There Is No Forever, Only This Moment
“Ratatatat!” The rattling of the chair made my nearly frozen body vibrate from head to toe.
“Ding!” From overhead, a soothing voice spread among the aisle.
“I apologize ladies and gentlemen, we’ve run into some unexpected turbulence and it looks like we might have a bumpy ride for a while. I’m going to pause the drink service and have the flight attendants take their seats.”
STOP DRINK SERVICE?! Deep breath in… let it out.
In this moment I am OK.
In this moment I am OK.
In this moment I am OK.
Flights used to evoke a fear in me unlike any I had ever experienced.
The thought of being on a plane when it goes down, plummeting to earth while knowing my last moments were upon me was more than I could bear to imagine.
Yet, imagine it, I did.
Over and over and over in my mind the scene would play out, permeating my dreams and, seemingly, every waking moment.
In this moment I am OK, was a mantra I used often on flights–a strategy given to me by my first therapist (Kimm, if you’re reading this you’re a real one 😂). For years I repeated this mantra on every flight. That paired with Southwest Airlines’ drink service, would subdue my fears.
Take away the drink service and you’d have a highly anxious white woman in her 30s, sounding like a parrot and awkwardly scanning the plane the entire flight, eyes bulging.
Nobody wants that.
In this moment I am OK.
In this moment I am OK.
In this moment I am OK.
I’ve since overcome my fear of flying, and in early sobriety, I found myself repeating an altered version of my tried and true mantra– In this moment I am sober.
Whenever I would find myself craving a drink, missing my previous lifestyle, grieving something I would typically avoid.
In this moment I am sober.
When I first gave up alcohol I wasn’t ready to say it was FOREVER (insert Sandlot voice here). I was terrified to give it up because so much of my life was built around drinking.
Every social event.
Every meal out (breakfast, lunch or dinner).
Every weekend.
Every “girls night.”
Every happy hour.
Every Ohio State football game.
Every patio season.
Until eventually… Every day.
In my mind, I didn’t have to think about staying sober forever. I only had to think about staying sober in the moment.
Each moment.
The hard ones.
The scary ones.
The overwhelming ones.
The lonely ones.
The grieving ones.
The joyful ones.
What I found was that when I stayed sober in the moments filled with turbulence, they would roll into a new moment where the turbulent feeling had passed… and in that moment I was sober.
String together enough moments and before you know it,
Sixty-three million, seven hundred thirty-one thousand, one hundred twenty-eight moments
have passed and you’re headed towards forever.
63,731,128 moments sober… and counting
63,731,129... 63,731,130... 63,731,131...63,731,132