I started drinking at 32 years old.
That sounds a little strange, doesn't it?
I mean, I had drank before, but I didn't drink.
I started drinking the same way I started smoking, because it was a social network that I was part of.
The 30 year-old single's way of life in downtown Toronto.
A quick glass of Merlot on the way out the door to a vodka bar, and a slice of pizza at 1am on Church Street with a last smoke before bed - and a hangover that required a lot of Advil and mindless football on a Sunday afternoon.
Hell of a way to live if you ask me, and I did this for about 15 years in one way shape or form, long after I left the city.
The only variance was where I was drinking, with who, and how accustomed my system became to it all.
I was a brilliantly functioning alcoholic (or habitual wine drinker), whichever label I would like to proudly own and wear.
***
This is a pattern I have been repeating since childhood.
I moved to Canada from the UK when I was 7.
Two things happened at that time.
I had a different accent and I was put into a grade with students a year older than I was. In England, we started school when we were 3 so when we relocated, I was put into Grade 2, instead of Grade 1.
I am fascinated now to look back on how this one exercise in inclusivity shaped my entire future.
I was always chasing to be accepted, terrified of missing out and never with kids that were my own age, so I always felt not quite good enough to be where I was.
That need resurfaced in Grade 10 when I moved two and a half hours away mid-semester to a new city and started all over again.
As a teenager at that time, I chose smoking as my vice to fit in. It's a circle that always welcomes newcomers, and let's face it, the best conversations always happened when you were out for a smoke.
If I fast forward through the chapters, the cycle repeated itself when I got divorced, and that's where the alcohol arrived.
By 40, I am smoking, drinking daily and on a boatload of anti-depressants.
If I'm honest, I'm not sure I even knew any other way to be existed. I found solace in my acceptance as part of all these clubs - the addict, the escape artist and the unwell - and I'm not sure I believed it was possible to change any of it, nor wanted to.
I quit smoking and came off anti-depressants in 2016, and I am now halfway through several months of being more sober than I've been since I was 30. Short of a few Christmas drinks, my life is pretty clean. These are not changes I ever made with intentions of an achievement of "giving something up", but rather a determination for embracing a new vision of how and where I want to be.
***
I wake up at 5am now.
It isn't even something I set an alarm for.
It just is.
After writing religiously, I walk the waterfront to see the sunrise.
I believe it is the most powerful time of the day and where most of my creativity and solutions surface.
This morning was one of those mornings that the lake was so still and serene, it was magnificent. The swans and ducks were still sleeping in a circle and the only sound I could hear was my own feet on the frozen sand on the beach. There wasn't a soul outside and the sky was deep pink just beyond the horizon. There was a moment I stopped and looked over the lake, completely frozen in time, in awe of what I was so grateful to see and experience alone, but also how far I'd come.
I would relate my life now as such an extreme shift that it is like throwing out a black and white television and tuning my life into 4K. It is 4 x's the magnitude and pixels from what it was and I had no idea what I was missing because I was always chasing, numbing or fixing, instead of appreciating the beauty of where I was.
***
The challenge with living 4K is that we aren't taught and educated on how to live like this.
Our emotions are like colours on the screen and they can be so blinding, we aren't equipped to see straight. With every breathtaking sunrise, there are equally stunning low's where failure, rejection and disappointment scream in neon for our attention and swirl us away into a tsunami of pain and suffering we struggle to detach from.
The past stares back daily, like a haunted ghost behind a million shards of glass, waiting to be accepted, integrated and forgiven to move forward in peace. And in the early stages of adjusting from all the coping mechanisms, each channel I turn to holds an image is so strong and vivid, I haven't trained myself yet to detach from it all and give it enough space to see it all clearly.
There is nothing gradual about this intensity and it requires patience and forgiveness as I trip and stumble my way through the new terrain. Highs and lows can be so overwhelming that they feel like a drug in itself, and I am swallowed simultaneously by euphoria and grief.
In those times, when the easy answer is to fall back, is when I have to light a candle and sink into a hot bath and remind myself to stay the course.
***
I believe there is something on the other side of this transition.
A highly, intuitive and creative life that ebbs and flows with all cycles of nature.
One that is softer and carries an ease beyond what we have been programmed to believe, where harmony and collaboration exist at levels we have yet to experience globally.
A 10k screen or even 20 where the interconnected energy of us all is so powerful and aligned that we are able to move humanity to a completely different place we have not even imagined yet.
As I learn to navigate the storms with a little more grace and surf the tide as it comes in, I hope by continuing to share my story, that I shine a light and comfort for anyone else venturing down the same path.
May we all one day embrace the possibility of living in full colour.
