Hard things

I did one of the top 20 hardest things I've ever had to do. Maybe even top 10 or 15. But just to be safe, I'll just say top 20.

I went to a party tonight and chose not to drink at all. This is not a rare thing for me. I've been to many parties without drinking, or drinking very little, especially over the past several months. However tonight was different. Since I'm doing my Soldier enrollment for church on Sunday, this was basically my last opportunity to drink alcohol. However, I made a decision that Wednesday night would be my last night. I made a decision to have my last drink, a super grande Margarita, with my friends from Bible study. I wanted it to be a nice chill time that I could remember and not be getting drunk while enjoying it. It seemed fitting to me to do it with them cause they are the people who encourage me in my endeavors. Not that my other friends, i.e. Vistas, don't understand what I'm doing or anything, or even try to encourage me to drink anyway, but if I said I was going to, they wouldn't question me on it. But it's been cool cause they've all been very supportive and understanding of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

Anyway, tonight was just hard. I still had that freedom to drink without any committments yet not to. I really wanted to drink. I wanted to get drunk even and have a good ol' time...one last time. And driving home, it hit me that I was my last opportunity to do it and I chose not to. I gave that option up.

But, the point is not to say, "oh poor Melissa" or to say it's a bad/sad thing. It's a good thing. Its something that excited me to just see and realize that "hey, this is something I'm committed to doing." I mean, I knew that I was, but I wasn't sure how I would deal with these situations when they came up. I had total freedom tonight to do what I wanted, and I didn't. Not to say I still obviously don't have freedom. I mean, I'm well over 21. If I walk into a bar and order a drink the bartender isn't going to say, "you are a Salvation Army soldier and made a commitment to abstane from alcohol." No, he's going to give me my drink. However, I don't plan on that ever happening. My thing was that, once I make a commitment to something, I go into with every intention to honor it. Sure, people screw up, make mistakes, but it's still that lifestyle of excellence that I want to strive for.

Thinking about ranking this among the single event hardest things I've had to do got me to thinking about what some of them actually were. However, I believe that would have to be another entry at some point.