i have been reading other bloggers' posts with keen interest and with care. one has recently seen a marker of clean time and is looking around finally to see how far he has gotten while he has been fighting to stay clean and where he has landed. i got the impression that he is feeling a bit concerned with how much farther he feel he has to go, and does not notice at all just how marvelously far he has travelled. and maybe he doesn't see just how graceful he has made this journey seem.
another just celebrated his 49th birthday, and i know for me that held some melancholy because of the sheer number. i ain't the spring chicken i once was. but he is a beacon to others and to me and his words honestly help keep me sane. and his kindness and his prose help keep me going forward.
part of what i hope to do with this blog is to encourage other men on this challenging road back to sanity. there is no real easy way to do it without surrender that i have come up with. it goes against how we are raised in american society, but it really is my truth. i have discovered, much to my dismay, that i cannot do everything i want to do when i want. i do not know everything. frankly i can't do very much and i don't know very much. but when i learned to trust that i can thrive not just survive and that the world would make room for me, and that i could be happy, if i let go of specifically how happy should look (i think this is the most challenging), i have begun to heal, to prosper, and know peace.
i am learning to tell myself: i'll be here with you- and mean it..
3 comments:
As usual on a birthday, I tell myself the only thing worse than turning [insert number] is NOT turning [insert number], especially when AIDS and drug addiction made the latter rather likely. Being here is a frigging miracle, by any math.
At the same time, there is no getting around the fact that almost certainly, I have more life behind you than ahead of me, and that is a sobering thought. But if I don't think you or anyone else my age and older is somehow a disappointment because you are neither a bestselling author or own houses here and in France, where you summer, why should I feel that about myself?
As for these lines on my face and the empty space in my bed, there's always botox and I can insist the dog stop sleeping on the couch.
Holy typo! I meant, of course. "more life behind ME" but "more life behind YOU" sure gave me a good laugh!
It's like how we recount the 12th step in Alanon: "...practice these principles in all YOUR affairs..."
JUST KIDDING.
I feel you here and it feels wonderful.
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