it

is two fifty-three in the afternoon on a tuesday. my new work schedule has consisted of five am starts through one pm and i love it. i’m a pre-op nurse now and let me tell you, the work is chef’s kiss easy peasy bliss honestly. and i don’t think i have ever, like EVER not once have i ever made a decision this quick. i did ER for ten years and i haven’t quite completely let it go but one day there was a per diem position open in pre-op and i immediately snagged it. like application and resume uploaded in a total of five minutes. it’s what my brain needed and the switch is at the top of my gratitude list every single day. not to mention just my profession in general, even the ER. it has been the most handiest knowledge to have during a parent’s hospitalization and my co-workers are absolutely some of the best people i have been lucky enough to have ever met. this past weekend my father was thankfully discharged with a three month steroid course and the plan to follow up with a neuroimmunologist as well as his neurologist and just really crossing our fingers praying knocking on wood throwing salt over our shoulder collecting horseshoes avoiding stepping on any and all cracks in hopes that this will end his recurrent strokes and that we can morph diagnoses from cryptogenic strokes to central nervous system vasculitis (which was initially ruled out but we’re back on it because it can be super difficult to diagnose and with the pattern of his strokes makes it difficult to 100% rule out CNS vasculitis) my mother remains a saint and is ever so patient and we’re all just hopeful at the moment and thankful to be back at rehab. so there’s that. 

okay so the no alcohol journey. i regret that i called it that because i don’t think i ever truly had the idea of no alcohol so my apologies on that but it does make me curious as to why i so openly called it that. it definitely has always been more of a slowing the alcohol down, seeing what lays behind it. which i have and i think it just makes me more interested in the no alcohol journey which is something i wouldn’t have ever thought. like me calling it a no-alcohol journey is something i would have never accidentally have mentioned. when i wrote that last week there was no “woah woah i still plan on drinking let me edit that” which would have totally been my response months ago when i first started talking about this alcohol journey, back around september.  the september 18, 2023 entry titled run to be exact. in that entry i feel i was very adamant that it wasn’t no alcohol it was less alcohol and as i write this i remember my fear and anxiety kind of wrapped around the idea of not drinking at all at that time. i was just then attempting to let go of former binge-drinker jessica and now i write this as a jessica that has learned more self-awareness and has slowed down enough to truly listen to what it is she’s feeling and there is no fear. honestly i think there is some nervousness but kind of excited nervousness on the idea of a no-alcohol journey. and i just reread some of those entries and i remember the chaos i felt and i am so fucking proud of myself because that chaos is gone. don’t get me wrong, spirals happen from time to time but i face them with compassion and attempts to understand where they are coming from and they no longer present like chaos. they come across like blips, like episodes, like little pieces of varying types of emotions just flitting around in my body and i just let them be and they all settle eventually in the most perfect shape and honestly what absolute perfect timing for a blubbering mess managing her father’s care. i’m adding it to my gratitude list. i’m also adding you to my gratitude list. thank you for reading and for being here in whatever space you’re in. i truly appreciate it. i sometimes wish, okay maybe i always kind of wish i had some form of advice but i don’t. this is a rambling blog. a one woman show full of soliloquies in written form and i am just thankful you’ve been here and allowed a space where i was able to go back through entries and read about my evolving self. now i think this is where i try to give advice (and to be honest i am kind of bad at giving advice) but here goes – i know sharing is not for everyone, especially in some public fashion but for those of you who even have the slightest intrigue, do it. i beg of you. write everything. share it. talk about it. watch yourself grow. i believe in you.

l, js