20 years

Looking back it seems a long time ago though it really was just yesterday.  I remember it hard at first, like any great change. Like the first year of medical school. Like moving from a different city here. Like learning to sail a yacht or learning to hunt a moose. It was that kind of learning. Steep at first.  But worth it.
I remember feeling like I had walked across the floor of parliament changing sides from the opposition who blamed and explained to being responsible and holding myself responsible.  Taking the high road for a change rather than the low road.  Living freedom not license.  Understanding empowerment and higher power rather than taking credit but denying regret.  Living for the day and knowing that tomorrow wasn’t a product of yesterday but rather of today. What I did today made all the difference. I could isolate or participate.
I remember letting go of old ways, old friends, old ways of thinking. It was like medical school. The party crowd condemned me and laughed at me studying friday and saturday nights. Some days now I regret missing the pop culture but then i’ve head a crying baby whose life i saved by resuscitating them in the wee small hours when they were born dead. That’s no small thing and it was years to learn and wise men and women who taught me.  It didn’t take near as long to learn drunkeness and drugging and licentiousness and party skills.  I’d been a baby and an animal long before I became civilized and learned.
It was good to remember that first year I’d already learned to walk but had fallen down many times leaving that crawling phase.  I remember the discipline too of avoiding slippery people, places and things. It was too, for my friend who did a tour of duty overseas, like learning the booby trap signs, recognising  those early  signs, that save a life.  I got good at recognizing them and see them  sooner today, knowing better to avoid them.
Because I know I can fall. I’m humble that way. Humility is knowing one’s own limits rather than judging the limits of others.
Mostly it was understanding it wasn’t the behaviour but the thinking. I had such a monopoly on self pity and really was an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. I was thankful too for those who went before leaving me the clues, especially, just for today, and think, think, think.
I went to meetings and avoided my own company.  I loved when the guy told me that the condition was like having sex with a blow up doll and calling it love. I was so easily deceived. I’d been so deceived for so long. I learned especially to doubt the government and radio, and tv and internet.  I still want to drug test the insanity I hear and see because I know how insane one can be while sounding perfectly reasonable.  The emotional are just as bad.  There’s this sober place somewhere between the love and fear that’s really very serene. I like it there today.  I was a  drama junkie younger enjoying getting all worked up.  Now I really ask if I want my dog in the fight. So much is avoidance and awareness now.
I pray today. Almost unceasingly.  I meditate too. I exercise but not enough. I enjoy life in a different way. It’s like being on a different dimension.  I sometimes even feel rocketed but it’s more joyful than pleasurable.  I’m sad at times but it’s not that angry sad I knew so well. It’s less tragecomedy than tragedy or comedy. There’s details I never knew existed and shades and colours I might have known as a child but lost somewhere in my teens.  I’m an adult again in a different way.  But it wasn’t easy at first.
I’ve climbed mountains and sailed across oceans and know that the hardest part is the starting and the first days and weeks. Then it’s a new way, a new life and the old shores and valleys don’t drag you down so much. I just keep on trekking and the peaks and new shores keep appearing. Sometimes I want to go back but then I go to a meeting and hear from someone whose just been there that it has n’t changed.
Today is where I belong. It’s a new day. I’m grateful.  I have to hold onto gratitude.  I ‘m thankful for the teachers, those who had gone before me, a little further ahead.  They taught me I could exchange attitude with gratitude and it’s true. I’ve got a lot more gratitude today.  20 years later.
It’s a new day. Thank you God. Thank you Jesus. God of my understanding.