Love Wins...It Always Does

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today, the supreme court handed down a historical ruling on the side of equality for all people.  When I heard it, I cried without really understanding why.  Most days, I don’t feel like an outsider or like I am the object of discrimination because of my sexuality.  But the feelings that welled up inside of me with the ruling really spoke to how deeply the sense of separation runs and how longstanding it has been.  I have become so far removed from it that, in the day to day life that I lead, I am not even aware of it until something like this comes along and the sense of relief nearly drops me to my knees.  The tears that flow today, flow in the remembering of times in my life when I was not removed from the pain of discrimination and hate.  They flow as I think about a thousand or more LGBT people in Dallas, Texas silently walking on a cool October evening with candles in remembrance of a young man in Wyoming tied to a fencepost and left to die for being just like us.  Tears flow as I remember the hot shame of being asked for my ID by mall security after someone had reported that there was a man in the women's bathroom because they only saw my short hair and boyish clothes and didn’t really look at me. They flow as I remember the self consciousness of holding my partner’s hand in a public place and the hurt of being introduced as my partner's “friend” when we would go to gatherings with her family or work or opting out of these events altogether because we simply weren’t welcome as a couple. They flow as I remember kneeling at an altar in a fundamentalist church while the preacher violently prayed over me that God would forgive and remove the "sinfulness" from me because I wanted to desperately to be accepted and loved by the people that worshipped there and I knew that I would never be as long as these "shameful" and "dirty" feelings were inside of me.  Tears flow as I remember lying down in the street in front of city hall for a chalk outline to be drawn to represent the thousands of gay men that were losing their lives to AIDS before the cocktail and when “Living with HIV” was not even yet a thing.  I remember those men…many, many of them.  Tears flow as I remember volunteering at the AIDS Crisis Center on Reagan street in Dallas - sharing meals and visiting with the folks that came in to eat there…hanging out with my neighbor at the Food Pantry…and ultimately, propping myself up next to him in his bed and watching TV while is IV medications ran in every day because his family had disowned him and wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence.  The tears flow as I think about friends that have lost loved ones in hospitals where, in spite of having loved and lived and laughed together for many years, and having cared for them until their final days, they were not allowed in their hospital room because they were not considered to be truly family and for those same friends that had to, through their grief, fight their partner's families to keep the homes and belongings that they shared together. They flow for friends that built their families and had children together, only to never see those children again when their families were separated by the many human shortcomings that have ways of tearing families apart because there was not legal recourse or protection. And they also flow as I remember the way my heart grew on parade days - hot, humid, sweaty days in September - when our community flooded the streets and the air was alive with activism and the sense that we were not invisible - celebrating love that was demonized in the world outside of our little community as sinful, wrong, and inferior...

While our love has always been equal, today, it is acknowledged by the world…and, while I have spent a good part of my life trying to get to the place where I do not have to be acknowledged to be validated, I have to admit…this one feels really, really special.  And that is why the tears are flowing…

Love wins.  It always does...

The Buddha Inside

The Buddha Inside

Today is one of 

Those days

When just moving

Feels like Sisyphus

Pushing the boulder

Up the mountain

And watching it 

Roll down again

Dropping to this cushion

Feels welcoming

And sacred

Nothing to do or be

Breathing in

Touching the grieving

The vast emptiness

The clutching fear

Breathing out

With understanding

Others feel this too

Over and over again

Coming back

Forgetting

Remembering

Resting

Held close

By the buddha inside

Of this breaking

Awakening heart.

c.sharshel 

2/7/2015

Metta-Morphosis

Metta-Morphosis

Darkness illuminated

Through fresh cracks

In weathered armor

Soaked and softened

By loving intention

Tender flesh opening

Into the vast space

Of loving awareness

Unafraid and undefended

Trusting these fragile wings

As they develop

And unfold exactly

How they are meant to be

Beautifully unique

Spreading into flight

On the winds

Of lovingkindness

Awakening transformation

Metta-morphosis

A wish for 

All beings everywhere...

c.sharshel

12/18/2014

M&M's for Breakfast

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Three weeks ago today, I lost the only unconditional love that I have ever known.  My mom was a beautiful, kind, funny, and generous spirit – and she was my best friend.  She religiously called me at 6 am and kept me company on my commute to work and she was the first person I called crying when I got the flu last year.  At some point during every conversation that I had with her, she asked me about what I had for breakfast, what I packed for lunch, and what I was cooking for dinner.  She was the last person left on this planet that would freak out if I let it slip that I hadn’t eaten all day…

And now, there is just this huge void…the kind of void that I once filled with alcohol and pills…A hollow emptiness that can make your voice echo for days.  The kind of gaping hole that threatens to swallow a person up if they don’t step slowly and gingerly around it.

I have mantras that get me through the day:  This too…May this serve awakening…Forgiven, Forgiven…May I feel held in loving presence…Safe and at ease…

Today, I had M & M’s for breakfast.  I had Nachos for lunch.  And I had Coca Cola for dinner.

Forgiven, forgiven…

I didn’t take a pill…I didn’t drink a bottle of wine…

It was the best I could do…

Tomorrow will be better…and if it isn’t, well…then some tomorrow in the future will be better.

I am going to bed sober…

It wasn’t a banner day,

But it was enough.

Just for today…it was enough…

Say I Love You

Say I Love you

Say it randomly

To the people closest to you

To a stranger on the street

To yourself in the mirror

Tell someone what you love most

About who they are

And then another thing

There can’t be too many

Just say it out loud

Watch it light them up

Watch it light you up

Say “I love you”

Say it again and again

Because everything else

Is just idle conversation.

c. sharshel

11/3/2014

Eleven Years in the Making...More Than Enough

“There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our

entire imperfect and messy life.”  

~ Tara Brach, PhD ~

The back seat of a Dallas police cruiser is made out of black molded plastic.  Practical for its purpose, I suppose, but pretty brutal in the middle of a hot Texas August with your hands cuffed behind your back.  I was pretty skinny then – preferring pills to food and knowing that they always worked better on an empty stomach or with just enough food to keep me from throwing them up - and the cuffs felt like they were crushing into my bones between my body and the hard plastic.  There would be no pills for me on this day.  Overnight, I had taken my last handful and pushed myself to a rare edge where my fearlessness disappeared and I found myself on a hotel bathroom floor bargaining with the universe and promising to get myself together if I could just not die that night…if I could just wake up one more time.  The universe complied and I made a plan.  Just one more bottle…enough to wean myself off…just one more time.  As it turned out, the universe had it’s own plan – and it was nothing like mine at all.

When I was released from the firm grasp of the Texas criminal justice system, honestly, I was completely resigned to the fact that I would never be able to have any kind of normal life again.  Convicted felons don’t get very far in the job market, and my social skills had been all but erased by my time behind locked gates.  Content with making the rent and my legal fees, I lived life by the one foot in front of the other philosophy.  I was terrified, isolated, and filled with shame and regret and grief.  Still, I had a job, I had a place to lay down at night, and I had money for food.  I had what I needed, and it was enough…really, more than I ever really thought I deserved.

I have no idea what happened between here and there, but I must have done something very right.

On August 23, 2014, I mark 11 years of sobriety. Ten, five, even three years ago, I wouldn’t have imagined that it was possible to be in the place that I am in today.  Recovery is an ongoing journey, and much of the road is rocky and unpaved.  Sometimes, we figure out a way through the parts that seem impassable, and sometimes, we sit down in the gravel, cry, scream, swear, and wait for help to arrive.  Either way, every time we make it through, it is both a momentary victory and a temporary reprieve.  Tomorrow…or in five minutes…there will be another pit of quicksand, construction zone, or crumbled bridge to navigate.  Life on life’s terms.

The most important thing that my own journey has given me is an appreciation of my own freedom to choose the path that I walk today, and tomorrow, and the next day.  I can choose to walk in fear of what is next, or regret of what is past - sometimes those roads seem to be the easiest to walk, because they are so very familiar - or, I can choose a more mysterious path that leads to places unknown, and trust that, whatever the difficulties that the journey holds, I will figure out the way through, or find a place to rest until help comes along.  What I know for sure is that there is no easy or straightforward way to anywhere worth being…I am going to get lost, likely more than once…that there is no shame in asking for directions…and finally, that sometimes, the best thing that I can do is just to stand still until those directions make themselves known, often in some very unexpected way.  With my meditation practice, I have finally found the way to some internal settling…a hope that peace is possible...and a map to find my way home when I need it.  I have learned to say yes to what is here and not strive to eliminate it or destroy it or push it away with drugs, alcohol, or anything else.    Whatever pain or fear or grief or joy...I am learning to welcome it, honor it, and sit with it for as long as I need to.  I am learning that I don't have to believe my crazy thoughts and that the stories that make up my life do not define my true nature or block the light inside of me.  It is a process, but I am learning. I cannot even begin to describe how my heart fills with gratitude when I reflect on the gifts that this practice and the people it has brought into my life have given me…so many times, when I have felt so weak, so alone, and so close to the edge…I have turned to this practice for refuge and, again and again, have been reconnected with my intention to be with myself and with others with the kind of love, compassion, and honesty that cannot exist in the absence of sobriety.

I have so many things to be grateful for.  In the throes of my addiction, I often behaved in ways that might be unforgivable to many, but I have been blessed with the kind of people in my life that believe in redemption.  Many of the relationships that I thought were lost forever have been restored and the new friends that I have made throughout this journey have enriched my life in a thousand ways.  Even those relationships that were completely destroyed with no hope of reconciliation have left me with valuable lessons that I probably couldn’t have learned any other way.  I have earned the trust and respect of my family, and I am so incredibly thankful for their love, support, and presence in my life.  I have a good, solid job that allows me to take care of myself and plan for my future, while helping addicts who still suffer to get the help that they need...and through offering my experience, strength, and hope to others, my own sobriety is supported, nourished, and strengthened.  Today, my life is so much more than it has ever been...it is full, and crazy, and imperfect, and messy...

And it is way more than enough.

Some days, it overflows…

Quote from Radical Acceptance:  Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach, PhD.  For more information, visit www.tarabrach.com

Somewhere In Between

Just every now and then

You come to me in a dream

In the shadow moments

Between asleep and awake

The separation feels 

Nearly unbearable

And in the desperate reaching

I find only empty air 

And the grief 

Of another day before me

And I whisper a prayer

That someday

We will find

A bridge to meet upon

- c.sharshel