Little Victories

Last weekend I decided that it would be a very good thing to do to seriously cut back on my drinking. I have always tended towards the lushly, but since my mom died I began drinking far more than usual, which was to be expected for a while, I suppose -- but it was also exacerbating my depression, and since my mother's death has also jacked my abandonment issues into overdrive, like turning the heat under a kettle to 11 until it rattles and burbles scalding water all over the place, so having one too many in this fragile state had been provoking despairs and rages that would win me a Tony in the role of Medea were our apartment actually the Brooklyn Academy of Music; wholly toxic and inappropriate otherwise. I love my husband very much, and I think it is time to table this behavior until, say, post-partum depression. We both need a break.

So from Monday until today at my mother-in-law's birthday party, I have had exactly one cocktail, and felt all as week as if I had been injected in the ass with one of those B-vitamin shots all the Factory people were getting every five minutes. And today at lunch I had perhaps 4 glasses of wine over as many hours, but -- and this is key -- the lesser Lillet was kept away from the rudder. It seems like Better Lillet is setting some rules, boundaries and limitations. My sister-in-law went off about some "nutritionist" who said that because of her blood type it would be really hard for her to give up meat, blah blah blah, and I just said, "Hmm, interesting." And twice during the afternoon I could see the opening where, had I been trashed, I would have turned an innocent remark of Trey's into bait for an argument: like your cursor triggers a pop-up window, tempting you to CLICK HERE! YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON THE ATAVI$TIC PAIN HOT TEEN MORTGAGE LOTTERY!

And I did not click!

We came home, I took a nap, and am finishing a baby sweater. Little victories, although a weird vertigo kept me from a party I lacked the courage to attend. Next time.