What really matters

I don't care anymore whether someone knows about my blog.  In fact, if one of my friends is reading this and realizes who I am, well, then, hello!  It seems we must have something in common, lol.  Life is a journey, full of struggles, this just happens to be my blog about mine.  I'm proud of trying to tackle something that I think a lot of people are in denial over.

Anyway, some of you who I've corresponded with off blog know that I live in Vegas.  My last post mentioned what happened but not that I live here.  It was my way of trying to mention it without giving up my anonymity. 

I don't know anyone directly affected by the shooting.  I know folks who know folks.  I have friends who were at the concert but made it out unscathed.

This morning I was in tears, yet again, reading about a mom who was at the concert with her son.  They had arrived separately and were trying to find each other at the concert.  They gave up and she was just going to connect with her son at the end.  The shooting started and she ran out, then realized her son was in there somewhere.  He didn't make it.

My husband and I never go to the strip unless we have friends or family visiting.  Randomly, we got free tickets to see a show Sunday night that was across the street from the concert, at a hotel across the street from the hotel the shooter was at.  We left my son at home since he was too young.  Strangely, that afternoon, I felt compelled to have him enter emergency phone numbers into his phone.  Probably just because we haven't left him alone for a late evening very often and usually I scribble down our numbers.

Hubs and I drove right by the concert.  Saw tons of folks crossing the intersection where the concert was on one corner and the two hotels on the other.  Saw very happy people in cowboy boots and hats walking across the street.  This was about 7:15 as people were walking over to it.  Cops on all corners directing the pedestrians.

We attended our show and went back through that intersection about 9:45pm.  Saw some folks leaving the concert, heading back to the hotel, but others were just walking over to it.  We figure that the shooting started about the time we pulled into our driveway.  We didn't know about it until early the next morning when our phones started exploding with texts from family and friends.

A near miss like that makes you think.  What if we had stopped for a drink like we probably would have done in the past?  On the one hand we might have been on hand to help.  On the other hand we might have gotten stuck for hours in that area as police secured the area and my son would have possibly looked at his phone to see why we were late getting home and freaked out.   Cell phone coverage got clogged so we probably couldn't have even called him to let him know we were okay.

I guess it just made me think and reflect on a lot of things the past few days.  Sorry if this post sounds disjointed. 

I'm proud of my journey with alcohol.  I have nothing to be ashamed of.  I hesitate sometimes to post because most of my well-wishers are sober.  I'm not sure I'm ready to go the 100% route and so I feel bad about discussing my journey.  This is my fault.  When I first started the blog, I commented on the folks struggling and the ones who were long time sober, so those folks are the only ones who know about my blog.  I don't put keywords of moderation etc in my blog so people usually only find my blog by seeing I commented somewhere else. That's how I ended up not sober in the sober universe. 

Maybe there are more people out there reading my blog who struggle and just don't comment.  That's cool.  I like to lurk through blogs too.  Sometimes I feel silly commenting on a long time sober blog when I am not.

I still have a ways to go with alcohol but I love that I have more nights now than not where I don't drink or I don't drink too much.  I'm still vulnerable to a bottle of white wine but I am doing better about planning for that if it happens.

This week made me reflect that while my journey is important to me, in the overall scheme of things, it is just one piece of the pie and so many other things matter more. I'll write about the diet later but I've lost 10 lbs and feel healthier than I have in a long time.  I like remembering giving my son a hug before bed.

My heart hurts for my city.   We are a very big, small town, community.  I always say there are only 2 or 3 degrees of separation here.  Everyone knows everyone - part of the reason I keep this blog quiet.  The randomness of it is so scary to our children.   There may be people reading this blog who live in distant cities but were affected because of visitors they know who traveled here.  My heart aches for you too.

Hugs,
HD