My Journey to Happy Healthy

I'm going to be blunt, and honest and raw and real - my life freaking sucks on paper. I'm a 40+ year old single woman living in my parent's basement. I have no money, no car, few friends and all of my belongings are in a storage unit without much hope of things changing in the near future. Want to hear a secret? Even though all of the above is true, and believe me it is -  I am happy for the first time in my life! Sure, I have good days and bad days but for the first time in years I feel pure happiness and joy. Today marks day 169 in my new life.  A lot of people would say that they are 169 days clean and sober, which I am, but I prefer to look at it a bit differently and look at it as my journey to Happy Healthy. It took years to get me to this place but I'm so grateful for the friends and family that have stuck with me through very bad times, who literally moved me out of a horribly unhealthy relationship and life and gave me another chance to live and to find my true self.

For the last 169 days I've learned two very powerful lessons - one is that I. Am. Enough. I've never in my life felt enough of anything. Never good enough or worth enough or special enough but thanks to St. Brene Brown and a team of exceptionally talented therapists and support staff I can honestly say that I am Enough. And if I'm not enough for certain people then they aren't enough for me. The other very important lesson I've learned is to "Try Different Not Harder". I can attest as anyone in recovery can attest that trying harder simply doesn't work. It is infuriating, defeating and unrealistic to *try harder* to get well, to stop drinking, to stick up for oneself, etc. etc. etc. but now that I focus on trying differently I've seen worlds of difference happen to me. Doors that have never been open are now open. Instead of being a magnet for damaged people that do more damage to me I now have good, positive, life changing people coming into my life each and every day. I've been able to revive old relationships that have needed a great deal of TLC and I've been able to devote myself to doing my little part to making the world a better place. At the same time taking care of myself with self care, meditation, therapy, exercise, setting boundaries and starting over.

This last weekend I had some art work added to my body as permanent reminders to me that the next 169 days and 10,000,000,000 after that will be better, fuller and more precious than ever.