I am at the end of what is hands down the most difficult day that I have ever had with Wilfred. He is a force. Which I am sure is excellent, but in this moment, all of me feels drained and hollow. Taxed to the max. However. I have had something that I have wanted to spend a little time processing through writing for a while and I will give it a start now. Who knows how long I’ll last.
I have never been a big drinker. There have certainly been periods where I drink more than others but for me drinking regularly generally equates to 2-4 drinks in a week. And never, save once in a very blue moon, more than a drink or two in a day. That is just how I generally always am. And ok yeah if you can remember me at some wedding where I threw more back than that you are probably correct and I can assure you that I paid the price for that the next day and then some.
Cuz here is the real deal: I always pay the price for it. I feel like crap whenever I have anything to drink. And if I am doing that with some regularity, not only do I feel like shit bodily, but I also am most likely experiencing heightened anxiety and nudging my way toward depression. Alcohol does not seem to agree with me. And that is ok but also a little sad. I like a beautiful wine and dark beer. I like most types of Scotch and a number of other interesting whiskeys.
And I am not a purist. It is not moral for me. I am not generally, with anything, much of a this or that kind of a person. I don’t know if it is my high-ish blood sugar or my low blood pressure or a combination of the two or just simply my preferences when it comes to my biochemistry, but it seems like I am not a person who does well with even very occasional alcohol consumption. That is not to say that this is some declaration about whether I do or do not drink. I can guarantee you that I am going to enjoy some lovely wine with family later this week. And I can also be pretty positive that next week I am going to have to pay some extra attention to my personal care as I walk myself back from mixed and uncomfortable states of being. I am ok with that. So long as it is not a regular walk back I have to do and so long as I can keep the whole thing in perspective and not spiral needlessly about any of it.
This is not a post about sobriety. Like I said, it is not moral. This is me getting clear about my own relationship to how I feel and how I function. And while it is difficult sometimes to not cue off of others I have found in this instance that how I feel is not, and really need not be, how others feel in relationship to alcohol. Some folks are fine drinking regularly and experience very little to no downside to that other than maybe an extra couple pounds of weight, and that may or may not be an actual downside. For some folks it is best to avoid alcohol altogether, whether because it is a trigger that could provoke a landslide of substance abuse, or because it simply works best for them to choose a lane: yes or no. For me, it is something in between. Something that I am ok with being a little gray about. A little variable about. In fact for me to take a firm yes or no stance would most likely be more unnecessarily provocative than working to trust my internal wisdom about what is best.
As with many things, I am working on building up this sort of trust. Early on in the pandemic, I leaned into alcohol to meet the stress of the endless all the same days unending and forever way that I think maybe many people did. I had a beer most evenings and just gave up a certain part of myself that perhaps was the governor of my better interests. And it was actually excellent in terms of building up some very lived data around how much that really does not work for me and jettisons me into malaise coupled with hopelessness coupled with restlessness coupled with depression. I mean, I really know now. And in the year and a half since those early months, I have played a couple of games with myself to see what the levels are in terms of provoking my discomfort. Turns out none. The level is none. Not without any price to pay. So now I know that. Which is honestly, a pretty massive relief. Maybe it will be different when I once again sleep through the night. But maybe not.
I have also learned something quite similar in terms of how I interact with social media in general, and instagram is specific. For a month or so this past summer, I put down the app to see how I fared without it and to sort out its role in how shitty I was feeling. It was significant. And when I came back I knew I needed to shift the way in which I engage in that space. For me, that meant not sharing other people’s posts, especially ones that expressed any kind of political or social opinion or dictate. I needed to have nothing preachy that wasn’t just me in my particular bubble. Like my brand, my life, my lane. That is not to say that I do not value the way in which IG can function as an educational platform, and I utilize it in many of these ways. What my personal stance is on it, for myself, is that I have nothing to prove in that space. I do not need to prove my politics or my wokeness. IG is not the means by which I declare or affirm my social action. It simply need not be that for me.
It might even be right for me to say that for the most part, at this place in time, I am not so interested in “re-posting” or sharing others people’s content in general. I am here to be me and see you as you are and forge awkward and clunky friendships together, albeit virtual. As much as the space of Instagram is statistically not the healthiest or even safest space, I have met folks here that have informed my life for the better and relationships that have sustained me during the long and lonely seasons.
But, I gotta say this again. My perspective is not moral. It isn’t. It is just personal. I am paying attention to what serves my mental wellness and culling or moderating the actions and behaviors that do not. I do not have any issue with the choices that you make that work well for you and your personal wellness. I really do not. I just need to manage my energy to the best of my ability and these are my findings in relation to being in study and service to that energy. When I am living in anxiety I am not the best version of myself. Not personally, not relationally, not socially, etc…
So, like that. I am not sure what I am aiming to do here, save maybe clarify a few things for myself simply by putting them out there. I tend toward being incredibly impressionable and am able to adapt and adjust quite a bit to what is happening around me and I think maybe this is just my way of affirming that these are examples in which I am not best served by that behavior. So, like that. I am working to know myself better and what works best as applied to me. Not you. It is neither good nor bad. Right or wrong. This or that. It is simply what I think I need to be choosing and it is not very definitive. More flexible. More temporal. More me.