Beg, borrow, steal.

Notes on 11 years since my last drink (and one tiny rant on attribution).

I have a book bag my friend Tammi gave to me years ago. It’s an extra-large white canvas bag stamped with the words Library Junkie on the outside. I’ve used it so much, I’ve had to reinforce the straps with additional fabric, the artwork has nearly faded and to continue insisting it’s white is…delusional.

When I love a bag, I love it hard. You could call me a serial bagamist. In fact, I have a hat tree in the corner of my closet filled with all of the bags and purses I’ve loved before. Each one is mostly cleaned of its contents, close to ready for the donation pile should I become overwhelmed with an urge to purge.

Here is what I’ve failed to admit: the real reason I hang onto them is way more practical than sentimental. Inside each of these bags is a pocket still full of very important things, things like notes and phone numbers scribbled on napkins, a ticket stub, an old ID, one earring, some loose change, a well-used chapstick, an image ripped from some paper ephemera, a faded photo. It’s like an archival collection, each bag a representation of where I was for the time it was in rotation, geographically, intellectually, emotionally. And while that may sound sentimental, it’s really so that my organizationally-averse brain can find things.

This is why I’ve yet to remove the stack of brightly colored index cards from a pocket of the Library Junkie bag, even when the bag has gone on to serve other purposes and the cards are no longer needed as reference. I used the cards when I wrote my ebook, Your Daily Unruffled, each card containing a quote or line I pulled from the journals I started when I quit drinking. They are color-coded by topics, like Joy, Story, Ego, Getting Sober, Epiphany. These cards were proof of my porousness in early sobriety. I had so much to learn, process and synthesize in early sobriety. I had so much to share as I searched for connections, within and without.

I have moments of nostalgia for that mama and her enthusiasm, especially today. It was today eleven years ago that I woke up with another phenomenal hangover and moved by a spirit that I’ve yet to accurately articulate, I determined it to be my last. Now I’ve woken up with other hangovers-of-sorts since, but they ain’t from booze. Hallelujah.

I’ve published a lot of recovery content over the last eleven years, although that has certainly waned the last few. When I started in 2014, the term sober influencer was not a thing. If someone had even mentioned those words to me then, I probably would have said “Ew,” and slipped out the back door. I was just doing what saw a few others do, like Mrs. D and Belle and the women of the Bubble Hour, to catalog and connect through blogs and podcasts and eventually (inspired by Laura and Holly), social media. Was I one of the first to brand Creativity + Recovery? Perhaps. And I’m so glad I did because the connections I was searching for were made and cherished. Still are.

And now? I’m happy to have mostly detached my bread-and-butter from sober content creation. That doesn’t deter my desire to be of service but I no longer need to profit from it. And that’s me–I flee if there’s a sniff of repetitiveness or if I have to fight for elbow room in a kitchen full of cooks. And while I hope I’ve always been a good student of attribution, there were absolutely times when there was so much swirling in my sponge of a head, I’m certain I didn’t always do it right. The cost of being curious, I guess, but now I wonder if few bother with attribution anymore. Social media did this to us, I get it. No one is going to include a bibliography with every post and yet, I miss bibliographies. This is another reason why I’d rather spend my screen time here than there. At least we’re down with hyperlinks.

Well, I can’t end this with a rant. Instead, I’ll tell you that I didn’t toss the index cards. They are neatly rubberbanded and tucked away in my desk drawer. Even though I don’t regularly write about recovery anymore, I hope that what I’m modeling hasn’t changed, only broadened. But if you are reading this and need a cheerleader, I’ve got my uniform right here next to the rainbow of index cards. I’ll be high-fiving you with an Atta-Girl so fast it will make my skirt twirl.