Hi - Happy freaking September, people. My favorite month. Today’s newsletter is somewhat of a roaming ramble about what’s on my mind and heart as I process this summer.
But first, three things:
September is National Recovery Month, and to celebrate, we’re hosting a series of free support meetings this week at The Luckiest Club. I’m leading the meeting TODAY at 3 pm ET. If you’re wondering what a sobriety support meeting is like and/or what TLC is all about, come and listen (you can keep your camera off!). Registration is required. Join me.
10/17: An Evening with Laura Cathcart-Robbins and Laura McKowen in Boston, MA. Join me and Laura, author of Stash, for a conversation and book signing at Hummingbird Books in Chestnut Hill. The event is free, but you have to register.
ICYMI, I had a great conversation with
about teens and phones last week. She put me at ease and helped me feel more sane and empowered about the whole situation. Watch the replay below.
How it's different now
I’ve never been so glad to see a summer end. I know it’s technically still going, but it feels done once school starts. I love getting back into the routines of the school year, fall sports, fall smells, that feeling of a fresh start, and not sweating my ass off every day. I woke up on Tuesday morning and felt some relief for the first time in weeks.
The entire month of August felt heavy in a near-intolerable way. Perhaps because it was my birthday month, perhaps because of perimenopause, perhaps because of ongoing heartbreak or the EMDR I’ve been doing for six months, or maybe because I’m coming up on a big sobriety milestone this month (ten years). A few people told me about some big planetary alignments. Who knows! I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what’s going on and why things are happening when I’m in pain because if you know what’s happening, you can figure out what to do. But sometimes, there’s nothing to do but be with it and ride it out.
I’ve thought a lot about new sobriety in the past six months because so much of it parallels the end of a relationship: the chaotic waves of grief, the one-day-at-a-time-ness, the fear that it’ll never get easier, being at the mercy of your body’s desperate need for sleep, just trying to get through another day, the pronounced slowing of time, obsessive thinking and rumination, the white-knuckling.
It’s been helpful to have that experience to draw from in some ways, and I’m so much better resourced now after ten years of recovery, but there are stark differences that make it entirely different.
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