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If alcohol were a girlfriend of mine, I would have ditched her long ago. She is just so needy. She makes me think that I need her with me in all situations to "enjoy" my life. This past Friday, my wonderful in-laws had our 2 kids (4 year old girl and 2 year old boy) for an overnight sleep over. This was a wonderful opportunity for my husband and I to enjoy a night together! Alone, with no kids! On Labor Day weekend Friday! We debated whether or not to go out to a restaurant and have dinner or just hang at home. Since we live in a very highly visited tourist area with massive amounts of traffic and people on this weekend especially, we opted for the home version of date night! I picked up hand cut grill steaks at our favorite meat market in town, my husband picked up fresh sweet corn from our favorite road side stand and we paired that with whipped mashed potatoes. And guess who else wanted to come to our private, intimate dinner? Alcohol.
Oh yes, red wine. She wanted to come out on my deck as the sun was setting and dinner was on the table. And she wanted for me to sip on her and drift away with her as she numbed my mind and my experience with my husband like she has so many times in the past. Now mind you, this was her first time not being invited to this special occasion, I am venturing out without her to experience life in all its beauty and rawness. It's really not her fault, after all, I am the one who has chosen to make her feel so big and bold and important by inviting her to all things in my life. I am also the one who created those deep deep neuropathways in my brain which resulted in the habit of date night looking like this: dinner+no kids+not driving= wine time! I saw her inviting herself into this particular situation and into my mind. The only thing is, I knew she was coming. I knew I would have to see her show up, thank her for coming and kindly ask her to leave. You see, I am in the process of reshaping my relationship with her. I am creating some distance between her and I. She doesn't know it, and she doesn't like it when I keep doing things that no longer involve her. Don't get me wrong, I am still doing things I love. I just no longer invite her to come with. I am relearning how to do me with out her. I am just a few weeks into this relationship break and re-evaluation of my life with some space from her. I can only gain clarity on me, the real me, without her. She is too demanding of my time, my body, my relationships and most importantly, my beautiful, precious time and head space. The farther I get from her, the less she tries to come around. At first, she was really loud and obnoxious about it, she kept showing up and trying to make herself seen and heard, but now she's pretty good at taking a hint, a lot better than I thought actually. It's not that I didn't have some good times with her, and perhaps she may be invited occasionally in the future, but it will be on my terms. Not hers, not on default. Because I don't need my needy ass friend alcohol to come with me everywhere I go.