Monday.

It’s 5:13. My internal clock has changed since I stopped drinking, but I’ve always loved mornings. I’m a go-to-bed-early and get-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn kind of gal. Mornings are quiet. The house is still asleep. No kids to referee, no food to cook, no dishes to wash, no laundry to fold. It’s simply me time. I crack a window, listen to my birds; they are chirping loudly. The air feels brisk outside. It smells like summer: freshly cut lawn. I’m just missing my first sip of hot coffee. I make my way down my bedroom hallway and into the kitchen.

As I count the scoops of coffee grounds into my coffee maker, I look at my sleeping children. I wonder what today entails. Will my day stay this peaceful, or will it slowly turn into a shit show? With five kids, you never know, but to give them the benefit of the doubt, some days they are sweet baby angels and get along all weekend long and miss each other until they see each other the following week. They love each other. It’s a blended family type of love. It’s good. We’re meant to be. As the coffee begins to drip into the glass, I think about how it’s been a long winter of depression here in Michigan, and for the past week, it has been cloudy and rainy. Maybe I’ll work on neglected flowerbeds or take the kids to the park, finally clean my car out. The coffee maker beeps as it finishes, bringing me out of my thoughts.

We finished the day off with some steak and fettuccine noodles, followed by a side Caesar salad. We had spent our morning outside lighting off some bottle rockets and playing baseball, riding bikes down our country road. We live on 5 acres, with the sun shining bright and the deep blue sky. It felt nice. Nice to not have an agenda, to lounge around the house, and not have to be anywhere. It was a Sunday reset day without the Sunday; Michael was getting ready to take my “Bonus Babies” home and my kids were prepping for school tomorrow; planners needed to be signed, outfits picked out to make our morning less chaotic, and backpacks placed by the door.

I would normally have had a few drinks by now, to “wind myself down.” My overstimulating weekend, with seven of us in the house, can be a bit much. I would have tried to get my last few sips in before Michael arrived home from taking his kids to meet their mom, knowing in my head that it’s not doing anything for myself. I’m not catching a buzz; I’m not just sipping a little glass of wine while cleaning the house and readying the kids for bed. I’m just fueling my addiction because something is saying, “drink more, drink one more sip before he gets home,” almost like a game. How much can I get away with before he gets home? And that’s just it; I would have, and when he arrived and questioned my flushed cheeks, I would have tried to make up some dumb lie, then laid on my side of the bed hating myself, wondering, “why am I like this?” and he would have laid on his side of the bed, fed up with another one of my lies because he knows me better than that. Michael always knows. It’s his silence when he doesn’t even bring it up anymore that kills me the most.

But, not tonight. Tonight I am a week sober. I suffered a headache earlier in the day while out to the “local Piggly Wiggly,” as I call it because we live in a rural town, with one stop sign and one grocery store; so rural that when they took down the “one stop light” to replace it with a “one stop sign,” there was a Facebook boycott page and a town meeting held to keep that darn light. When I arrived home, I wondered if he would question it, my flushed cheeks. I know there is trust I need to mend; it’s another part of the journey. Mending wounds. All I can do is be honest and upfront. I love him. I appreciate him. I need him. I’m one week down and will start another week tomorrow. I’ve got this.