We are beings of light caught up in a corporal form. When light is refracted through a prism it’s many layers are made clear. Life itself bends around time and thoughts, and when refracted, the clarity of those layers are beautiful to see and are more honest than one would care for at times. In those times of simple reflection an understanding of grace, and a realization that God has no edges.
In looking back, that common man, the acts and thoughts, the similarities and the differences. The rivers of individual psyche’s run deep in some areas while barely breaking twain in others. I have found myself tied to that riverboat, tied along with the masses in actions that floated above the waterline, in depth analysis be damned. So when I felt strange not too long ago, I noticed that my old thoughts had shown up again. Like some bad planning at dinner for one hundred, I didn’t notice the food disappearing too fast.
Once again I became that teenager that did not cope well with my expectations. People were irritating me to no end and my frustration was through the roof. For someone who is in the recovery community it never even occurred to me that my state of mind(s) were not normal, or even the way they were supposed to be, but very much familiar on another level. Without even knowing it, I went full alcoholickly. The symptoms of one malady was pure camouflage for the other, I was a dry drunk and getting crunchier by the day. I didn’t notice the mental changes, the trauma’s that happened and the turning off of that part of my grey matter. I did notice the physical parts, the heart problems, the angiogram results that didn’t match up with the other pieces. The constipation and sweats were part of my chronic gut issues, I was toxic, I knew that much, I didn’t realize, just how toxic I really was.
I crawled back into that bubble of self doubt and loathing again and lost the desire to do many of those things I truly enjoy. I stopped creating almost completely, My squirrel moments, which were usually filled with thoughts and ideas, nothing more than shutdown moments, nada…nothing going on in there. Raw and chafed by my own angst and crunchy with disappointment I thought I just needed to snap out of it, snap out of what though? Elation and complete disappointment at the same time, the TA in my class sparked the thoughts that lead to the truth. An email to an old teacher and friend, telling him of my horrible news and my Summer, was what made the hammer go boom. What a freaking idiot! Has been a mantra in my head since this became apparent. The old phrase that I like to say that when things become apparent, that means it is meant to guide you.
I get to look back today, I know what the alcoholic me would be doing, and I know what the whole person is doing now. Perspective, a rewriting of your history with what you know now. I am still emerging from the most dangerous of illnesses, the kind you don’t know you have. Those are the ones that, like alcohol and drugs, are supposed to kill you if you don’t catch them in time. I had an epiphany, no, not the instant ones with golden lights and harp music. This one was more like using an axe on the granite mountain, hoping to do something more than make your ears ring. Well it worked, a tiny piece chipped away one night, a teacher’s assistant helped me out with a few good chunks the next day. As I took up my keyboard to write again, avalanche.
Of course, an avalanche, the kind that buries you deep in your own wreckage when it is over. Along with the elation that you have survived, a new paradigm of the amount of work needed to free yourself comes rushing in. A panic of sorts, because there is still that elation that you are not only halting the matters burying you to begin with, but in the same motion – exposing a shaft of light to energize you. I am just working my big foot free these days, in the avalanche that I am recovering from it found itself firmly ensconced in my mouth, among other places…
There is also that eleation that comes with the knowledge that the real, the best parts of you were disconnected from your psyche. Thus the constant strain of life becomes acute, the smallest things an irritant. Life out of focus and you are searching for you glasses, mad at the world for making you open your eyes to begin with; Couldn’t I just sleep, please?… Not this time, that is old behaviors, time is now to pull on the boots that take too much cow to make, and trudge along, happily. That is what has come back to me as much as my memory, and recall, is the pure joy. The pink clouds of life. In recovery they say to enjoy it while you can, and I am being selfish and self centered with it this time around. It feels great, and I am grateful for the people that have come into my life to make it a better one.
When life itself is broken down into its core wavelengths, and the music is in harmony with the colors, it is grace. When those layers lose focus and the music isn’t heard playing, it may be time to move the prism, remove the prisons, and begin again with life refracted.