Okay, It's the New Year

Okay, it's the New Year. 

Central timezone feels like the silver medal new year.

So, where am I? To look back later, where am I? Where do I think I am, anyway?

I am beginning my fifth month in Austin, Texas. I have met only a handful of people and I don't think I consider any of them friends. I am two weeks into my second job here (third if you count the one that I skipped out on the first day). Me, as per usual. 

I am 130 days sober (or somewhere in that area), and I have never had a drink in Texas, which, 'Land o' Cowboys' seems like a wasted moment, but it's one I am happy to sacrifice.

I am (we are) mending, or attempting to mend, a relationship that though we both abused it, I beat it to near death. Gasping and spitting blood and broken teeth and swollen blackened skin. Bottle in hand and mental illness completely unchecked, I tore through love and connection with complete galactic apathy. And now we cautiously thread needles and speak quietly and we sew the small patches together and we hope. I hope.

The mental illness, however, is now, officially, checked. Witnessed, assessed, diagnosed, checked. I am a few weeks into medication and the effects are noticeable. I am calm. I can breathe and brush away intrusive and destructive feelings. I can sleep. Well, I sleep better than normal. Occasionally panic sneaks up on me and I have a pill for those moments and they work, but they make me drowsy. Mute my libido. Didn't kill it, but told it to shut the fuck up for a few minutes once in a while. A welcome change. I do sometimes note that I can still feel the untamed ups and downs, but my brain refuses to acknowledge them and I end up in a bit of a haze when that happens.

I'm lonely. I'm uncertain about the future. That makes it difficult to plant roots. To reach out and start a life here. Uncertainty ignored leads to disaster. Leads to unpreparedness, but am I really all in if I even consider other options?

Am I really all in if I consider what I am going to do if none of this works out?

If I start to drink again?

If I can't keep a job again?

If I lose my connection with her?

If I can't afford my medication and therapy?

Oh, but the loneliness. I realize that may have sounded mopier than I wanted it to.

This year unfolded the way it did because I needed to fix myself or die. I have been to behavior units. Twice. Short term doesn't work for me. Nothing works for me unless I really, honestly, want it to. I hit bottom in March and I stepped out onto the road and I began a journey I am still on. I am lonely because it is necessary. I need to know myself first. I need to understand myself. I need to listen to myself. Away from distractions. Friends and bands (though I miss them both deeply), strangers, and people who think they knew me. I needed away from that and now I find myself hesitant to rekindle that spark here, in Austin. 

I am fearful of the person I was, and right now, in these first moments of 2019, I have no idea who I am. Not yet, anyway.

I'll find out.

Maybe not this year, but eventually, and that is my sunset. My draw to keep walking.

Someday, I will know exactly who I am, and I will be thankful.