Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
My 28yo son called me a few days before Thanksgiving to check in about holiday plans and coordinate his arrival by train from the city for the long weekend.
“You still doing the no-drinking thing?” he asked as we were winding up, knowing that I hadn’t had any alcohol since his birthday in October.
“Yup,” I said.
He laughed a little and then asked, “So, like, what’s your end game?”
I thought about all the many and varied answers to that very big question, and finally said, “Sobriety, I guess.”
“Really?” he responded, sounding a little annoyed. “So, you mean to tell me that you won’t even have a drink on my wedding day?”
And funny enough, that’s just the kind of thing I worry about when I think about not drinking. Kids’ wedding and even my own someday. The trip to Paris I’m dying to take once we are out from under the thumb of COVID or biking through California wine country with girlfriends. Maybe I should just wait for all of those things to happen and then give up booze for good.
I relayed this to my therapist who laughed and said, "Imagine if someone was shocked you weren't going to eat asparagus at their wedding?"
But at the time it really pushed one of my buttons, but then I remembered what a newly made sober friend had reminded me of not long before, “It’s just today.”
So I said to my son, “I don’t know honey. That’s not happening any time soon. All I know is that today, I am not going to have a drink and I feel a lot better for it.”
And that’s the truth. Since I had my last drink (a glass of some random red wine my son’s dad brought to the birthday dinner at my house that night in mid-October), I have felt pretty great. My skin looks so much better, I’ve lost a few pounds and my sleep has been off-the-charts good.
But the best part has been waking up clear for the last 58 mornings, without wine cobwebs that took hours to clear and that general sense of self-loathing I’d begin most days drenched in.
And my productivity level has risen dramatically. By Dec. 1, I had not only the outside of house’s holiday situation set but not one, not two, but three trees decorated within. My gutters have been cleaned, the leaves and brush all raked to the street and the vegetable bed has been cleared out and a fresh blanket of mulch is keeping it warm until spring. I even got my car serviced and oil changed the other day.
I think the best way to quantify how wine was affecting my daily productivity is by measuring my book consumption in 2020. I did some deep dives on Goodreads over the last week and it turns out that of the 23 books I read or listened to this year (12 less than I’d hoped to read at the start of the year), I think about 6 were read in just the last two months. That means that a quarter of my entire reading year occurred when I stopped drinking wine every night. Had I still been sitting on the couch after dinner watching TV with a glass in my hand, I would never have finished listening to Maybe You Should Talk to Someone or Such a Fun Age – both highly recommended – or plowed through The Testaments or Leave the World Behind in the last week. (Okay, I’ve also finished a lot of shows I’d started, including The Good Place, which is so lovely, profound and goofy and I urge all of you to watch it.)
So, here’s the big question: Do I miss wine (or, tbh, vodka, bourbon, seltzers in the summer, and on and on)? Of course I do. I am a dedicated and committed girlfriend to all the things I love. There was a time that I never thought you’d have been able to pry a cigarette out of my hands, so much did I love the act of smoking (especially with a drink) and yet, I have not taken a drag in – oh, gosh, I don’t even know when. Twenty-five years ago? I’ve long since counted those days. But after about 20+ years of committed smoking, starting at 12, I finally stopped for good somewhere in my 30s.
I’ve probably been in love with booze since the early 1980s as well and it’s been a long ride with that selfish lover. But I don’t think it’s been doing me any favors and I’d rather see what life is like without it riding shotgun.
Much like stopping smoking all those years ago, there was no big event that preceded my decision to quit. Well, I threw out my cigarettes for the first time when I learned I was pregnant with my eldest, which I deduced during a work trip to our nation’s capital. I can only imagine what housekeeping thought emptying out a trash can filled with pregnancy tests and a full pack of Merits. But I'd keep going back to smoking socially until one day, I just stopped. It no longer served me.
I can tell you that one of the bigger tipping points towards sobriety was reading Laura McKeown’s We Are the Luckiest, which came out at the beginning of this year. I bought it as soon as it was released and read it immediately, downloaded the audio version and listened to that, and then promptly pushed it all away. It was just too much.
But I kept thinking about the author and her path to sobriety. How parts of her story resonated so much, too much, with me and I thought about her promise of just how good life can be without alcohol. And while it’s hard to tell anything during a pandemic -- like even, what day is it? – I can say that I’m feeling pretty darn good and happy and overly hydrated by all the seltzer and teas I’ve been guzzling in the absence of alcohol.
I’ll be honest, I was a little worried about Thanksgiving, but it ended up being fine. In the past I would have been all over coming up with a signature cocktail (an apple butter old fashioned, perhaps?) and buying lots of wine. Instead, I drank my new favorite fizzy water from Costco (Kirkland Italian Sparkling Water) and my sister joined us for a lovely dinner. The kids’ dad came over for a drink and appetizers earlier in the afternoon, and they sat outside and had cocktails while I made dinner and popped outside every once in a while for some cheese and conversation.
“You’re still not drinking?” asked my ex, who has known me since we were teenagers. “That’s not the Byrnesy I know, did you lose a bet?”
And interestingly, I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything.
Friday Faves
I'm not saying I have an addictive personality or anything, but I'm pretty sure I've made the voyage to Costco at least once a week in my sobriety and their $4.99 roasted chicken might be standing in for red wine. But I've also been LOADING UP on Costco clothes for hunkering down this winter. I hadn't given those tables stacked with piles of parkas and sweatpants in the middle of the warehouse the time of day since my kids were little, but strolling by on my way to the shelves of chicken a few weeks ago, some items caught my eye and now I'm obsessed.
What caught my eye was a sign over a stack of pjs that read "Splendid" and I wandered over to fondle the material. FYI, Splend makes yummy cotton things that are generally too expensive for me to buy, so this excited me -- after feeling how soft they were -- and I bought a pair for me and my daughter. I would return two more times to buy in various other prints and sizes for me and my two girls and they are now part of The Uniform. $19.99 (grab soon at your nearest store, they are sold out online)
Also from Splendid: tie dye sweatshirts. Bought two. So soft. Never take off. Wearing now. Seems to wash well. $12.99.
Kirkland Signature leggings are legit are-you-kidding-me soft and allegedly, according to the internet, made by Lululemon. I don't care Satan is making them on a loom in hell, I am wearing them every day as well.
Remember that Revlon hairdryer I was totally obsessed with a few months ago? Well, I still am and saw it on sale at Costco yesterday for $29.99, $20 less than I've seen it elsewhere and cheaper in store than online.
SH*T MY SISTER BOUGHT
I don't know if it's genetics or what, but my sisters have a weird knowledge of products. Like, tell them you've got a new hairdryer you're obsessed with and they've already bought it, used it and moved onto another one. And, because I love to have people to tell me what to buy -- what they vetted and given a thumbs up -- I thought I'd share this strange font of knowledge with all of you. It seemed a shame to let it go to waste. So, herewith, is some shit my sister(s) have bought recently:
Meghan took advantage of Antho's recent sales and stocked up on cute knit hats. Everything is still on sale 40% this weekend so now's the time to finish your shopping and include a little something for yourself!
She's also getting a sweet little Cockapoo pup in a few weeks named Daisy and bought her one of these ridiculously adorable pet huts.
Betsy is redoing an adorable ranch in Brielle and is eyeing this great light fixture from Pottery Barn and this cutie for outside from Anthro.
Probably because she and her hubby and two boys have been in a rental for a while, they've been giving this massage gun she just bought a work out.
Bought anything lately we need to know about? Please, share and see you next week!