My friend got married yesterday.

I couldn’t be there.

My freshman-year girlfriends are planning our next reunion trip.

I already told them I can’t go.

I attribute these fact to the cause of waking up this morning immersed in sadness.  Blinking sleep out of my eyes I dug my phone out from under my pillows and started doing what all social-isolated narcissists do first thing in the AM: checking my email and Facebook.  Confronted with pictures of many of my friends gathered together in their finery, smiling and laughing, I could just see how my day was going to go.  I was going to lay in bed, torturing myself with photographs, until I made myself cry.  Finally, I would fall asleep again and not rise again until sometime in the early afternoon.  At which time I would realize I had no food in the house, order pizza, and sit on my couch in my pjs for hours.  By the evening I would convince myself I had a headache and was just too worn out to go to Mass, and I would go back to bed.

How do I know this is exactly what would happen?

Because it has happened before.  Many times.  More times than I care to admit, even to myself.

BUT NOT TODAY!

Today, I decided that I didn’t want to be that self-involved sad-sac who wasted her day feeling sorry for herself!  I jumped out of bed, threw on clothes, pack my backpack, brushed my teeth, and set off on my To-Do list.  I sent off a package at FedEx that I had been meaning to take take care of all week, returned Library books that I’d actually finished, and bought groceries without any ridiculous indulgence buys that I would keep on my waistline forever.  When I got home I took out the recycling that was piling up, cleaned up my room, showered, put away my laundry, made hummus, and have even managed to sneak in about 4 hours of TV.  In about an hour I’ll head to Mass.

I’m still sorry I missed my friend’s wedding.  I’m still sorry I won’t be seeing my girlfriends in January.  But at least I don’t have to add “being a pathetic child” to the things I’m sorry for.  Right now I am facing the consequences of my poor financial choices over the last, well, um, 8 years or so.  I’m terrible about staying in my budget, I hate saving, and I’ve always over-used my credit cards.  I’m just bad about saying no, to myself and to others.  Be it ice-cream, or new shoes, or the weekend out of town, I agonize over it, but eventually I give in, telling myself it will be the last time and I’ll cut up the card tomorrow.  (Any wonder the booze got me?)  My sister very very very generously pays my student loan bill every month.  She never complains about it, but it is a burden on her.  I agreed with my mother to be as diligent as possible in paying off my credit card debt so that as soon as possible I can put that money towards my student loans and only be taking about 1/4 as much from my sister each month as I was before.  This means trimming down my budget, putting all my AfterCare money towards debt, and possibly getting another job (like a weekend one, not a new full time job).

More than anything it means no traveling until the debt is paid off.  And this is a big thing for me.  I travel a lot.  A lot more than someone who is as stoney ass broke as I am should.  There are always weddings, and new babies, and old friends, and holidays, and one-in-a-lifetime opportunities.  Last summer I practically lived at Reagan airport.  But that cannot be my life for a while, because living my life like that has finally caught up with me.  I have to stay put for a while.

And I have to learn how to deal with staying put without lashing out like a child.  I have to remember that I am not being left out, but rather that I made choices and those choices have consequences.  Today has been a good test run; a new example of how things can go to use in comparison for all those other times when things having gone my way and I’ve reacted like a spoiled brat who no one loves.  When you’ve done the same thing so many times you forget (or don’t know) that it can be different.  But it can.  

You just need a To-Do list.

(1 Year, 11 Months, and 18 Days Sober)