We Shouldn't Be Sadder...

I've been praying all the week through
At home, at work and on the bus
I've been praying I can keep you
And to earn enough for us

I can take humiliation
And hurtful comments from the boss
I'm just praying by the weekend
I can earn enough for us

Found a house that won't repair itself
With it's windows cracking
And a roof held together with holes

Just because we're on the bottom of the ladder
We shouldn't be sadder
Than others like us
Who have goals
    for the betterment of life
Glad that you want to be my wife, but honest

I've been praying all the week through
At home at work and on the bus
I've been praying I can keep you
And to earn enough for us

          -"Earn Enough For Us"
           XTC, Skylarking

But You Can Never Leave...

Seven years ago, today.

Everything Changed Then...

It was fourteen years ago today, that we drove home from the flop house on Fort Ave., disheveled and ruined in our best and blackest finery, and stopped at the Perkins to try and sooth our hangovers and our bruised souls with disgusting food and even worse coffee.  We both felt so sick in so many different ways, for so many different reasons.  We sat there and we cried and we tried to look each other in the eye as we fought to figure out what to do with our lives.

And you told me you realized something that night.  You realized you wanted me.  You wanted me more than you wanted anyone else.  You told me that you couldn't bear the idea of losing me.  As a friend, or anything else.

And I knew right then, you had me.  Completely.  Always.

Kallisti...

Another year, but what a year!
And all that you've done, so amazing my dear!
A new career
        and new prospects
        a new outlook on life
Two new husbands you've lived through
        and held strong through the strife
That I thank all the gods that you are my wife
So I could witness, in joy, your Becoming this year

So thus goes a year that you'll want to remember
All the way through to your last December
A year where you've grown
And made life your own
And fanned flames from your glowing ember

As the wealth and the riches of this year are now yours
Then what glory for you has the next year in store?
I'll say it
        I'll scream it
        louder and LOUDER
Being yours this year
        I've never been prouder
But of one thing I'm certain:  I've never Loved you more

Preliminary Results...

Okay, that was not at all what I expected.

I didn't actually know what to expect, exactly, but I had some ideas that seemed plausible and/or probable.  But what actually happened was something I had never even thought of.

For starters, it was a lot harder to actually do than I thought it would be.  Holding a bottle of beer in my hand for the first time in a year, I was surprised by how difficult it was to make myself take a drink.  I assumed I would be jumping right into that bottle.  But I'd been entirely focused on not drinking for an entire year of my life.  And knowing that as soon as I took that first sip, all of that was done, over, finished, made it difficult to do.  I had to intentionally and purposefully bring to an end something that I had invested a lot of time and energy into.  And I had a lot of mixed feelings about that.  It wasn't all happiness and "yeah, I did it!"  It was a lot more "I can't believe it's over" and "am I sure about this?"  It was very strange.  And, as I said, unexpected.

Also unexpected was the degree to which my tolerance has tanked.  I knew that my tolerance would be significantly lower than it was a year ago, but I don't think my tolerance has ever been as low as it is right now.  I was noticeably altered from a half of a beer.  And not just a little bit, either.  It was almost overwhelming.  From a half of a beer.

But the worst thing - and I really never, ever saw this coming - was that I didn't actually enjoy it.  Any of it.  I couldn't find any of the sensations I used to enjoy about it.  It was a wholly different experience now, and I didn't like it.  I just felt dizzy and nauseated.  None of the happiness or relaxation that I've come to expect from alcohol.

I was prepared for the possibility of liking it too much.  It never occurred to me that I might not like it at all.  And I'm finding myself really upset about that.  I liked enjoying alcohol.  And all I wanted to do here was try and learn how to enjoy it in a responsible way.  I never would've done this if I'd known that it was going to completely eliminate my ability to enjoy it at all.

All I wanted to do was try and learn how to drink in moderation.  Not become someone who can't drink, and doesn't want to.

Now what?

Falling Back Screaming...

Tomorrow night, at sundown.

I can't believe it's almost here.  The other end of this beginning.  It's almost staggering, really.  It's very difficult to concentrate on anything else.  And every hour seems to crawl slower and slower, the closer I get to the finish line.

I wish I was happier about it all.  I thought I would be.  I always thought this would be a joyous moment of celebration and triumph.  But I don't feel any of that.  I'm just anxious and worried.  I don't know what about, exactly.  Just fear of the unknown, I guess.  And I'm kinda pissed off, too.  But that's unrelated.  Just getting in the way, and making everything just that much more confusing and difficult.

And disappointed, too.  Because I was looking forward to this so much, and I worked so hard to get here, and it just seems really unfair for me to not be enjoying it now.  I feel like I earned this, bought it with pain and sacrifice, but now in the end I'm not getting my reward.  Just seems wrong.  Fucking cosmic gyp.

But I think I'm looking at it the wrong way.  I've been so obsessed with this moment over the last few weeks, that I've lost my focus.  It's not about this moment.  It was never about this moment.  When I decided to do this one year ago, it wasn't so that I could feel happy when it was all over.  It was about the experience of the past year.  It was about learning, and growing, and earning another opportunity to shape myself to the form that I want.  This moment was inevitable, but it wasn't the point.

I don't need to enjoy this.  Any more than I needed to enjoy the past year.  I just need to do it.

And maybe that's all this is, really:  natural grief over the end of something important to me, something I've spent a significant period of my life focused on, and working toward.  Every ending is also a new beginning of something else.  And grief is a natural response to an ending.  And since I don't know what to expect from this new beginning, there's little joy or excitement about what-comes-next to temper that grief.  And so I just end up feeling sad and anxious, when it seems like I should feel proud and elated.

And the bitter irony of it all is, all this just leaves me feeling like I could really use a drink.

Fifty-one Down...

Only one week left.  Just seven days (and three hours) from now, I will have completed one of the most significant accomplishments of my life so far.

I wish I knew how to feel about that.

About To Get Wet...

thirteen days
and I'm feeling unlucky
less than two weeks
until
I break this self-imposed fast
and I don't know
what I'm feeling
anymore
so excited
overly anxious
prematurely proud
afraid
it will all go wrong

I've never wanted
a drink
more than I do right now
and every day
that is true
all over again
how will I feel
with three days to go?
with two?
that first sip of whiskey
might make me cry

what if I can't handle it
what if I get depressed again
what if I lose my creativity
what if I can't write anymore
what if I can write
but I don't want to
what if I can write
and I want to
but I don't feel anything when I do
what if I don't feel anything

I only learned
to express myself
when I stopped
only started to write
when I dried up
so now I'm afraid
dipping my toe back
into that
golden Kentucky spring
could take that all away from me
and I don't know
what I'd do without this
how I'd deal without this
who I'd be without this
joy of
turning inward
feeling around
pulling something out
pouring over it
crafting it
shaping it
until it's just right
and then
casting it out
into the universe
to be its own

if I have to choose
I know what I'll choose
but either way
I'll lose
something
I love
and I won't be
me
anymore

Three-hundred Fifty-one...

Only two weeks left.

Two weeks from today, I will drink a beer.  A Guinness.  In a bottle.  And then I will have a glass of whiskey.  Eagle Rare bourbon, my favorite.  On the rocks, in my favorite glass tumbler.  And who knows what else after that.

I can't tell what I'm feeling.  Something like excitement, but not quite.  Almost anxiety, but not exactly.  Anticipation?  Fear?  Some jumbled soup of them all, most likely.

I want it so badly.  I've never wanted a drink this much in my entire life.  I want a drink right now more than I ever, ever wanted a drink when I actually was drinking.

I feel so proud of myself for actually accomplishing this.

I feel guilty for feeling this way, and I try to suppress it, reminding myself that I haven't actually accomplished anything yet.  I have two weeks left to go.  I can feel proud then.  And celebrate with a drink.

I'm so scared that something bad is going to happen.  That I'm going to go off the deep end and lose control in some way that I never have before.  That I'm going to end up in another of those deep chemical depressions.  That I'm going to lose all of my creativity and desire to express myself.  That I'm going to lose the ability to write poetry.  Or worse, that I'm going to lose the ability to enjoy writing.  I'm scared of some other bad result that I haven't even thought of.

I'm scared of the fact that I don't know what's going to happen.

But I have to find out.

I have to know if I can handle it or not.

I have to find out how else the last year has changed me.

It's Almost Later Now...

I've noticed recently that, the closer I get to my one-year-sober anniversary, the more I'm craving a drink.

I haven't had a chance to discuss it here yet, but I am planning to let myself have a drink that day, and see what happens.  If anything.  (Hopefully, nothing will.)  I've always said that I made the decision to be sober for "at least a year," because I didn't want to set a hard-and-fast deadline for it.  I wanted to play it by ear, and do it for as long as I felt it was necessary, and not as long as some arbitrary date I thought was a good idea before I'd even started.  But I also always knew somehow that, by the time I got to this point, unless there was a really compelling reason to extend it, then it was just going to be a year.  Because the fact is, after making it one year, I'm very proud of myself, and I feel that is a really significant accomplishment.  Enough so that I don't feel the need to keep it going indefinitely.  I'm satisfied, for now.  And the other side of that coin, is that it's been difficult, and unpleasant, and I'm really just tired of it, and ready to see what change, if any, this year has bought me.  And the only way to see what effect it has had is to experiment, and see what happens.  So, that's the plan for Walpurgisnacht, 2013.

Anyway, that's a topic that deserves its own entire post, and I've been wanting to get to that for some time now.  But I had to at least mention it here for this post to make sense.  Because as I've been thinking about this upcoming Witches' Night, and planning out what I'm going to do, and how, and why, I've found myself getting really excited.  Wow, it's been almost an entire year!  Only one month to go.  Then I finally get to have a Guinness and a bourbon again.  I can't believe it!  And the more I think about it, and the more excited I get, the more I start to crave it.  Crave it in a way that I haven't craved it for almost the entire year I've been sober.

I don't want to say this year has been easy, but it also hasn't been especially difficult.  There have definitely been some very difficult moments, where I really wanted a drink and had to try really hard to avoid it.  But, by-and-large, on any given day, I haven't had to think about it.  I certainly haven't had to deal with resisting strong cravings on a regular basis.  But as the anniversary day approaches, I'm finding myself doing exactly that.  Knowing that I'm going to finally get to have some again so soon is making me really want some right now.  I'm like a kid at the beginning of December, counting down the days with my advent calendar.  And every day I'm getting a little more excited, a little more anxious, and it's a little harder to resist, and I'm wishing harder and harder that it could just be Christmas already!  

Until recently, the end of this period has always been in some half-formed "future."  Whenever I wanted a drink, I'd just tell myself, "Not now; I'll have one later."  And I didn't have to think about when "later" was.  It was just "later."  But now I can see that "later" quite clearly.  So instead of telling myself, "Not now; I'll have one later," it's become, "Not now; I'll have one in five weeks."  And pretty soon that's going to be, "Not now; I'll have one in a month."  And so on.  And the smaller that number gets, the louder and more insistently some part of me says, "Fuck it!  Close enough."  And then the more energy I need to expend shutting that voice up.  (Because there's no such thing as "close enough."  I'm going to see this through.  I didn't work this hard and this long only to fuck it up right here at the end.)

I didn't anticipate how much simply defining that "later" was going to effect me.  But as soon as it went from Vague to Specific, everything changed.  Such a minute distinction, but it apparently made all the difference.

Lesson learned.

The Realization Of My Tautologies...

It's been five years
since the Moon spoke to me
And I did my best to listen
and remember

I'd never been more lost
never felt more alone and confused
never been closer to death
than I was that year
Technically an accident
but living so recklessly
"accidents" become a near certainty
so I am not free of responsibility
I nearly ended my self

Grasping at straws for months on end
Clutching at any whispered fragment of hope
of a Way Out
One morning
I heard a news report
about an upcoming celestial event
a Total Lunar Eclipse
of the Full Moon
I barely noticed it
thought nothing of it
changed the channel
and landed on a cartoon
about the embodiment of the Tao
in the Spirit of the Moon
and something clicked
I know that click
I'm intimately familiar with that click
I have been my whole life
But it'd been almost a year since I'd last felt it
I thought it was gone
gone forever
but here it was again
from a news report
and a cartoon
a cartoon!
of all things
but unmistakeable nonetheless
something about the Tao
and the Moon
and an eclipse

That night five years ago
the night of the eclipse
I didn't know what to do
I almost gave up
but I finally decided to go through with it
out of a sense of absolute desperation
I had nothing left
I might as well
At the appointed time
I took my posture
half-lotus in front of my altar
set flame to candle
and recel
I tried to relax
to let go
to empty myself
I found my Center Mind
and reached inward
to the Void
When it was time I let myself go
drifting up out of my body
flying through the atmosphere
floating in space
above the Earth
staring at the glowing white surface of the Moon
filling my vision
with cratered beauty
and profound grace

And I waited
I watched as a shadow crept across the face of the Moon
from East to West
as the Earth behind me
moved slowly between us and the Sun
And I waited
until the shadow blotted out the Moon entirely
leaving me in darkness
And I waited

And nothing happened

And I felt something inside me break
I had been so certain
that click had always meant The Way before
but nothing had happened
I must really be Lost then
so I gave up
and started to let myself fall back to my body

Just then
the eclipse broke
as the Earth continued on its Way
the shadow began to leave the face of the Moon
a brilliant crescent of white light blinded me from the eastern edge
and I heard a voice that was not my own say

All things that Are, are Change

As amazing as the experience was
a voice inside my head
that I did not recognize
I was still let down
What it had said was
hardly news to me
a paraphrasing of Heraclitus
"All things that Are, are Fire"
The only Constant is Change
Nothing is Certain
except Uncertainty
et cetera
I knew that
had been living it
for years
the purview of Chaos
Nothing is True
and Everything is Permitted
Kids' stuff
arm-chair mysticism
Tell me something I don't know
I said
And the voice answered

You cannot be Good
You cannot be Bad
You can only Be

And suddenly I knew
what should've been obvious
all along
Good and Bad are entirely subjective
just ideas
not Truth
their existence depends entirely
on our particular point of view
at any given moment
there is no single thing in this Universe
that is entirely Good
or entirely Bad
every single thing is both
Good and Bad
depending on your circumstance
your point of view
how you look at it
just as no single thing in this Universe
is entirely Yin
or entirely Yang
every single thing is both
Yin and Yang
that is the Way
that is the Tao

How had I lost sight of that?
What had happened to me?
I wanted more
I knew there was more
I asked the Spirit of the Moon
What else?
and Manni-Moon-Yin replied

Look on the Bright Side
Make the Most of it

Again it suddenly seemed so obvious
it followed naturally that
if all things are both
Good and Bad
then it must be our choice
to view them either one way
or the other
Joy is not a circumstance
Happiness is not an event
something beyond our control
that we must wait for
wait until it happens to us
No
It is a choice
it is something that we do
or don't do
So if there is Good in every single thing
then all I need to do
is choose to see it

Reeling
Overwhelmed
Overcome
Humbled
Awed
I asked
Is that all?
And Manni-Moon-Yin replied

You are Amazing
And so is Everyone Else

Human existence is
astronomically improbable
We should not exist
We are the end result
of a billion
one-in-a-billion chances
all coming up Jackpot
even the worst of Us
is an absolute fucking miracle of Nature
the most amazing thing in the known Universe
the Living Embodiment of Tao
a Human Being
an astounding accident
a chemical formula so complex
that it has become aware of itself
and I am one of them
and I should never lose sight of that
I am one of these ridiculously
outrageously
amazing pinpoints of sentience
and so is every single other person I will ever see
or hear
or touch
or encounter in any way
throughout my entire life
Each person is an Individual
and I can't know them
can't know their experience
or their circumstance
so it is unfair
and pointless
and rather ridiculous
to try and judge them
when we are all equally amazing
each in our own Way

I said Goodbye then
to Sifu
to Master
to Manni-Moon-Yin
and slowly fell back to Earth
back to my body
back to my self
anchored by Knowing
by finally Knowing
something
some True thing
again
with certainty
and clarity

To this day
I do not know
whose voice I heard that night
the Moon Spirit's
or my own
my Unconscious
and I don't care
it makes no difference to me
either way
because the words that voice spoke
are Truth
undeniable
inarguable
solid
foundational
Truth
and I will remember them
for as long as I live
and as long as I remember them
I will never again
be lost

Nine Months...

Nine months
since My
Last
Drink.

Nine months.

That is
Significant
in an obvious way.

Nine months,
Today.

Nine months since
I last sipped
purposeful poison.
Nine months since
I last heard
the beautiful
tink-tink-tink
of ice
swirling around
into amber
glass
wall.
Nine months since
I last melted
away
into caramel-
and smoke-
flavored
oblivion.
Nine months since
I last felt
the burning hole
in my gut
weep red and raw
and wail for more
More
MORE.

Nine months since.

Nine months today.

Does that make me a new man?
Am I a New Man yet?
Am I re-born?

The bags
under my eyes
are gone
but it's still Me
I see
looking back
from that glass.

It's still Me.
I'm the Same Man.
I just found
some New Pleasures.
And New Problems
to go with them.

Happy Birthday,
Little Man.

Give And Take...

So, apparently today marks six months since my last drink.  Pretty happy about that.

Also, my wife dropped her phone in the toilet.  Less happy about that.

It would seem my world is in balance.

Eleven...

When the Earth was still flat
And clouds made of fire
And mountains stretched up to the sky
Sometimes higher

Folks roamed the Earth
Like big rollin' kegs
They had two sets of arms
They had two sets of legs
They had
Two faces peerin'
Out of one giant head
So they could
Watch all around them
As they
Talked while they read
And they never
Knew nothin' of Love
It was before...

The origin of Love

Now there was three sexes then
One that looked
Like two men glued up back-to-back
They're called the Children of the Sun
And similar in shape and girth
Was the Children of the Earth
They looked like
Two girls rolled up in one
And the Children of the Moon
Was like a fork shoved on a spoon
They was part Sun
Part Earth
Part daughter
Part son

Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill 'em all with my Hammer
Like I killed the giants."
But Zeus said, "No.
You'd better let me
Use my lightning like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
And then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle,
Gonna cut 'em right up in half."

And the storm clouds
Gathered above
Into great balls of fire

And then fire
Shot down from the sky in bolts
Like shining blades of a knife
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the Children of the Sun and the Moon and the Earth
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole
Pulled it 'round to our belly to remind us
Of the price we paid
And Osiris
And the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane
To scatter us away
A flood of wind and rain
A sea of tidal waves
To wash us all away
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hoppin' 'round on one foot
And lookin' through one eye



The last time I saw you
We'd just split in two
You was lookin' at me
I was lookin' at you
You had a way so familiar
But I could not recognize
Cause you had
Blood in your face
I had
Blood in my eyes
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same
As the one down in mine

That's the pain
That cuts a straight line down through the heart
We call it "Love"
We wrap our arms around each other
Try to shove ourselves back together
We was makin' Love
Making Love

It was a cold, dark evening
Such a long time ago
When by the mighty hand of Jove...

It was a sad story
How we became lonely, two-legged creatures
That story...

The Origin of Love

           -"The Origin of Love"
             Hedwig & The Angry Inch

Candles...

This has been a pretty hard year for you, I know.

And I know I haven't made it any easier.

I don't know if I'm your rock anymore, or if you're mine.  But I know that somehow, we're holding each other up.  Hanging in there, together.  For one more year.

One more year.  And it wasn't all bad.  Not at all.  In the end, when you think about it, in most ways things are actually better for you now than a year ago.  And I think you deserve to enjoy that; to feel proud of what you've accomplished this year.

I wish I had more to give you.  A better way to say, "I'm proud of you."

"I'm inspired by your strength."

"I love you."

I'd fulfill your heart's every secret desire, today and every day, if I had one wish.  But wishes are fairytales, for princesses locked in lost towers.  And I'm no Prince Charming.

But I am your White Knight.

And I always will be.

I can't do it for you; I can't give you everything you deserve.  But I'll keep you safe, and warm, and comfortable, and take care of the things you need, to give you a life as free of fetters as I can make it; to give you the room you need to make that life for yourself.

And I can give you today.

You so deserve it.

It's your day.

Take it.

Run with it.

What do you want to do?

One Hundred...

I've got a ton of work to do, and I'm already ridiculously behind, and I have to leave early today to get to my counseling appointment and then rush home for a condo board meeting and it's not like I have a computer at home to post from right now anyways, so this is my 100th post since I started this blog, and I have absolutely nothing worthwhile to post about, nor any time in which to do it.

Fabulous.

Diamonds and Tin...

These have been the best 10 years of my life.

Thank you.

I will Love you, forever, Snowflake.

Happy Anniversary.  :*