I open my lungs
To breathe in forgiveness and love
Haunting me now
Reminders of how I used to be...
...Tell me how to make right
All the wrong turns that I've learned
So this can all end tonight...
-Chris Daughtry
To breathe in forgiveness and love
Haunting me now
Reminders of how I used to be...
...Tell me how to make right
All the wrong turns that I've learned
So this can all end tonight...
-Chris Daughtry
I began this draft several months ago as I struggled with the deep sense of regret that happens when I think about the casualties of my self destruction and the bridges that burned in the fires of my addiction. Every time I typed a line into the blank field, I could feel my lungs closing up and that way too familiar feeling of tears that I cannot bear...and cannot stop. It never ceases to astound me how deeply the pain runs - even today...with so much time, and so much change. And as the pain comes, and the breath goes, and the tears fall...sometimes it feels like I can't survive it.
Every day, I pray for serenity, and acceptance, and courage, and wisdom.
To accept the things I cannot change. The people that I cannot un-hurt. The trust that I cannot un-destroy.
Recently, I saw the movie Crazy Heart. It was a difficult movie in many ways...was very real and very easy to identify with this human hero who had fallen so far, lost so much, and couldn't manage to find rock bottom without dragging innocent bystanders along with him. Certainly, the scenes that depicted this character in a drunken stupor, or sick, or hungover, were hard to watch. There were moments that I had to look away, but it was just a vague sadness in me. And then he found the bottom, and he hurt the one he cared about the most...perhaps the only person left that really and truly cared about him. He shattered the trust. In his quest to undo it, he found a reason to move forward, find help, do the right thing. He found new hope because he needed her. And when he went to her, she told him that she was glad he was better, glad he'd found peace, glad to see him looking well - and then she closed the door.
And I could feel my lungs closing up and that way too familiar feeling of the tears that I cannot bear...and cannot stop. The times I have heard that door slam just a little harder than necessary. No matter how many right steps I take now. The things I cannot change.
If I could I would. I would go through all of the pain of the past, all of the fear, and tears, to change one minute of hurt that my behavior caused someone else. I would give anything to have just one moment back when I had the thought that maybe I should go to treatment...just one moment to say it out loud. There are so many moments that I would take back in a heartbeat, just to do them differently. Just to avoid hearing that door slam one more time. It will never happen. I will never have that.
But what I do have are moments of unexpected grace. Undeserved by definition.
And it is in these moments, with the complete understanding of the things that I will never be able to change, that my sense of gratitude for the courage to change the things I can is at it's most powerful.
Every day, I pray for serenity, and acceptance, and courage, and wisdom.
To accept the things I cannot change. The people that I cannot un-hurt. The trust that I cannot un-destroy.
Recently, I saw the movie Crazy Heart. It was a difficult movie in many ways...was very real and very easy to identify with this human hero who had fallen so far, lost so much, and couldn't manage to find rock bottom without dragging innocent bystanders along with him. Certainly, the scenes that depicted this character in a drunken stupor, or sick, or hungover, were hard to watch. There were moments that I had to look away, but it was just a vague sadness in me. And then he found the bottom, and he hurt the one he cared about the most...perhaps the only person left that really and truly cared about him. He shattered the trust. In his quest to undo it, he found a reason to move forward, find help, do the right thing. He found new hope because he needed her. And when he went to her, she told him that she was glad he was better, glad he'd found peace, glad to see him looking well - and then she closed the door.
And I could feel my lungs closing up and that way too familiar feeling of the tears that I cannot bear...and cannot stop. The times I have heard that door slam just a little harder than necessary. No matter how many right steps I take now. The things I cannot change.
If I could I would. I would go through all of the pain of the past, all of the fear, and tears, to change one minute of hurt that my behavior caused someone else. I would give anything to have just one moment back when I had the thought that maybe I should go to treatment...just one moment to say it out loud. There are so many moments that I would take back in a heartbeat, just to do them differently. Just to avoid hearing that door slam one more time. It will never happen. I will never have that.
But what I do have are moments of unexpected grace. Undeserved by definition.
And it is in these moments, with the complete understanding of the things that I will never be able to change, that my sense of gratitude for the courage to change the things I can is at it's most powerful.
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