A First Step

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At 47 years of Age, I find a lot of things in my life feel like I'm treading in stagnant water. I haven't exactly made a lot of progress on the goals other people have set for me. I have to be conscious of the present moment with intention or I'll find myself buying a new calendar every time I look at the date. My parents are a decade older than they should be by my count. Maybe it's a result of the drugs, or maybe it's just part of getting old. Maybe it's just part of watching TV instead of living with intention and getting to know the intersections of the amazing people I get to meet if I stick my head out once in awhile to see what's going on. 

So I'm getting myself together again. Or maybe it's more like getting rid of some self. I have been in places like this before, so I get tempted to skip ahead and know shit. I want to get right back to where things start to fall back on ego and separation from the parts of life I find the most value, growth, authenticity and discomfort in. It's like I try to sprint in my head back to the place where I remake the decision I regret most of all even though there is no allure in it anymore. 

When I started using drugs I really thought I had discovered a magic secret shared by all of my future friends and peers. I thought I had found a way to fit in at school, to transcend my imperfections, and to soothe the hurt life was causing my heart. And don't get my wrong dear reader, for awhile it did just that. And I can't say that I regret all the drugs. But I regret my arrogance and my ego. I can't help my appetites, but It wasn't an area particularly well suited to substance use either. I went hurdling into dependence like a blue whale eating krill. The only thing curbing my consumption was cost. 

I've been beaten into a state of reasonableness to borrow a phrase, but the reasonableness doesn't look like what I thought it was when I used to hear that. It's hard to sum up what it means to me today, except that I am not only more teachable, but I'm actually grateful to not know shit. And it makes me a little  easier to be around as well, which helps me feel a little less lonely. 

I don't have any reason to feel lonely though, I am always haunted by the best of friends. And I have them to thank more than anyone for the better parts of my nature that have found their way through the woodwork of my ego and the scars incurred from all that I used to know as a younger man.

-TH 10/26

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