Today is a day that’s been growing for 34 years, which does not mean that today is different from any day—at least not really. There will always be a morning, noon, and night.
This will always be so.
I remember being a kid and learning how to tie my shoelaces. I remember how this was something to celebrate, except a time comes when tying your shoes becomes as simple as tying your own shoes, which means the celebration is over. The real question is, what are you going to learn today?
What’s your next goal?
What’s the next benchmark?
No one is going to clap forever . . .
right?
The same thing can be said about learning how to use the bathroom, which was a big deal at one point. However, once you learn how to do something well, the praise goes away, and what you do is to be expected, not cheered.
At the same time, we all need to honor ourselves. We need to acknowledge who we are and what we’ve done.
We need to recognize that there are items in our life that used to drain us, if not kill us yet, somehow, here we are. There are things that we could not do at one point yet, somehow, we managed to learn or figure things out.
We made it through to see another day.
There is something to be said about this.
However, there is something about this day that is both meaningful to me and expected, nonetheless. This is no different from tying my shoes before I leave my home or making it to the train and getting to work on time.
This is what I am supposed to do.
This is my life and, yes, this is me now. This is what I do. I get up each morning. I eat something. I wash my body. I brush my teeth. I put on some deodorant and maybe a little cologne.
Then I dress myself accordingly and make my way to a train, then I walk to the subway, and next, I head to my job in the Trade Center in Downtown, Manhattan.
New York City.
She is always there for me.
The City. And so are you . . .
My Princess and Queen.
There are no accolades when I arrive at work and there are no cheers. No one is proud of me for flushing the toilet behind myself after using the bathroom and, in most cases, no one knows what today means to me.
No one knows that 34 years ago, I walked into a farm which was home and a treatment place for me. No one knows about the 11 months that I lived there . No one knows how I chose to return for a visit, and while I tried to keep my secrets and put on my brave face, I couldn’t hide the lie that I went back to a substance and a life that nearly killed me.
34 years ago today, I looked at the faces who helped me clean up and get sober, and almost instantly, I wept and I cried and I could not stand all the guilt or the shame.
90 days later, I found myself in another rehab facility. This was the first rehab that I went to in the beginning of my recovery. I had been clean for 90 days, or so, yet I still could not stand the pain or the shame or the guilt or the regret. So, I decided to make another attempt to end my own life.
This time, I’d try to hang myself and, somehow, the knot slipped, and the noose let go from the pant leg that I wove around my neck.
I had to use something quick. There was a counselor waiting for me down in the main lobby. I grabbed my jeans because, I assume for obvious reasons, there was no place for me to somehow get a length of rope.
I woke up after becoming unconscious.
I realized what I had just done and what had just happened to me and, somehow, I am still here.
Why?
Why I am here and others went someplace else?
I appreciate kind words as much as the next person, but the same as no one congratulates me for tying my shoes, I understand that this is the same for me as not having a drink, or drugs in my system.
This is what I do. This is who I am.
I don’t drink.
I don’t take recreational drugs to get high.
No. That part of me has not resurfaced for 34 years.
I choose not to do or say much about this day except, of course, I only say this here with you because this is where I come to find you every morning. This is where I come to reconcile before my day begins. And more, this is the only way I know how to hold on and keep you with me when you’re not around.
I don’t need other people to congratulate me ot be proud of me. In all honesty, I don’t want to hear from other people. I do not think about other people. And in all fairness to us, I only want to hear from you, my most special person in this whole Goddammed world.
I know that life has its problems and so do we.
But today marks another year.
I made it here somehow, and somehow, I made it here despite myself.
We survived so much, you and I.
We came through and we made it here, another day.
Slips and falls, breaks, bumps and bruises, brokenhearted, or any other trauma, or any other human form of casualty has happened to either of us, yet, we are still here.
Or perhaps it should be me who says, yes, I am still here.
I’m right here.
I am here regardless of the sad or unfair predictions.
I am still here.
And hopefully, so are you.
Otherwise, this world of mine is about to become a lonely place.
Know what I mean?
And as for you, my friend, R.O.
This is why I will never judge you.
I was there too.
I don’t know why some people survive or live and others are made to be elsewhere. I don’t know what you were thinking that last day.
Maybe I’ll find out when or if I see you again, but until then, if you’ll excuse me, I have a life to live.
But before i go, just know that you are welcome to stay here with me, as a friend in my heart, or if you can, look over me and protect me from the unseen or the unforeseeable.
Heavenly Mother, and Greatness of all, care for me.
The hour is early and the day ahead of me will be long.
Show me your grace and please, send me a sign.
This way, at least I know that at least YOU are still proud of me.
The Written Addiction 