<strong>By Tanya Hazelwood</strong> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Good Guy Wears White</strong></p> I’ve been pulled in many directions lately, being a very busy little bee. So much going on in my life it’s crazy. I have worn or do wear many hats. Hats labeled massage therapist, wife, dog whisperer, mom, soon to be granny, savior of the world, counselor, artist, writer, business owner, crazy aunt, church goer, best friend, taxi driver, maid and all around goofball. Of course, these are just imaginary hats because I would look pretty darn silly walking around with these stacked on my head, cause fact is, I wear most of these hats simultaneously. I’ve always owned all of these hats. Maybe I needed to dust a few of them off and hadn’t worn them a lot but after being sober six months now, I notice one particular hat is missing from my collection. The infamous black cowboy hat donned by a gun totting bad guy in the westerns. That’s right. I probably wore the bad guy hat more than any other. A lot of people thought of me as a bad guy when I was drinking. Everyone, of course, except me. <p align="JUSTIFY">It amazes me how different people view me after only six short months. I remember being upset and I even posted it a time or two on Facebook about how I would love nothing more for someone to say, "Oh, yeah, I know Tanya Hazelwood, she’s a really nice person" instead of the usual "Oh, yeah, I know Tanya Hazelwood, she’s crazy" (and that was the NICE comments about me). But fast forward six months and remove the alcohol. I can’t tell you the compliments I’ve been getting. I haven’t heard the first person refer to me as "crazy" or "drunk" or other names that I can’t print. Nope, now I am being told that I am an inspiration, a nice person, kind, loving and helpful. The funniest part, is I am not doing anything hard or doing anything out of my way to make people say these things about me. I am just being me. Regular old me, doing what I feel in my heart.</p> <p align="JUSTIFY">Had the alcohol in my life really made me into such a bad guy? The proof is in the pudding I guess, because I went searching for that bad guy hat and it’s just gone. Nowhere to be found. I am not saying that it wouldn’t take much to get it back, all I’d have to do is go to the bad guy store aka liquor store and I am sure I could walk out of there right back to enemy #1. But for the time being, I think I prefer to stick to my go to, white, good guy hat and keep on rocking this positivity thing happening in my life. Leave all the negative junk behind me and ride into the sunset. Sure would make for an interesting western movie, wouldn’t it?</p>
