Tuesday at Two

One breath away, we are all one breath away my sponsor always says.  He has guided me along now for almost six years...why though?  Helping me hasn't been that hard I suppose. I have been an excellent study, followed the rules, and done the work.  I have listened, and "taken the cotton out of my ears" as they say. 

He always says, "Daniel, this is it, the real thing. Here we are, and this isn't a dress rehearsal".  He asks me to open the passenger door on my truck whenever I get in, and then to "ask God to come along for the ride."  I am supposed to call him every night.  I have stopped that now after all these years, but I feel like I still should check in more.  After all, without his help, I would not have made it this far.

It was 2009, and things were bad.  It was 2010, and things were worse.  It wasn’t the world, or the people, or anything else other than me.  Then one day it all changed. A breath left me, this time with a sigh of sadness, at the end of a long dirt road.  It was September 10, 2010.  A beginning to the terrible end, truth, and lies, sadness and anger, all wrapped up in a torrent of loathing and self-hatred. "Why did I let this happen, why did I do this to myself, what is wrong with me?"

"Keep coming back", "Easy does it", "First things first" ... all sayings that became far too familiar.  A man showed me the way; another one told me what not to do. Sometimes I was told to sit down, shut up, show up, and just keep my head down low.  "Keep a low profile," he said.  Minutes pass, "get involved," he said.  The days and weeks that followed turned up more contradictions.  They all said to "take it slow, and not to make any significant changes in the first year."  Then they all said, "the only thing I need to change is everything."  Confusion and disbelief shortly turned to relief and a limited understanding of what was happening to me.

As time passed, I learned about me. I learned I am this way just because, and that is all there is to that.  There is no reason for me.  So many have a reason, but for me it just was.  I learned I had an ego. I learned I had a temper.  My life was back.  Two years, then three, four, five, and now here.  In another two months, I will be officially six years old.  Have I figured it out yet?

What it is like: always clear, never an excuse for how you act, never a reason to blame.  Confrontation on a daily basis with yourself, refreshing and disgusting at times.  "Living life on life's terms - One day at a time."   

This is life today.  It is good, believe it or not.  So much better than anything I ever knew before.  I struggle with my mind, my restless spirit that always is searching for meaning.  If I could have only been a believer, or at the very least a true atheist then life could have been so much more straightforward.  I am not.  I am neither, and because of this, I am eternally trapped between the believers and the certain.  Life after death, sure, sounds nice.  Nothing, well that just sounds terrible.  Which one it is will have to wait a few more years, I hope.

Examples of better times: conversations about all of this, parties with intent and real motives, loving of people that I never really loved, open-mindedness, humility, lack of control begetting earnestness, honest intentions, dishonest actions with a solution, one hundred million reasons that I cannot fully comprehend because it is Tuesday at two o'clock in the afternoon and somehow I am 35 years old going on 6.  

Examples of worse times: uncontrolled being in my skin, not being able to check out, needing to reconcile wrongdoing immediately or paying a much larger price, not being able to resent anymore, to hate anymore, to loath and sit in the mud and muck and enjoy that anymore.

Solutions: people. Other people caring for themselves, and leading to my salvation. Somehow, it is all about people; helping them and they help you.  

This is what it has all come down to. I sit and write this quick piece, hoping that in doing so it might ring true in some way.  Hoping here and now that life can make sense, and it does for the moment.  Writing it all out makes sense.