More importantly, though, I've learned that our happiness isn't determined by the ratio of highs to lows. My mom has had some real lows. She has had terrible luck with her health ever since I can remember, and yet, she has one of the brightest smiles I have ever seen. It isn't about the luck of the draw. It is about how we play the hand we've been dealt - how we deal with each extreme and all that lies between. How we cope, how we bounce back, how we keep getting up each time we get knocked down, and whether or not we can accept a situation without trying to change it, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us, is what determines our happiness.
Up until last year, I was shit at dealing with life. My tried and true coping mechanism was alcohol. When I was up high, celebrating something wonderful - "Hey! Let's go get a drink to celebrate!" And when I was down really low - "Let's go get a drink to numb this pain." Alcohol was a loyal friend to me for years. It made me the life of the party - I was friendly and funny and fearless. It was always there to loosen things up in any stuffy social situation where I wouldn't know a lot of people. It made really long Mariners games so much more entertaining, and after a rough day, it made all of my problems go away. I knew that when I took that first sip of prosecco, I would immediately feel a big heavy weight lifted, and from there, all of the stress and frustration would slowly start dissipating until it was forgotten altogether. It had this extraordinary way of masking all of life's problems while simultaneously making them worse, and the most miraculous thing about it was that I didn't even think it was a problem because it was so socially acceptable.
"Alcohol couldn't be the problem! Everyone I know drinks it, and who will I hang out with if I stop?"
It almost felt like I was going against societal norms when I decided to quit drinking.
How was I to know that all of those problems I thought were dissipating were still there under the surface? I had no idea how to cope with life, and I didn't even know it.
For the past year I have been learning ways to handle life's ups and downs without alcohol. At the beginning I was completely lost. Candy was my answer. Then buying things, and then finally after feeling all wound up with no place to go for what felt like an excruciating amount of time, I started learning about things I never understood before like God, meditation, acceptance, exercise, breathing and the wilderness.
I grew up surrounded by nature. We played outside in the streams every day, we built forts, we trail-blazed, we picked berries and caught frogs. As I got older, though, I started hanging out with my friends and going to parties and dinners and brunches, and little by little stopped playing outside.
And little by little, I forgot about all of the magic.
When I quit drinking, I had all this time on my hands. I wasn't meeting friends for brunches. I wasn't starting a Football Sunday with a mimosa, and I didn't have plans after work to go to Happy Hour with my colleagues. I had to start finding other healthy ways to fill my time, and one of those became walking on the wild side.
It is much harder to take on any more when you have deceived yourself into thinking you handled a situation when, in reality, you were just stuffing it down deeper. Nature helps me reset to a place of peace and tranquility. I am not holding on to anything when I walk out. I am not burying my feelings. I can think about them and feel them and release them.
What started out as a way to fill my time is becoming a form of therapy. It is becoming a tool I can use to help me handle this life that will continue to throw me and hurt me and knock me down between those moments of serenity, joy and rapture.
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