six on fire

"God, help me to go from where I am, to where I need to be, for who I am."

this september proves to be very much like many others. the weather is spectacular and the newness of my current position still gives me a smile in my heart. i spent this last weekend surrounded by beauty and yet i stepped into an emotional land mine- something that i realize is very much a part of my personal history. it has consisted of a long series of unexpected and unsettling reminders that i am not safe in this world.

crazy beautiful- these septembers. i love them madly and they are a mulligatawny of emotion too. beyond school starting at this time of year, and the end of summer (end of days as it were) it is also now the anniversary another one of the most tumultuous times of my adult life. six years ago today i found myself sitting in the deepest hole i can remember. i had lied (again) and cheated a friend (again), but the most inescapable aspect was that i didn't care. i had painted myself into a corner and the jengo sculpture was gonna collapse. i always like to compare it to the image of a kite caught in a tree. kites are designed specifically to fly and here is this kite twisting and turning unable to do what it is engineered to do. that's is how i felt.

so maybe september is about repurposing for me. reinvention and rebuilding.

so here i find myself still in the thick of that september re-working process that i started on 6 years ago today. i decided that my aod use was not working in my favor and i needed to try another tactic. with so few options or visible examples, i decided to go to a 12-step meeting. i had been enrolled in treatment at a small cllinic. i can't say it was effective, but i can't say it was not either. treatment was so annoying to me that i was determined not to come back.

how ironic that 6 years later, i am working as a counselor and trying to live a life as a recovery advocate. i try to do my best every day, but fall short on so many of them. i care about others, i tell the truth, i run from conflict, i don't have to win. these things make me crazy(er) sometimes, but i can't think of another way.

so i wake up with 6 years sober this morning. i have come a long way and have such a long way to go. the road gets less traumatic, and the hope i hold for good things to come grows. i have many many many people to thank for my sanity, but i especially want to thank my sponsor, my friends, and my family as these particular people have supported me and highlighted both my strengths  and my shortcomings which have helped me to continue growth.

Lay where you're laying
Don't make a sound
I know they're watching
They're watching


All the commotion
the kiddie like play
Has people talking
Talking