Hey there, it's ya boi  AnthemTheMalamutt . I hope all of you are doing well, living your best life, doing the succeeding thing, etc.

A bit that's gone on since my last explanation journal; became a dad officially, kid is out of mom, etc., got my class b CDL, rescued a kitten from a train (previously briefly mentioned), and as of writing this I'm currently just over five weeks (36 days) sober. That's like almost all of lent for the religious folk. Let's face it, lent is a great excuse to avoid taxes by selling fried fish out of a religious building that may or may not even be licensed by your local health department. A bit more detail...

Became A Dad
So yeah, this one was unexpected. Not the procreation part, although I'm honestly surprised it took as long as it did all things considered... XD Hooray for PCOS and fertility issues on both sides! Anyway, skip ahead to Jan 11th, go to the hospital for a non stress test, basically they sit you down and monitor your blood pressure and the baby. We're told that they're going to keep my wife for 24 hours for observation, then a few hours later the doctor on call comes in and tells us that she's having the baby either today or tomorrow. 31ish hours of labor later, our daughter was born on the evening of Jan 12th and rushed to the NICU due to events that led to an emergency Cesarean.

Let me tell y'all, I have NEVER cried as much as I did in those two days. The overwhelming emotions, the worry I had for my wife and daughter, the built up feelings I had cast aside to be that rock and stability that I thought my wife needed throughout pregnancy... It all came crashing down and right out the window when they told us we had to stay at the hospital. Hell, I've still been processing stuff and have cried almost every single day since then. Its almost as if the jar I used to put all of my feelings and emotions in is still broken and leaking? Or I'm just a bitch, who knows?

Got my Class B CDL
This one was a bit more expected in the sense that it was one of my conditions of hire at my current job. Studied my ass off, test drove a couple of plow trucks for road training, and most of what I learned wasn't even needed. Apparently they dumbed down the test and are a lot more lenient. As long as you know how to properly perform an air or hydraulic brake test and maneuver a larger-than-normal vehicle, it is not that hard and opens up many more doors for employment/raises.

Rescued A Kitten from a Train
This one is a doozy. My sister-in-law ended up getting herself, her boyfriend, my wife and myself, tickets to an event at the Field Museum in Chicago where they give you full access to the museum, provide light food and alcohol, and just have an all around good time supporting science one vodka lemonade at a time. We ended up taking the train up to the museum because we knew three out of the four of us were going to be drinking and we decided to be responsible and at most end up with a public intoxication charge and not a DUI. Anyway, museum was fun. Spent WAY too much time in the hall of minerals, but that's to be expected for myself. About four hours later, we decide that its probably best to catch the 11:20pm train home. We get to the platform (this is in mid-November, mind you) and we wait. 11:20 rolls around, no train. Then 11:30, 11:40, 11:50, and still no train. All of our phones are close to dead, we check the website for the train, and we see that the 11:20pm train was cancelled due to mechanical issues and riders are permitted to use their tickets on the 12:50am train.

Great... Not only is it cold, but three of us are drunk, the other one is pregnant, and we're basically sitting outside waiting for a train because the shelter smelled like rotten piss. the 12:50am train came a bit late (around 1:10am) and we're on our way home. Since the previous train was cancelled, they put us in the very back train car due to higher volume than normal. We get off at our home platform (which sits maybe 30 or so feet above the parking area/rest of the ground) and we're walking toward the door and we hear what sounds like a child screaming/crying. It's about 2am at this point so we figured someone had to wake their child up to get off the train. As we continue down the platform, the cries get louder and we stop and look at each other, noting that it sounds more like meowing than crying. We walk further down to the next bench/shelter where we stop and look around and we find this sweet, 5 month old kitten just screaming her poor little head off. My wife bends down, scoops her up, checks her out to make sure she's not hurt, and we take her with us. So many people walked right on by this kitten and didn't give her a second thought. As we're walking down the stairs in the station, the kitten starts talking and chirping in reply to my wife asking "how the hell did you get up there? Yeah, trains are scary, huh?"

With us being soon-to-be parents with animals that don't appreciate newcomers as much, my sister-in-law and her brother decided to take her. It took a while to come up with a name, but we ended up agreeing on Dot (Department of Trains) because that's the only one that seemed to fit. She's doing well now, been checked out by the vet and made sure she wasn't chipped or anything, and if so we would have made sure she was returned home.

Sobriety
I know I've mentioned my journey to sobriety here before, and it may sound like a New Year's Resolution or a Dry January attempt, but I can assure you that it's not that. Last time I drank was new years eve. After I went a little too hard on the sauce, not only did I decide to take a break, but my current employer started doing split shifts at the beginning of the year, and my crew started on the overnight shift. Not being one to be day drunk or day drink, I couldn't bring myself to drink during the first week of overnights. Come that Sunday, that's when the hospital visit that led to my daughter being born started. I spent all but one night of the five nights my wife did at the hospital, and I wanted to stay sober on the off chance that if anything happened, I could jump into action and do what I needed to do to help. After my wife was released and my daughter stayed in the NICU, my wife wasn't allowed to drive due to the medications and postpartum healing, thus refer to the reason for sobriety above. After this past month and everything we've been through, I could not bring myself to even pick up a drop of alcohol. My extra alcoholic beverages that I didn't finish are still at my mother-in-law's house so the temptation is virtually nonexistent.

Is it difficult? Sometimes, but I almost don't have a desire to drink anymore because I don't want to let my family down. Even though my wife has said she doesn't mind if I do go back to drinking, I don't want to be out of control, because that's how I drink. I drink to not feel. I drink to shut my brain off. I can't do the "one drink every once in a while to calm the nerves" thing. That's not how I am and I know that, which pushes me further to stay away from the alcohol. So what did I do? I bought an espresso machine, not only to save money but to keep my mind off of one poison (alcohol) and focus on another (caffeine) because the caffeine at least keeps me awake and alert if my anxiety keeps pushing me to think something bad may happen.


Anyways, thank you for bearing with me and letting me rant for a bit. Remember, you are awesome. You are loved. You are worth it. This world is better with you in it, even if you may not think so all the time.


With Love,
 AnthemTheMalamutt