For most of the day today, it was just a repeat of yesterday.
After waking up in the morning, I went to Walmart and finally bought some groceries, including a whole crap ton of stuff that was against my diet because… I wasn’t doing very well, and I was back on a track toward relapse.
I spent pretty much all day from the time I got up until just after 6:00 p.m. just watching YouTube videos at different places.
Being winter time, many of the public bathrooms in parks are closed and locked, so I ran to a different Walmart to use the bathroom, where I also bought a bowl for breakfast cereal.
I was super surprised that the Walmart that I went to first didn’t sell any Walmart brand soy milk at all. They had, and no exaggeration on this, like five full rows of great value brand almond milk, but zero soy milk. There wasn’t even a slot for it.
It certainly is interesting the differences you find in product offerings and purchasing tendencies in different places. Apparently, they don’t much like their soy milk out in Lindon.
I forgot to check if they had any in American fork when I went to the Walmart by the Mount timpanogos Temple to use the bathroom and buy a bowl.
Oops.
So I ended up buying the silk brand of soy milk, which has a bunch of sugar in it, but what did that matter when I totally broke down and bought a whole crap ton of sugar anyway.
Funny thing is I haven’t really craved the junk. I think it was just… Emotionally not doing so well that walking by the aisles that had that stuff on it, I was like yeah why not. I can do what I want.
So now I feel a little sick from all the crap I shoveled into me. 😅
When 6:00 rolled around, I didn’t want to go to My brother’s house for a post Christmas Christmas dinner with him and my mom and his kids in their spouses and whatnot. I just wanted to be alone still, but I had said that I was going to go, so I went, and I’m really glad I did because it was a massive pick me up, and I basically completely forgot about all my own concerns the moment I got there.
It was great to be able to interact with my brother and his kids and their spouses and his grandkid and my mom.
Good stuff. 😊
My brother was super generous and gave me all sorts of stuff for Christmas, with me not having gotten him anything at all. 😅
My mom and I left early because it was my other brother’s birthday, so we drove from Highland over to herriman, where I spent much much longer than I expected to with my other brother.
He had a whole bunch of people over for a surprise birthday party that he wasn’t expecting. I guess that’s kind of what a surprise birthday party is… 🙃.
After they left, the son of one of the people who was there popped over to wish my brother a happy birthday, and he’s a young guy, 19, who’s really into working on his cars, so the three of us ended up chatting cars for… Gosh must have been hours.
After that, Richard gave me a bit of a tour around his place with what he’s been doing with his house remodel. Lots and lots and lots and lots of work.
I’m hoping to find a way to help him get done quicker, so I can have a better chance of convincing him to get his little butt out on a vacation–actually traveling somewhere. 🙃
I don’t think I left his house until gosh, close to 1:00 a.m.? After which I drove up to Cory’s place in Salt Lake, where I crashed for the night in his Suburban bed that he left open for me.
Thanks, Cory!
I’m really grateful to have not relapsed. I reached out after I noticed the pattern of behavior that I was following was most likely going to end up going that direction, because I was watching my self-discipline collapse in several areas, and that pretty much pointed toward a relapse.
Gratefully, I had a really good time at both brothers’ places, which had me completely forget about all of the other stuff going on.
I want to get myself back on track. It’s really hard to follow my routine out here, mostly because I’ve been keeping poor hours and staying in my car like I usually do, which is not so conducive to wanting to wake up at 4:20 in the morning when the car is 15°. 😅
Choices…
My number one goal on getting back on track is getting back on track with the Big Guy. I forgotten to pray almost all the time. Without my routine, I think that was much of what was keeping me in the habit, having completely lost the habit after two-ish years of not really talking to God at all except to curse him out.
So I want to get that back, because that and my super weak, nearly non-existent, gospel study have taken a toll on my emotional health. At least I believe that’s what’s significantly impacted what’s been going on emotionally, and how I’ve struggled to react constructively to the challenges that I’m facing, such as with my brain not working very well when I try and work on the things that are important to me.
The most important thing to me in the whole world right now is to be close to God again. I want to make sure that I’m back making my choices in harmony with my deepest values, and not out of fear, and I want to make sure that I’m seeing guidance from the Lord and can do so with “boldness”, so that I am ready for that guidance if and when He has any He wants to share, but that a I’m living in harmony with my own heart in the meantime and I’m the process.
Gonna spend some time with Cory.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 