So things are looking up in many ways, but at the same time, I feel like I'm slipping already. In September I quit drinking and taking all substances for months and I felt so good in spite of having been abandoned by the one person I always thought I could depend on. I felt free and independent and I also felt healthy. I had lost so much weight and I felt so good about myself.

Lately I've been drinking a lot more again- I'm still being good about not drinking at home, and not drinking by myself, but I've been going out and partying too much, and I haven't been to the gym in a week and my brain chemistry is suffering. Last week was stressful because of the job interviews and my current job was going through some changes which have since balanced out again. Now is the time to recommit to my health, to cut back on my drinking again. I going to stay sober for at least a couple weeks, and then slowly return to one to two nights of social drinking a week. The eating out needs to stop. I haven't gained any weight back, but I haven't lost any weight either. If I lay off the booze again it should break my plateau and then I'll feel like I'm on track once again.

I don't think I'm going to get the job I interviewed for and that's fine because I don't think I'm ready yet to make such a huge change when I'm still settling in the changes I've already made. I'm trying to build good healthy habits for the first time in my life and once those are more stabilized I'll be in a better position to make further changes. When I stop changing and growing I stop being alive, and that was the biggest problem towards the end of my marriage- I had stopped changing and growing. I had stagnated, and I absolutely cannot let that happen again.

Also, I have met a truly awesome man. I *think* things are going well, and I must be careful to keep my previous issues managed so that I continue to the be person I want to be, healthy and well balanced. There is just something about this guy- while all the feelings of chemical physical attraction are there, there is something else- a calm peace of mind that I refuse to try to put a name to. I intend to leave things undefined and simply let them be as they are. Of course there is hope there, but this time that hope has taken on a different meaning- more so that I can perhaps enjoy someone without clinging to any hope of real permanence, because in the past that is where my mistakes start being made. I just want to enjoy it for all the things it is and may be without worrying about what it is not.

Now, on that note, I am going to the gym. Goddammit.