When I first got sober, I mean the very day I stopped drinking and getting high, I wondered to myself and out loud to anyone who was unfortunate enough to hear me speak, “what am I going to do with myself now?? This is going to be SO BORING!”
As with many things in early recovery, I was so completely and utterly wrong. My issue was not that I was going to be bored. It was much larger than that. My issue was that I had no clue who I was or what I enjoyed doing.
With no real clue where to begin, I went back to a time in my life when I did know. I was 12 when I started using, so there I went. Back to the days of coloring, playing outside, puzzling, walking my dog, reading and day dreaming. Now, times have changed a bit since I was 12, so I altered a few of those fun times in to more sustainable “mature” play and slowly began to create quite a lengthy list of things I like to do and even a few that I am good at!
In time, I began to try things I had always wanted to do but could never muster the nerve, the finances or the fortitude and follow through to actually put in to any real action. I started to challenge myself in a very real way. I wanted to grow and to experience new things, even if they made me uncomfortable…BECAUSE they made me uncomfortable. I started to pick up the phone and reach out to my long-lost friends and see what they were up to and if I could join in the fun.
Let the great adventure begin! Last summer I found myself on a plane flying to San Francisco to meet one of my dearest friends and a group of his friends to go on a 4-day backpacking journey through 25 miles of the Lost Coast of Northern California. Never had I been backpacking, but here I was, and I was pumped. And petrified. The moment I stepped foot on to that black sand beach with a 50-pound backpack on my back, I knew I was in love. I was in love with backpacking and camping and the ocean and the wind, recovery and sobriety and life and my newly found freedom of simply being me. I had found my wild again. Here I was for the first time in as long as I could remember. This trip was the most physically and (one of the most) mentally challenging things I have ever done and I cannot wait to do it again. A spark was ignited.
Just the other day I was having a conversation with my significant other and he said to me, “do you really need another hobby? You have so much you love to do and want to do, how on earth are you going to find the time?” The answer is yes, I really do. I have lived so much of my life doing things that took me away from myself and I do not want to ever do that again. I don’t want to look back on this life and wish I would have done more, taken more chances. Forward into the unknown, to learn more about this beautiful new friend I have found along the way, me.
We only get one shot at this life and I intend to live what is left of mine to the fullest and to dream the biggest dreams I can and to say yes to things that scare me. The adventure awaits.