#15 Nine years of not drinking

On Wednesday night my friend Max, who lives in Europe, kept sending me WhatsApp messages which he does, often, in staccato fashion. Usually it’s pictures of his daughter (“just one more”) or stories about this one time when he was on drugs, etc., but this time he was talking about making it to midnight and while I saw the text previews keep coming through I didn’t open them (I batch). When I saw one that said “Happy happy, Holly! You’re already 9 here” it finally phased me. I realized he meant I was 9 years sober in Belgium, where he is, and then I realized I had forgotten my sober anniversary.

On Thursday, the day of the actual event, I woke up at 5 A.M., made coffee, read the news, drove the 20 minutes to buy two oat milk lattes at the coffee shop where I chatted with my neighbor Paul and his dog Ollie and made weekend plans with Emily Sander. After, I went plant shopping at the nursery, picked up some lawn seed at the True Value, and went home where I mulched and raked and listened …