I’m like the rat in Flowers for Algernon. I am so clear headed and thirsty for learning I surprise myself. Some days I’m like Dr. Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds – the one with the obscure facts, top of mind, the speed-reading, goody-two-shoes at the front of the class with the gold star. Let me give you a rundown on a typical day and remind you I am just two and a half years sober and new to the workforce after a twenty-five year sabbatical (if sabbatical = drunken, international party).
I woke at 4 o’clock and polished the two blog pieces I wrote for two different treatment centers, wrote the Waking up the Ghost post about the joy of coffee, penned a memo outlining the issues in a website I am tweaking free-lance (don’t tell), and headed to work at 7. At every stoplight on the way, I texted encouragements to Ellie and interfaced with Kim and Tamara as to our progress and our strategy in helping and protecting the girls. I also had a running conversation with my computer guy about my continuing issues with posting the blog to Facebook and why the great and powerful Oz of social media hates me. I also whipped out my portable rosary (something my mother credits for any and all success I have achieved in the past year) and did my morning prayers.
I arrived at work with my jumbo cup of java, polished my desk top and began the day. We are implementing Hubspot – an inbound marketing system (part Big Brother, part religion) that tracks sales leads and spits them efficiently into categories: “buyer personas,” “to-be-nurtured” and “on-boarded.” I am learning what is essentially a new language, while helping to implement a score of landing pages, drip campaigns and website changes the giddy owner of the system is testing like a kid in a candy store…
We’re in a new office, with painters and electricians and the detritus of the move stacked about. I multi-tasked with Jose to hang 15 paintings in perfect symmetry – 60″ to the center and equidistant from frame to wall and frame to frame. I am wired to a Fitbit, happily maintaining the 20 pound weight loss I recently managed. I am reading three good books and getting my Hubspot Certification in my free time.
In a nutshell, I am kind of awesome.
Do not think I am getting too big for my britches – I well remember that I’m the person (just two years ago) who had to write down snippets from key conversations and important events, because my long term memory was a black hole. My kids were always asking, “Mom, don’t you remember?” I actually thought I was getting earlyonset Alzheimer’s and stomach cancer – I was always nauseated and my gut hurt, but I was just a drunk…
I went to Google to see if this sharp-as-a-tack, brilliance was temporary and to see if I was going to begin to get dumber soon and then die, but any search that includes “smart” and “alcohol” took me to Smart Recovery (which is great, but not what I need – I want to know if I am going to degrade like old plaster and keel over in the street…).
The Bottom Line:
The bottom line, is that for the first time in my adult life I am unimpaired by anything but the occasional sugar binge. And although I did learn the cold hard truth, that “everything is not necessarily going to be okay,” it is unlikely I will lose my keen aptitude for learning or my positive attitude anytime soon.
I’m calling it the Sober Smarts and it’s just one more thing to crow about.
