Today is the best day of my life.

Today was the best day of my life.
I try to practice that philosophy every single day but as the word practice implies, I'm often not very good at it. I haven't been very good about in the last two months really. Ever since my ego was shattered when the girl of my dreams decided that she didn't want to be with me anymore. I lost myself in that girl and I felt even more lost without her.
But today is the best day of my life.
I celebrated two continuous, trying, rewarding years of sobriety today. My mother, who up until seven months ago I hadn't seen or spoken to for eight years, got to sit in a meeting and watch my best friend make a speech about me and give me my two year medallion. I danced my ass off with friends and strangers alike, I bought myself a pair of bad ass boots, I got to celebrate and be celebrated. 
Today I am two years sober and I'm having the best day of my life.
I like to think of myself as observant, one of the gifts and curses of sobriety is the ability to feel everything, good and bad, without any sort of filter or alteration, and I could feel a difference in me today. I felt good, genuinely, not comparatively good, for the first time in months. So I stepped back and took a look at the day, my actions, my surroundings, my feelings trying to find the difference so that I can try to replicate it in the days ahead, because I am tired of feeling like shit. I am tired of spending my waking hours trying to survive until I can sleep again and pray that I don't dream of her.

 I wasn't thinking of her.

 But that couldn't be it, because I've filled my time doing countless activities that allow me a reprieve from thoughts of her, so it had to be something else, I had to be thinking of something else. 

I was thinking about me. For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, but in actuality has been eight weeks and two days, I thought of me. Not of what she thinks of me or how she feels about me or how could she do this to me, but just me. Today was about me. 

My progress. My accomplishments. My mistakes. My triumphs. My happiness. My serenity. Me.
Today I thought about me and my life.
And I am a woman on fire.
I made my mother proud today. I made my friends proud today. I made myself proud today.
I am far from perfect, a fact that still drives me crazy but I am a lot better than I ever have been. 
Two short years ago the only thing anyone expected me to be was drunk. No one expected me to be kind, to be responsible, to be happy, to be careful. The only thing that I was expected to be was drunk. 

Today I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a friend, I am a co-worker, I am a confidant, I am a full fledged person, and as scary as that is it is so worth it. I don't even know what it means to be half of those things, but I show up everyday, well most days, and I try, which is a lot more than I ever have done. I may not be perfect, shit, I may not even be good at being any of these things but today I care about being the best I can be, and that's huge. For an alcoholic like me, that is huge. 
So while I spent the day thinking about me, I spent it thinking about how I couldn't be me without all of the yous in my life. And I love all of the yous.
My name is Jade, and I am a gratefully recovering alcoholic, I am two years sober and today is the best day of my life.