So, these days are a strange time to be sober, huh?

I feel like it’s pretty much the same story for a lot of people just staying cooped up inside all day, but it’s nice to finally go for a walk when work is over and just sort of be outside. My wife and I went for a nice, long walk and I thought about how, not that long ago, I would have found this quarantine to be the perfect excuse to get black-out drunk a couple times a week. You can’t go anywhere. You can’t do anything. Getting shit-faced by myself, then going online, or streaming hours of TV, would be the perfect combo.

I’m actually really glad I’m sober these days, because I can already predict what would happen to me if I were drinking: It would worsen every anxious feeling I’m having right now. My depression would be dialed up to the max. It would be awful. At least right now I’m getting plenty of exercise.

I’m working from home these days. A little over a year ago, I officially quit smoking cigarettes, too. I could definitely see myself back in the day doing work outside smoking cigarettes and being like, “Hell, yeah! Found a loophole so I can smoke and work at the same time!”

When I look back on my diary during this time, I think this COVID-19 situation will marked by two things: Cooking lots of meals using my Instant Pot and playing lots of Animal Crossing to stay sane. Instant Pot and Animal Crossing… it’s a winning combination. I’ve been making hard boiled eggs, brown rice, beans and building myself a nice little home in a fictional world with talking animals. I never played an Animal Crossing game before, so I was genuinely surprised by how much I like it. It’s nice to soak in some of the more simple pleasures, like laying in a hammock while a breeze blows through some trees. It’s just what I need right now.

I’m staying fit these days. I’m exercising a lot, going for lots of hikes and walks and lifting weights. I’m also wearing exercise shorts and sweat pants a lot. When this whole thing is over, man, what I want to do is wear some grownup clothes, like slacks and a button-up shirt, and I wanna go to a nice-ass Mexican restaurant and just stuff my face. And I wanna bring money to tip the mariachis. And then after that I wanna go to the movies! I wanna live, dammit! LIVE!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to stay home to help the containment and everything, because I’m not to much worried about myself getting sick, I just don’t want to get anyone else sick who might be seriously jeopardized if they do. I just miss the little things I definitely took for granted. Like toilet paper. But I’ve been writing a lot–I wrote this for Moviejawn about the best end-of-the-world movies to watch right now, and I finished a short story I really like so far, but it needs a lot of work.

And I drew this, too.

I hope everyone else is keeping safe during this time. When I was getting sober, over a year ago, I never would have thought I could have survived something like this without being able to get drunk for the escape. Sometimes shit gets raw when you’re sober, but I’m consistently happy I made this choice.