What do I miss most?
Do you mean the good days?
Or when you ask what do I miss the most, do you mean who, or what, why, when and where?
I suppose there are differ answers to all the above.
Of course, I miss the good times. I miss being resilient.
I miss being able to get back up and snap back into place. I miss the ability to heal as if I was never hurt to begin with, or as if I never fell at all.
Sure, I miss that.
I miss the times when everything wasn’t so goddamned crucial, and the impeding qualities of life or death were less obvious or threatening.
Sure, I lost. But there was always another tomorrow.
Sure, I was hurt and yes, I was heartbroken.
Of course, I was hurt and I swore that I would never get over the battles or the challenges of my young adult life. But I’m still here.
Aren’t I?
There are words that defined my programming and words that I believed were fitting. Lastly, there were words and insults that were used to describe me. However, it was my mistake to allow those words to define me.
It was my mistake to kick and scream and to plunge myself deeper into the threats of my emotional quicksand. All this did was sink me deeper into my own murky bullshit.
I swore that nothing would ever work out. I believed this too.
I adopted this opinion as my truth and adapted this way of thinking into my emotional programming. I followed this path until, of course, nothing ever worked out.
Nothing panned out the way I wished for and in my lonesome retreat, I swore that I would live this way forever, alone and crazy, failed and sad.
But I’m still here.
Yes, I think this way sometimes.
Yes, I find it hard at times to see the glass is half-full.
I go back to my old cynical nature and angry complaints.
I go back to my razor-like comments and to the internal evilness of needing to fight back and win at any cost and/or to get the last word in and scream for the pain and the rage in my heart.
I go back to the time I was asked, “Ben, you complain that you have no shoes, but what about the man who has no feet?”
My answer was as follows:
Fuck the guy with no feet . . .
He don’t need shoes!
What the hell does he have to do with me?!?!
I am embarrassed to admit to this nature of myself. I am ashamed too.
I am ashamed of my hurtful insults and my mood swings, my insecure dilemmas, and to say the least, I am sad to think about this or how I have acted and behaved.
I am sorry to admit to the truth and that this was me.
Trauma and excuses and all.
I am guilty as charged.
What do I miss about the days I call way back when?
I miss what I had and I miss what I lost.
I miss the days when I woke up and I had family in my life.
I miss my dreams.
I miss the belief that despite the crazy bullshit, I know that something is coming my way.
I miss sharing the sunset with someone. I miss looking around at the scene and thinking to myself, I am never going to forget this day.
Never.
I miss my Aunt’s basement.
I miss my her too.
At the time, my room was dingy and not clean by any means. But as hard as it was for me to get by or to get up and go and do things to build my life, I can say there was comfort. I can say that while I might not have had much, I had an entire wealth, far more than what I have now.
I miss my family. I miss the days before fights broke the bonds between us. I miss the feeling of love in my heart and warmth in my hand.
I miss the curves and the warmth and the silliness of being in love with the most beautiful girl in the world and acting like a complete and total child, free in a candy shop or toy store.
I miss the fortunes that I lost.
I miss the poor times too because I was happier when I had less.
I was happier with less than I was when I had more.
I was happy with silly things and simple food. This was before life and my daily menu grew expensive and unrealistic.
I miss the days before the IRS and taxes took a chunk of my ass and left me skinny and down to the bones.
I miss the feeling of being happy in small rundown hotels and thinking, “Man, I am having the time of my life” and nothing else mattered.
I miss sharing the beach at Point Lookout with you. Not just during the summer months, but in wintertime as well.
Winter. Ah.
The emptiness of the beach and the continuous movement of the waves and the current. I think about the cyclical nature of the tides, which come in and out, just like the magical rise and fall of the breathing Mother, Mother Earth, herself —maternal as ever, and always breathing, always teaching, always blessing, giving, and taking away.
I miss my church and sanctuary and the belief system, which helped me sustain my own breath and keep my heart pumping.
I miss watching the fishing boats leave the inlet and head out to the deep sea.
I miss the imagination of The Old Man, sitting in the wheelhouse of his own ship, sitting in his captain’s chair with the wheel in hand, a captain’s hat on his head, and a turtleneck sweater as he steered his ship and moved through the winter’s ocean.
Ah, I can see some of this now.
I can feel something.
I can’t go back.
I can’t unsay anything or undo what I have done nor can I recover the lost soul or the sunken masts that used to hoist to the sails of my previous spirit.
There is no going back anymore. The book is read, so-to-speak.
Chapter closed.
There is no more assumption that any port in the storm will do.
No.
All I can do is rebuild and hope for the chance to sail again.
Maybe…
Maybe not.
But what I miss the most is gone. And what I want the most is gone.
So for now, all I can do is live, be, and act accordingly.
Life in the past is in the past.
I only have now to make my future great
(again).
The Written Addiction 