage of the print or at least not have it look stupid. I remembered seeing an exceedingly experienced seamstress with a sewing blog open up a patterned fabric and lay it flat to figure out where the pattern pieces ought to go so I did that...but then I realized my pattern was opaque. The triumph came when I realized that the roll of 4-mil plastic we already had would be perfect: trace pattern onto it and boom: see-through pattern pieces. So that's what I did from about 8:45 to 9:30.

That just couldn't have happened back in my drinking days. I wouldn't have made all the connections, I don't think. Even if I had, I wouldn't have gotten busy and acted on them because 8:30 would have been the peak of drinking time. I might have -thought- about the plastic sheeting but then forgotten about it entirely or put the idea away till later and I sure wouldn't have been able to easily trace the pattern pieces as if I'd been doing it all day.

Sober is better. For everything. Doesn't seem like it at first but it definitely is. You don't notice it for a good long while but if you stick with it you realize one day, "Hey! My brain is back!"  It's a nice feeling.