Mary Ann continues to be as well as can be expected. She continues to be very active, and gets a lot done between four and eleven AM. Later on in the day and evening, she's in and out of sleep while watching TV (something she rarely did in the past) and sitting at her iMac.
She's been on short-term disability, and will begin LT disability in September. No thoughts at all about going back to work, which I think is a good thing. If all goes well, she can think about that if she wants at some later date. And if she does return to work, she'll likely get involved in something that she loves. She's acquired a range of skills and competencies during her life and, given her quietly strong personality, has much to offer. She might even start up her own business, but that's for another time. Or she may just travel.
She's had a huge appetite since her surgery in the beginning of March, and I'm the beneficiary of her trips to the bakery, restaurants and grocery stores. I thought I'd gained weight during the winter, when I typically don't eat as well as I normally do. I went yesterday to buy summer clothes for work (the summers can be brutal in the city), and discovered that my waist is actually smaller than when I went last summer to buy fall clothing. Must be all the working out.
So the pattern that's emerged for me goes something like this...I start work very early in the morning and am finished late in the evening from Tues. to Thurs. This is a significant change for me, and it's naturally taking time for me to adjust. The days are long, but the weeks are flying by. I'm fatigued and tired for those three days, until I'm up again on Friday mornings. I'm still not working from Fri. to Sun. (I planned it this way from the beginning, and I'm unwilling to let go of it), so there's that.
Beginning in about three weeks, I'll only be working early mornings until September, at which time I'll be able to arrange a more serviceable schedule. I've been doing very well since I got back to working in September of 2013 and, as a result, I've been getting some positive attention, usually in the form of job offers and/or offers to increase my hours where I'm working.
I also started napping when I'm tired, something I haven't done in at least fifteen years. I don't fall asleep naturally at night, but I nap when it's difficult to keep my eyes open. A good nap seems better than some nights when I sleep for hours.
Thanks again to all of you for your support. IRL, people who know about Mary Ann don't seem to know how to talk to me or otherwise engage me (with a couple of notable exceptions), and that's fine. I'm used to carrying the conversation when need be, and I truly don't want or need to talk about this all the time.
I've also experienced mood swings when reading many of the comments here. I wish people who are so reluctant to put down the drink could know, truly know, what they're missing; how precious a single life is, that we can never get back the time we sacrifice to our drinking, that meaning and purpose in life can only be had after we put down the drink. This makes me sad and frustrated. At other times, what I see are people whose suffering takes them far beyond despair, who don't even trust their own thinking, and who struggle to find a way to trust people who've been where they've been. Either way, it's just more heartbreak.
Oh yeah...no cravings here, no thought of drinking. This is now more out of habit and lifestyle than about any obligation to myself or to other people. If I'm going to suffer in life, I'd much prefer that I do it sober.