I'm still hunting for fear. It is not sitting on my chest where I last left it.
And I wonder, is this how people feel who never needed God?
Is this why I sprinted full force into the dark where deamons rule and there is no light to keep us from killing each other?
Is this how it was for those people at church who made no sense to me, who believed in God because their parents did?
I am without the bitch of angst screeching in my ear,
"This is all trivial! None of it is real!
Only your pain is real. These people are living an illusion!"
Some days I feel that I have joined the illusion.
I drove my mini-van to the office of contentment and signed up willingly.
Now I go to soccer games, and help kids with homework, fold laundry, work out every other day.
I have added myself to the ranks of Moms in spandex at the grocery store.
I don't eat artificial sweetener. I attended Back-to-School night.
I have a hair-care regiment and I prep the coffee pot the night before.
The darkness and the deamons are far from me...
It used to be that I woke up shaking and nauseous.
I didn't have to go looking for fear, It swallowed me up in its' acidic pit like that monster on Return of the Jedi.Some days I envy the acute nature of living in crisis.
At least then I can see clearly who the enemy is, and sometimes chose to curl into his scaly under-belly. There my world is small and nothing is expected of me.
Now my world displays in 76 tints of beige.
I once took Sophie to church. She was about 7 years old at the time...maybe 8.
She was respectful during the prayer, she listened to the speakers and sang the hymns.
Afterwards I asked her what she thought.
"Well, it's ok...but there's just no color there. Everything is brown."
This is why I need music and art and journals and especially my fellow alcoholics.
They bring the color and the sound and their stories.
So I can remember the time when I longed to be on the other side of the window.
Before I was sober, I'd look outside, my brain pounding against the glass.
I'd see women walking their dogs, and college students hurrying to catch the bus, all full of purpose and ideas and ambition. They'd sail down the sidewalk with long strides and eyes forward. They had backpacks full of completed assignments, printed in the right format and lined in thin plastic folders
I just wanted to wake up not sick.
I could not go one day without needing a substance to take the edge off. Then came the days when nothing could soothe the burn of acid eating away my last sprouts of dreams.
Now it has been 4 years since I graduated from college.
Now I walk the sidewalk lit by sunrise.
 |
| The view from my walk this morning |
He said a novice will use bright colors straight from the tube.
An older painter looks for the subtleties within one hue.
They mix paints and end up with colors that are more neutral.
My life reflects this.
I will always relish color as I saw it for the first time.
I have fallen in love with so many things:
Writing
Painting
snorkeling in the ocean with Uncle Gary
Smashing Pumpkins
Jack Kerouac
Andrew Roberts
the Appalachian Trail
Ani Difranco
Pepper - Sophie - Beckam
running - swimming - climbing
alcohol
suffering.....
The list is too long to write....
........and there was always a first. With each love there was a moment of awe where my surroundings fell away and I really saw the thing for exactly what it was. A pure color, vibrant and glowing.
Now all these loves have been mixed together, and I am left to paint the picture of my life.
On the other side of obsession is a vast expanse, too wide to fill.
If I am afraid of anything, it is that I cannot live up to the space.
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