Honesty

Honest;  free of deceit; truthful and sincere

From this moment, I am going to attempt to live honestly, to be mindful of being true and truthful. As someone with a considerable streak of dishonesty running through their veins, this will be a challenge. I hope the discoveries I make through honest living (or attempts at such) are worth sharing in future posts but first, here are some pictures of Honesty the plant;

Common honesty; a European plant with bright white or purple flowers that bloom at this time of year.

 

Honesty’s always been a favourite plant of mine but especially in its fragile, translucent ‘gone to seed’ form:

 

Paper-thin and silvery, they’re so pretty, aren’t they?

 

Please wish me luck on my quest for honest living – and you’re more than welcome to leave any Tips for Living Truthfully you may have!

Thank you! And love from The Sober Garden x.

A new book

I’ve got myself a new book. Well, it’s new to me. It actually originally belonged to my husband and according to the inscription inside, we gave it to him on Father’s Day nine years ago. Apart from a few pages he’s filled with jokes and comical observations, its sheets are blank. It has been hidden amongst the linen in a drawer under our bed for-like-ever but I’ve always known it was there. I asked him if I could use it. (An empty book is irresistible, isn’t it?). He said yes.

It’s a book to help me remember. An aide memoir for the middle-aged. I don’t mean to fill it with appointments, or to do lists, or blah blah blah. I’m going to fill it with the names of places that make me say “Oh, I’d love to go there,” or the book titles that make me say, “I’d love to read that,” or the names of old friends that make me say, “I’d love to see her/him again.” You get the picture.

And talking of pictures…here’s a photo of My New Book. Ta dah!

 

I’m looking forward to discovering what I’ll choose to write in it.

Tomorrow will be the book’s first entry. And tomorrow is also a five months sober anniversary for me. This not totally unchartered territory – I have been without booze for five months before, back in 2014, but then I was five months sober and full of anger and fear and grief for having ‘lost’ booze. This time it does feel different. It feels simpler. I’ve just let alcohol go. I’m rid of it. I’ve jettisoned some of the heavy stuff – and life is all the more lighter because of it.

Back to My New Book! What would you, or do you, write in yours? Do tell; I’m very nosy and a good listener.

 

 

Alcohol’s Shame

Well, this is new to me; a feeling of hatred towards alcohol. I see the destruction, the mistrust and the ruin it causes and I see that misery everywhere; from my own home to the anonymous on the streets of cities a thousand miles away.

No-one is a better parent, friend or partner after too much to drink. No-one is a better judge of character, or reasoner, or listener after too much to drink. And it’s so, so, SO easy to drink too much.

The staggering thing is, that although nobody is EVER better off for alcohol abuse and everyone knows this, I mean it is not some state-hidden secret or anything, it is still so cheap, so available, so everywhere.

It’s a shame. A real shame.