I have reached the stage now where I’m generally comfortable in my sobriety. I don’t have to avoid booze aisles in supermarkets anymore. I am a non-drinker, just as I am a vegetarian. To most extents and purposes, it is a dietary choice.
There are little things that remind me not to be complacent, though. The stressful days when I long for something to take the edge off. The occasional nightmares where I’m blind drunk and out of control. Those dreams are horrible, but they are necessary. They make me remember that I can’t take anything for granted, that I’m only one stupid decision or moment of carelessness away from ruining the wonderful sober life I’ve built.
I don’t look at the online sobriety communities anymore – this is part of my indefinite social media break – as I now feel able to rely on myself and on people around me who understand. But I know they’re there if I need them.
I went to my favourite parkrun for my birthday weekend parkrun and my first performance in my new age category as a VW40-44!
Not that I was banging out a fast time or anything, especially not in the frosty conditions we had this morning (I was just grateful that Jesmond Dene was on). Geth and I took it easy for another 30ish minute one and enjoyed a lovely run round the Dene.
(Well, I say easy, but that hill is always murder on my asthma on cold mornings no matter how slowly I take it!)
Looking a little frozen at the end!
A rare non-parkrunning Saturday next week as there’s something very special going on, but I expect to be on the Moor the week after…
I have started my forties today as I mean to go on – running with friends, eating cake and playing videogames. It has been a wonderful birthday – but in some ways I’ll be celebrating all year, as befits a milestone.
I think, when I am at the end of my life – a long time in the future, I hope – if I am ever asked what the most significant decade for me was, I am certain that I will say it was my thirties.
Here are a couple of pictures of me on the first day of my thirties, 3rd January 2015.
In the morning having cake with family, and then dancing at my birthday party in the evening. I always had a drink in hand; I was overweight and hadn’t gone for a haircut in years; and I was in a lot of chronic pain and very unhappy. Also, that birthday was the last birthday I was allowed to have the correct number of candles on the cake, because my family were starting to get worried about the house burning down.
I was very much still carrying the chaos of my twenties with me. I was in poor health, partly genetic but mostly self-inflicted. I was trying to get a novel published, but I wouldn’t show it to a soul except for agents. I was about to move from Southampton to Newcastle the following month, and I was stressed, because I find moving incredibly stressful. At this point, I had never even been to Newcastle.
Life is so different a decade on.
I have such a changed understanding of my health and my body now. A few months after moving to Newcastle, I started running, and over the years it’s become the most important thing I do every day. Two years later, I decided to take control of my weight and lost five stone via Slimming World. Then another two years after that, I faced up to my alcohol addiction and quit drinking. All of this enabled me to be taken more seriously by doctors, and I finally had diagnoses for my ankylosing spondylitis and my asthma – issues that had affected me for my whole adult life. Daily living is so, so much better now that I am healthy, and I know that the lifestyle I’ve built will enable me to be a healthy and active older adult in the future.
When I turned thirty, I was upset that I hadn’t yet managed to become a published novelist. On the eve of my forties, I am still not a published novelist, and I’m fine with that. I understand now that these things happen when they’re meant to, and the progress I’ve made in my writing over the past ten years means more to me. That progress has, for the large part, come about via being brave enough to share my writing with others – through programming and publishing text adventure games and through reading my poems at poetry nights – and the helpful feedback and affirmation I’ve received through these processes. I still have dreams of being a novelist, and many works in progress, but it will happen in its own time.
When Geth and I moved to Newcastle, I saw it as just another temporary location, as I still very much wanted to return to Edinburgh eventually. I hadn’t really settled well in Southampton, and I didn’t imagine myself ever seeing anywhere other than Edinburgh as ‘home’. But now, Newcastle is absolutely my home, and I see myself living here forever. I had never even visited the city until we did a quick househunting trip three weeks before we moved here, but I have fallen in love with the place. It is where I feel most comfortable now.
Here are a couple of pictures of me from today, the final day of my thirties.
I ran, as usual – today it was a run to the Hard Rock Café for lunch and a souvenir. Then I spent the evening relaxing on my sofa, which is my favourite way to spend an evening. I don’t like going out later in the day, and that’s fine.
I am so excited for my forties. I am so much more confident and sure of myself and happy in my own skin, and I know I will achieve a lot. But it was what I did in my thirties that created the foundation for this confidence. I changed my own life, and I am so proud of myself for doing that.
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea is a fairly obvious parkrun for me to do. It’s not my NENDY (nearest event not done yet) but it’s a popular one with my running friends and people are often surprised that I haven’t done it. It’s also one of the few parkruns in the local area that put on a special event on New Year’s Day. As Geth and I have been at home in Newcastle for New Year (a rare occurrence), I decided it was a good time to visit this parkrun at long last!
We were very lucky with the weather as the wind has died down here since yesterday, which has not been the case in other parts of the UK (lots of NYD parkrun cancellations today sadly). It was a beautiful morning running along a beautiful seafront, though it certainly was a bit harder when the wind did pick up on the outward leg! I loved this parkrun as you can see everyone along the out and back, and it has its own culture and character. Lots of the Benchies came out this morning and we had a bit of a New Year party.
New Year parkrun! Photo from Nick at TMBR.
Back to regular Saturday parkrunning in a few days’ time… and what will be my first performance in my brand new age category!
Happy New Year everyone! Geth and I are (unusually) at home in Newcastle for New Year, having a lovely peaceful time as we continue through the Christmas season.
This year’s New Year Resolutions:
Finally finish my de-hoarding in the house and get started on the decorating. I CAN do this.
Put some work into getting my creative energy back (largely by taking some downtime from my race training every now and again, which didn’t happen last year).
Run PBs in all four main running distances – they don’t have to be big PBs seeing as I’ve already improved so much over the last two years, but I do want to keep improving!
Make time for videogaming like it’s part of my job. It’s really important for my mental health.
Live a slightly quieter life again – fewer trips, fewer races etc. I thrive on daily/weekly routine and get distressed if things disrupt it. Special occasions are lovely but they need to be rare or I start to resent them rather than appreciating them. No more than two events/trips per month.
Don’t go back to regular scrolling of social media. I am so much happier since I took a permanent break from it.
Also, happy seventh birthday to my blog! I’ve not had much time for it this year (it’s often just been Phone Box Thursday posts keeping it going), but hopefully that will change in 2025.
