Day Fifty: Brunch

Husband and I hosted a big brunch yesterday and again it felt like another "first" in a really positive way.  It felt normal, this drinking coffee and juice and water, instead of bloody marys or beers.  It really did.  I truly enjoyed having a house full of fiends, enough of them where there were people outside I could chat with a bit, people in the TV room I could pop in on, EA and E curled up on the yellow couch together to join at times, and people gathered around the kitchen discussing the plot holes in the show "Walking Dead."  It was a party and people had fun.

Take Aways:
1. People had fun even though I wasn't drinking
2. I had fun even though I wasn't drinking
3. Brunch is a good party to host for dry me
4. Booze around wasn't an issue

Again, the energy I had yesterday was bountiful.  (today I was lazy...really lazy).  Before brunch I took my first tennis lesson.  I've bought a racket in December and now 3 months later, finally I got around to setting up tennis lessons.  I loved it: up early, in a tennis skirt, playing tennis...and not hungover.  Then hours of brunch!  Then EA and E stayed on afterwards and we sat around, E knitting, E weaving stories, me crocheting...  and being content in my lovely apartment, enjoying company, laughing, at ease.  I was so comfortable hanging out with EA, E and Husband post-party probably because I was just being me, open, unaltered me, and they stayed unaltered and were openly having a good time too.  Strangely, I think drinking made me more insecure instead of more confident.  The drinking version of me would have felt anxious to entertain, to make jokes, to keep up the level of fun with the right banter, music, food and of course drink flow. I would have felt stressed in overthinking what people needed to be comfortable. Last night, I didn't feel socially awkward being sober at all, and I was social all day, from about 11am-9pm and I wasn't exhausted, anxious or drunk!  I actually felt recharged from it, like the real extrovert I used to be.  Good dry day, really good.