Finding A New Normal
For the past ten months, I have desperately tried to find my "new normal." I am not doing such a great job.
Admittedly, at first there was tons of emotional things to work through. Then it was just getting back to the basics. That took months. Now, I am trying to figure out who I have become and what that means for my future.
This past Saturday night was this odd combination of the old and new. I found myself out with my friends. Some of it was like old times. We laughed, sang, and had a great time. By the end of the night I was sober and helping take care of some of my more overbeveraged friends. I like taking care of people. It is the one thing I do well. It makes them happy, and typically it makes me happy. Saturday night there were some crazy moments, but I was more than happy to help.
Then there was that twinge of the new normal: There is nothing quite like finding yourself throwing up in a shrub in the Pizza Hut parking lot. Even though my friends know the song "Live Like You Are Dying" reminds me that I should be dead, and makes me puke, they do not respect me enough to not sing it when I am there. I'm standing there getting angry because I had this new sense of entitlement. Why can't they just honor the promise they made to me to not sing the song? I also had resented the friends who know what the song does to me, but they never bother to come out to the parking lot to distract me or at least hold my hair back. I'd do that for them. Why can't they do that for me?
The entitlement and resentment fade quickly, but ten months ago it never would never been there to begin with. It is strange to have things I *never* would have done before seem like good ideas now.
Now it is a question of finding a balance. How can the old me and the new emotions I feel work together?
Admittedly, at first there was tons of emotional things to work through. Then it was just getting back to the basics. That took months. Now, I am trying to figure out who I have become and what that means for my future.
This past Saturday night was this odd combination of the old and new. I found myself out with my friends. Some of it was like old times. We laughed, sang, and had a great time. By the end of the night I was sober and helping take care of some of my more overbeveraged friends. I like taking care of people. It is the one thing I do well. It makes them happy, and typically it makes me happy. Saturday night there were some crazy moments, but I was more than happy to help.
Then there was that twinge of the new normal: There is nothing quite like finding yourself throwing up in a shrub in the Pizza Hut parking lot. Even though my friends know the song "Live Like You Are Dying" reminds me that I should be dead, and makes me puke, they do not respect me enough to not sing it when I am there. I'm standing there getting angry because I had this new sense of entitlement. Why can't they just honor the promise they made to me to not sing the song? I also had resented the friends who know what the song does to me, but they never bother to come out to the parking lot to distract me or at least hold my hair back. I'd do that for them. Why can't they do that for me?
The entitlement and resentment fade quickly, but ten months ago it never would never been there to begin with. It is strange to have things I *never* would have done before seem like good ideas now.
Now it is a question of finding a balance. How can the old me and the new emotions I feel work together?
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