Today, Saucy Sobriety celebrates its first birthday.

In some ways, it doesn’t seem like a very big deal. Because, well — it isn’t. About 30 of you come back week after week. And, on the days I find this fact discouraging, I remind myself that — it doesn’t matter.

Truthfully. That’s my thesis. The thing that ties everything else together. The bigger thread of my story: It doesn’t matter. — Do it anyway.

I’ve been shuffling back and forth between the “old me” and the “new me” recently. I’m annoyed with my own blurred lines. What’s left of me? What’s gone? What overlaps? What’s completely new?

I’m trying to sort it all out, but, I don’t know what’s worth keeping and what I should discard. I am a yard sale of emotions and feelings. — Pieces of me, just laying around without price tags. I want to get rid of the excess, but, I cling to the sentimental bits.

I peruse my 52 essays for evidence.

What is it about the one-year-mark? We always make these ludicrous assessments of ourselves. I mean, really, how should I fucking know where I stand? Truth be told, even on a good day, I’m still a disaster. I read through my old shit. My drama. All of it,  simultaneously spectacular and completely mundane.

There’s too much to reflect on. A crap-load of raw data that I refuse to analyze. Unfinished paragraphs and half-baked sentences. Still, I slow myself down enough to think about it in the same way I thought about getting sober: Set out to do something. Then, do it.

It doesn’t matter. — Until it does.

Saucy Sobriety is something I’ve felt sure about. Readers or none — it deserved my attention. This place mimics my sobriety. Because, it is my sobriety. — A mess. A carefully edited mess.

We must choose the things that feel important. We must find the places where we are able to do what we set out to do. Especially when it doesn’t matter.

Expectations. — Don’t have them. — Any of them.

Take the world as it comes. Word by word. Pain, misery, joy, love, elation, excitement. Just take it. It’s another essay.

Know — You will lose things. Important things. People. Love. You will lose everything. So, don’t expect wonderful. Expect ordinary. In the end, I truly believe that sincere humility is the greatest of all gifts.

Saucy Sobriety isn’t about the essays. It isn’t about what happened. It’s just the evidence. — I got to be here for it. I got to be present for all the little things that don’t matter at all. And, in being there, I made them matter. I sounded it out. I found my words.

Even this, my 52nd essay, will end. Tonight, the sun will set on my 928th day sober. And, today, I did not expect too much.

Somewhere, at the bottom of some glass, I found the heart of the thing. — When nothing else matters — You change. You make it matter. You assign yourself a new, impossible task. You let yourself be afraid. It doesn’t matter until we make it matter. Our movements, large and small, make no impact until we provide ourselves with the meaning behind them.

So, before I celebrate my actual birthday, I celebrate the birth of something else. Something that’s big and small. Something that’s mine — yours too. And, one year later, I’m still not entirely sure what I intended to say.

But, the what — doesn’t matter. That I was here for it — does.