SUNDAY 22ND JANUARY 2023
Well, I’m still eating way too much sugar but I do feel the January blues easing off ever so slightly. I moved into a new office space after the festive break and I’ve been struggling to settle in to it, but as this week went on, I started to feel my mood brightening. Today I managed my first 10k run of the year, which has boosted me no end, and my enthusiasm for all the good changes I feel sure this year will bring started to come back. Halleluja!
MY WHY
This week, with her 84th birthday looming, my mum gave up driving. When she first announced her decision a couple of weeks back, I was sad – it signifies the end of an era and is an acknowledgement of her advancing years. Once I’d gotten used to the idea though, it was more a relief – she was giving up, in her own time, before anything bad could happen. Well done, mum! Now, I have never been foolish enough to drink and drive (apart from once when I couldn’t resist ordering a large glass of wine, rather than a small one, with a meal in a restaurant – just the one drink, as was still acceptable at the time, but I realised, as I drove home, that I could feel the effects of the alcohol and, had I been stopped, I would surely have been over the limit) but nevertheless, I consider myself very lucky never to have been done for drunk driving. You see, while I would never have taken to the wheel on the night of my drinking, I am absolutely horrified when I think back on all the occasions where I drove early the next morning – not necessarily still under the influence, but most definitely still over the limit. There are so many instances that I’d be hard pushed to pick just one to write about. Imagine the shame of being banned for drunk driving, because that’s what it would come down to – I don’t think there’s a different charge for being done the morning after the night before! Now, not only could I have lost my licence due to drinking to excess of an evening when I had somewhere to be the following morning, there was a time when I could also have lost my job. I shudder when I think back on the number of early flights I operated as a flight attendant after drinking the night before. On one occasion, it was all I could do to complete the morning drinks service before throwing up in the rear toilet. I could justify myself by saying that I was never alone in such misadventures but I’d like to think, if I were to do it all again, I would have enough sense not to follow the crowd when the crowd are clearly going the wrong way. I always imagined that, if anything bad were to happen as a result of my drinking, I would stop. Nothing like locking the stable door once the horse has bolted – what an attitude! I am so grateful to have managed to take control of my drinking before anything bad could happen – clearly down to good luck though, rather than good sense.
Theme Tune: Crash by The Primitives