Someday

It was a hard day for me.  It was such a "fall" day; the chill and the rain and a million things to do before winter arrives that the long summer days allowed me to put off.

Its weird how I've quit so many things that made me feel good, quit them so I wouldn't feel bad. I know I've probably got it all wrong somehow, but if Love and God are so great, why does one break your heart and the other let things suffer and die?  I've erected a scaffolding around my heart.  I tell myself it is there so I can do repairs, but I fear that if I remove it, I will come crashing down. 

I was invited to an AA meeting last week.  I've been sober almost seven years and it was the first time I have ever had the nerve to go to one.   It was very strange listening to the people talk about their drinking lives; how they had wanted to stop but never could.  A couple times I had to fight back tears and I'm not one easily moved that way.  It was sort of how I imagine coming out must be for a gay person; like you've spent your whole life in a socially stunted small town and then one day you wake up in San Francisco surrounded by "your people!"

Still, it was an unsettling experience.  Instead of making me feel stronger, it made me feel weaker and so much more vulnerable.  It re-opened the door leading to the alcoholic in me, something I've kept bolted shut, under lock and key.  The people in that meeting made feel like its never that simple, that alcoholism is like a Jeanie that can turn to vapor and escape through the crack under the door anytime it wants; that the disease is only in remission by the grace of God.  But when you're not always sure if you trust in God, that isn't exactly confidence inspiring.

I'm not fixed.  I don't know how to love yet.  For me, love is pain, just like alcohol is pain.  I keep trying to love sensibly just like I tried to drink sensibly, but I've never figured out how.  I always drank too much and then it hurt so badly I couldn't live with myself. I guess love has been the same sort of thing for me.  Its horrible that these two things are chained together in my mind.  Its a struggle to move forward yet I refuse to go back.

Astrologists claim we Cancers are driven by the moon like the tides.  Silver is our "color."  We waffle a lot and we hang on to things long after we should let them go.  We are also frequently late as we are naturally-born procrastinators.  So I guess I can only blame myself partially for who I am and the stars for the rest.  Do you think genetics and our intricate chromosome patterns are actually inner-cellular constellations?   

I hide from all sorts of things. Love, hate, fear.  All those four letter words, those emotions, that strip me of my sense of control.  Jokes and laughter are my great shelter.  Some people use work or saving the environment or some philanthropy as the airbag in their psyche.  Then again, some  people are just really real and are doing what feels right and comes naturally.  That's the kind of person I want to be. A really real person.  

I want to learn how to love and still be myself; to not worry about being eaten alive by it.  I want to make love with my eyes and heart completely open and I want to start doing it now, not wait until the dawn of that elusive morning I call Someday.