Silence is Platinum (Like, Better than Golden)

My husband is going out to a work dinner tonight and my plan is to read. I just started Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle and it is so good I can hardly put it down. Her writing is just - I am not equipped with words to describe how good it is, that’s how good it is. I’ve been up way too late the last couple of nights devouring this book.But let me go back to that first sentence. My husband is out tonight and my plan is to read. If this were 2017, when my drinking was at its most routine and therefore copious, my plan would have been to drink a bottle of wine and zone out in front of whatever was on Bravo TV. These days, I do still watch TV occasionally, but I crave books always. Since ditching booze my “me time” has completely evolved.I used to always try to fill the silence. If I was driving, music was playing. As soon as I put my kids to bed, I’d come downstairs and play a Netflix show on my computer to have on in the background while I made grown-up dinner or cleaned up the kitchen.Now I relish silence. My kids and I love listening to Broadway soundtracks (one of my greatest achievements in parenting) in the car, but when I’m driving alone there is quiet. My evening in-between time (that is, after kids are in bed and before my husband gets home) is almost always quiet, too, now. I cook or clean up or write or tie up any other of the day’s loose ends without feeling like I need to distract myself or stuff my brain with music or a show.Has anyone else experienced this since cutting down on or cutting out alcohol? A renewed appreciation for quiet? And if so, why do you think that is?I attribute my new-found love of silence to the simple fact that I am so much more content and comfortable with myself now. I don’t mind hanging out with myself because I’m no longer wallowing in a sea of shame or fighting the mental to-drink-or-not-to-drink battle all day long.I like experiencing my thoughts now instead of trying to escape or distract from them.I welcome silence as a chance to explore my thoughts, to ponder what I’ll write about today, to reflect, to just exist in a given quiet moment. And they do feel like gifts, these moments.I welcome silence as a chance to check in with a person I’ve been delighted to uncover and get to know. She’s cool, and she’s got some interesting ideas flitting around in this ever-clear head of hers.But she does still love her some "Queer Eye" and "Million Dollar Listing." Because #priorities.