There is a time for activity and there is a time for rest. If I were to attempt true balance in my life, I would come to the conclusion that I am due for a couple months of rest. In actuality, I have had a cold for a couple of weeks, approaching three soon here, and my body has intelligently and innately required this rest as of late. It is coming right at the pivot of the season moving graciously from summer to fall. The morning is cool and crisp outside, and this is the first day after this couple-week transition that it feels like October outside. Perhaps not quite yet, as it is still mid September. I can remember this time of year in my past, cross country or soccer practice after school in the crisp air, or watching the gradual change of the leaves as I walked to school in my new clothes, wondering what the year ahead was to hold for me. So I am grateful, grateful for this transition and gentle evolution that is happening within my body, and in the nature that surrounds me this day in mid-September.

I am finding sure and new footing in my program as well. I have started my day count over, as I indulged and gave way to having a few beers once again. I was approaching six months of continuous sobriety, and cannot tell you exactly why I left and then returned a day or so later to my program AA. I ask myself, am I not taking my coming out as non-binary/trans seriously enough? How close did I come to tipping the scales of my mental health, because I just pushed myself a little too hard for a couple months? This summer, I had recently emerged from an episode I had January through March of 2021, and I was on new meds. I wanted to find my stable and able self. But I leaned to heavily on self-will in order to make this happen. I was spending every day in AA, and searching for prayer and meaning. I have developed a clear and sound spiritual life after working the program with a sponsor these last six months. My small relapse was a wake up call, however. Was I channelling the character flaws of self-judgement, and need for acceptance, in order to make it to the gym four days a week? Is this where I lost my equilibrium? I tend to overdo the gym. I have been here before. I was not resting enough. I have come to the conclusion in the past that gentle walks and yoga are easier to manage with my mental illness. I just wanted it so bad, but I was creating imbalance in my life in my efforts to practice aerobic exercise and cardio. I am not sure if I can go back. I do not fully trust myself to manage my gym time. Addictive behaviors surface sourced from my eating disorder, and I have now learned that the gym can cause relapse in my life, not only with my sobriety, but with my mental health as well.

It is very clear to me that I now need rest and mediation in order to find balance and true perspective on my life. I have been going for walks, and the time I spend moving my body in this way feels gentle and therapeutic; and I do sweat and breathe on my walks. Balance involves keeping my daemons that are in the shadows at bay. It involves being completely honest with myself. It involves a level of self-care that I am not always in the habit of granting myself. I have tried to get perspective by way of telling myself that I am retired, or even a multi millionaire that does not need to vacuum or slave around the house; ‘there is someone coming soon that will take care of that for me’. The truth is, that I am allowing my space to get a little messy and this feels amazing. It is a challenge against my flaws of obsessive compulsion and perfectionism, to live naturally in this way. I am slowly learning that I am not living for other people, but rather myself. How I appear to others as I come out as trans does not trump my own experience. How people that may come around to judge the smell of my house or how tidy and clean it is, does not matter. Impressing my fellows with a badge of six months sobriety does not matter. What matters is that today, this moment, in this space where I live with ease and acceptance, is clear of darkness and shadows that will ultimately cause me to slip and fall in. I create these shadows. It is my responsibility to find the light and let it in. Entropy and chaos can be embraced in the face of perfection. I can overcome the monsters of achievement, judgement, lack of acceptance, self hate and persecution, perfectionism, and compulsion in my life. I have a solution. Ultimately it comes down to self-love, acceptance and literally ‘taking it easy’. How blessed I am to have the ability to take the time to just sit and let these shadows dance around me until ultimately they are captured by the light that naturally emanates from my being that is relaxed, hopeful and pure in its essence. God bless this day; this moment, this minute, this hour. Today is all I have, so I will cherish it with all of my being.