Notes about my work, projects, training, and life.
You do not find out what you are made of when everything goes right.
You find out when the plan breaks, the pressure stacks, and quitting starts to sound reasonable.
You may lose your footing. You may feel the weight. Just do not surrender the next decision.
Get back up.
Keep swinging.
The day ended up being even fuller than I expected.
After the 4.10-mile run, I spent two hours weed eating and mowing the grass. Then Kelly, Daniel, and I picked up Garrett and Sebastian and met Lily, Brantley, and Theo at the park. We played for a while, then took Garrett and Sebastian to meet-the-teacher night at their school.
Afterward, we all went out for Mexican food before dropping the boys back off with their mom. Kelly and I dropped Daniel off at home, looked for a replacement wedding ring for me, and eventually ordered one from Amazon. I only wear silicone rings because of the work I do.
Once we got home, I still had enough left for a bike ride. Then I finished the day sitting on the back porch watching the sunset.
A run, yardwork, all four grandkids, family time, school responsibilities, a bike ride, and a quiet ending.
This was a damn good day.
Family and fitness are always the priority, and today I am getting both.
I started the day with a strong 4.10-mile run. Now I am getting cleaned up and spending the afternoon with all four of my grandkids.
That is a good day. Not because everything is perfect, but because the things that matter most are getting my time and attention.
Pride wants to explain the failure.
Discipline wants to correct it.
You do not protect your standards by defending your intentions, preserving your image, or building a case around your excuses.
You protect them by owning the miss and returning to the line.
https://jimlunsford.com/recovery-standard-protect-the-standard/
I did not rebuild my life by leaving the door cracked open. I drew a line on August 2, 2015, and I have defended it every day since.
Eleven years is not a finish line.
It is proof.
https://jimlunsford.com/eleven-years-sober-no-exceptions-no-relapse/
Today marks 11 years sober.
At 2:33 a.m. on August 2, 2015, I put down a glass of rum and made the decision to stop destroying my life.
Since that moment, I have not had a drink. I have not smoked marijuana. I have not taken narcotics, even when they were prescribed. There has never been a “just one,” a special occasion, a temporary exception, or a different substance used to make the same old escape acceptable.
Not one relapse.
Eleven years does not mean every day was easy. It means the decision stayed stronger than the hard days. It means I kept the line when life hurt, when I was angry, when I was exhausted, when I lost people, when jobs broke me down, and when escape would have been easier than facing reality.
Sobriety was the first decision. Rebuilding my life has been the work ever since.
I rebuilt my health. I rebuilt my marriage. I rebuilt trust. I became present for my family. I learned how to work, train, lead, build, and live without needing something to numb me first.
I am not sober because I got lucky.
I am sober because I drew a line 11 years ago and have refused to step back across it.
No alcohol. No narcotics. No marijuana. No substitutions. No technicalities. No relapse.
Eleven years sober.
Never go back.
The first half of the shift at the jail was slow, so I used the time to get all of this week’s articles ready to publish on JimLunsford.com.
The second half picked up a little when I had a long transport. Nothing major, but at least it broke up the shift.
Now I am home with three days off in front of me, trying to decide what I am actually going to do with them.
I have a few projects I could work on, plenty of things around the house that could use attention, and enough games waiting to keep me occupied.
For now, I am just glad the shift is over and the next three days belong to me.
I am giving up on using Cypher for scheduling, at least for now.
I have spent too much time fixing the same class of mistakes. I would correct the schedule, test it, verify it, and then another normal conversation would expose another failure.
The frustrating part is that I never wanted another calendar app. I wanted Cypher to have enough awareness of my schedule to reference it naturally while we talked. If I said I was exhausted, it should understand that I worked overnight. If I talked about tomorrow, it should already know whether I was scheduled.
The better design is clear now. Google Calendar should remain the authority, and Cypher should receive a fresh, read-only schedule snapshot with every conversation. No schedule memory. No reconstruction. No guessing.
I may attempt that eventually.
Right now, I am just tired of fixing Cypher.
Not much to report today.
It was just a steady 12-hour shift at the jail. Nothing dramatic, nothing worth turning into a bigger story. Some days are simply about showing up, doing the job, and finishing the shift clean.
Now it is time to relax and play some Pokémon Red.
Tomorrow is a shorter shift, then I have three days off.
I am ready for them.
