Coming out of my (sober) shell🐢

Why did the turtle cross the road?

Most days around mid-afternoon since I started my new job in the spring, I steal away from my desk for a few minutes to run and get a little caffeine pick-me-up at a nearby bougie coffee spot. It’s a popular local roaster whose iconic logo features the black silhouette of a bird that can be found stuck on the backs of cars and SUVs up and down the Jersey Shore. The one in my town took over half of our aging train station and brings a hip vibe – with pierced and tattooed kids behind the coffee bar cheerfully filling orders with an eclectic music track in the background – to an otherwise nondescript slice of suburbia.
 
One day this summer I hopped in my Honda to go grab the iced latte I’d ordered (with oat milk, obviously) and pulled out of my neighborhood and onto the main road that takes me to the train station. Although Willow Drive is a pretty windy road that includes some pretty big bends, especially where I get onto it, cars and trucks usually speed along at a pretty good clip as folks hurry to school pickups and the Acme in town. A few years ago, our town finally put some big signs with aggressive lights at the bottom of a small hill where cars usually whip through and you'd take your life in your hands each time you tried to cross the street with your dog. But even when you press the button to make the lights flash, it's sometimes not enough to snap drivers out of their mental fog.
 
That day I took a right onto Willow and joined the stream of cars rushing towards the train station when I could see up ahead a few cars just stopped in the middle of the road and one of those blue/gray Amazon trucks pulled onto the far shoulder. I could see drivers on the other side looking down at the road out their windows as we slowly drove along and as I got closer, could see a dark lump in the middle of the double yellow lines down the center of the road.
 
As I drove alongside it, I realized it was a turtle -- maybe as big as a baseball glove -- trying to make its way to the other side of the road and thought I was seeing things, until the mom in the white SUV who was moving in the opposite direction yelled out her window to me, “It’s a turtle!”
 
When I stopped drinking about a year ago, my life slowed to a very turtle-like crawl as I began to adjust to life without alcohol. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I wasn’t even at the crawling stage last fall as I pulled my head deep inside my shell and assessed where I was in life and what needed to be fixed. I stopped making plans and accepting invitations to go out to dinners or for drinks and literally hunkered down at home for many, many months. I bought a weird amount of fancy seltzers, went on a lot of walks with my dogs, and cooked dinners at night with my two kids still living at home.
 
Somewhere along the way, I started going to AA meetings to appease my therapist but also to start finding some other sober people to hang out with. It was already a challenge to find single women to pal around with but then I had to further complicate matters by ditching booze, which was generally the glue that helped keep a lot of my friendships together. Drinking was always my go-to activity.
 
But those sober friendships did not happen overnight. It takes going to a lot of meetings and slowly – so, so slowly – building up a network, which is something I am really in the beginning stages of doing. I am just starting to put those pieces together for myself. But it’s starting to happen.
 
I am beginning to find my calendar slowly filling up again. Weekdays are full with long days of work and then a meeting most nights. It turns out, in my newly empty nest and working remotely at home, AA has been a bit of a godsend as it gets me out of the house and around actual people. I love to be alone but find after two full days of no real human interaction, other than fellow dog walkers I wave to, I find myself starting to slip down the hole of loneliness and need to quickly grab a rope and start to pull myself back up. Those hour-long meetings often serve as that rope that drags me out of my head and back into the present.
 
Over the last 12 months, I’ve also learned how to go out and not need a drink. I can sit at a table in a restaurant and watch other people have wine, as I did on Thursday night, and not feel sorry for myself. I met up with friends for dinner again on Friday night before going to hear David Sedaris read at a nearby theater and my two friends didn’t even drink. I noticed trendy youngsters with glasses of wine and mimosas at the super cool Soho restaurant on Saturday where I met my oldest child and his girlfriend for brunch to celebrate his birthday, but our table opted for iced lattes instead of cocktails. And on Sunday I will head to brunch (again) with three other sober gals and booze won't (literally) be on the table.
 
Like that turtle, I am slowly starting to move into potentially dangerous territory, but I’m taking my time. Maybe I, too, have made it to the center of the road and am starting to work hard to get to the other side, despite all the mental traffic that can mow me down.
 
But honestly, that turtle either had a lot more balls than me or was absolutely daft about the cars and 18-wheelers careening along that busy road. In truth, I don’t even know how that thing managed to even get to the middle of that busy road, where I looked down at it from the car window as it started to move past the yellow stripe and into the oncoming lane.
 
I slowed to a stop, holding up a line of cars behind me, and the SUV in the opposite direction also came to a halt and we all looked at each other like, “Now what?” and then I noticed the door to the Amazon truck open and its female driver jumped out and ran over.
 
“Should I pick him up?” she asked, “I’ve got these,” and she held her hands up in the air to show us the purple latex gloves she had on. She looked at me and I nodded and she bent down and gently lifted the turtle up by his shell and ran with it to the far side of the road and placed it in the tall grass on the other side of a split rail fence. If the turtle kept moving with the same determination, eventually it would find itself at a nearby creek that’s surrounded by a marshy swamp, which was maybe even where it had come from in the first place. 
 
That Amazon driver put the turtle down and then lifted her gloved hands over her head in victory and we all cheered out our windows as she did a little dance before getting back in her truck and I resumed my drive to get my iced coffee.
 
I haven’t seen that turtle since, either dead on the side of the road or alive and slowly moving forward in another life-threatening situation. I wonder if there’s a family of turtles living nearby and if the turtle finally found them after being rescued by the Amazon driver that day. The story that the turtle could tell about overcoming such slim odds. Did the turtle slip inside its shell that night and run through the events of the action-packed day in its tiny little head? Did it find comfort in knowing that faith is what got it to the other side of the road in the end? Did the turtle find comfort in knowing that if it just kept its head down and moved forward, everything would work out in the end?

I hope so.

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LET'S MEET UP IN PERSON!!
Guys, this is so exciting: I've been invited to be a part of the launch celebration for a new dance company for an evening of dance, storytelling, and inspiration. Please join me on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. at a very cool event space in Long Branch to hear me read one of my stories and see how it's then interpreted through movement. Tickets are $25 and proceeds benefit 180 Turning Lives Around and is joined by Project Write Now. You can find all the details and get tickets here and I look forward to seeing you IRL to celebrate creativity and the awesomeness of women who don't let age stop them from doing what they love to do. Here's the link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/in-good-company-launch-performance-event-dance-storytelling-inspiration-tickets-176744346097?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

SUNDAY SHARES: Read, watch, cook, buy

• Guys, I'm not gonna lie: I'd really like to find the divine providence that swooped in and lifted that turtle out of danger and to safety on the other side. Like, how lucky was that damn turtle? Doesn't God know by now that I'm a lazy creature? In an effort to channel some of that reptile's good fortune, I have been praying like crazy (to the god of my understanding -- thanks, AA!!), and reciting this mantra that I have seen all over TikTok and Instagram lately. Yes, it seems it has come to this for me. 

• My daughter came home this week and we made Ina's apple crisp with some of those beauties I picked last weekend. With Haagen Daza vanilla ice cream melting on top and Ted Lasso on the telly? That's a damn good night. 

• I wore this trench coat that I've had for a few years into the city yesterday and was reminded what a score it was when I bought it a few years ago. I've taken it on a few trips and dress up boots and leggings and is just warm enough for this time of year (but not late March in Italy, when I really needed a winter coat and not a trench coat. But I looked cute). You can still get it at Nordstrom Rack. 

• Question for all of you: has anyone tried any Jones Road products? It's Bobbi Brown's newest makeup line and I am hot to try the Miracle Balm (clearly, I need a miracle), but it's not in stores to touch so it needs to be purchased with a lot of faith in Bobbi understanding the mature skin landscape. Would love a review from one of you first. 

• This woman's story of the (worst) first date that involved 100 tacos was too funny not to share.