Greetings from the wild blue yonder! It's been a while since I've done any real writing and I'm eager to get back to it. My last couple of posts came from a fairly down place and, though I must apologize for dropping off at such a bleak moment, I got really wrapped up in using the month of February to put some vitality back in my life. I spent much of the time converting my apartment/living room into a miniature art studio, expanding my collection of tools and materials, building an easel and, to a somewhat diminished degree, working on moving ahead with my real estate license. I also started attending a twelve-step program through a ministry in my church called "Celebrate Recovery," which has kinda filled in the remaining gaps of my disposable time and energy. So I'm sorry for not being as disciplined with my 'blogging, but I'm not sorry for what I've been doing instead.
I just got back from my friend Seth's wedding and it was a beautiful thing. As with most occasions dealing with other people and their significant events, I spent a lot of time thinking about myself and internalizing the process. I spent time thinking about how many of my friends have been or are getting married lately and how weird it will be when it's finally my turn; how unfair it is to be a recovering alcoholic in a place with an open bar; how apropos it is to use a wedding banquet as an illustration for heaven. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so narcissistic that I wasn't able to focus on celebrating the idea of marriage as a concept, or my friend Seth's in particular, I just tend to internalize everything, and weddings are no exception.
I think, too, it has a lot to do with wearing a tie. Ties, as far as I'm concerned, are a horrible invention and I wholeheartedly refuse to ever be married or buried in one. They're difficult to coordinate, uncomfortable, and in the grand scheme of things, utterly useless. I tried to think about how many times I've worn a tie in the last five or ten years and I could probably count them on one hand. In fact, I can only remember five occasions on which I've worn a tie since I graduated high school and three of them were funerals.
I think it's good for me to reflect on these kinds of things, though, because it forces my memory to reach back further than it typically operates. In fact, I've been thinking a lot about my memories over the last week or so because today marks four years since "The Calamity" happened. I won't go into it here because I don't have the time or energy, but basically, my life came apart at the seams and I washed up in the lobby of Hill Country Bible Church. I don't want to characterize it as some magical day where my life completely changed, but it was certainly the start of something I wouldn't have believed to be possible if it hadn't happened to me.
If you'd told me then that I'd be where I am now (not only back in school, but graduated, sober, etc.) I would've thought you were joking. And not just in the way that everybody who says that kind of thing means it. I mean I really wouldn't have believed that it was possible for the kind of change you were describing to actually happen in my life. Back then, I lived my life the way that people sometimes describe patients with terminal diseases responding to finding out they're sick: it was like my life was just a foregone conclusion, so nothing really mattered. I didn't have intimate friends or people around me who would speak the truth to me, even if I didn't want to hear it. I didn't have anybody close to me who really saw my life as valuable or important at all. I just kinda did whatever I wanted to do or whatever seemed to be good to me at the time and didn't really ask myself how my actions or behaviors would affect anybody, least of of all me.
It's weird to think back on those times because it seems like a whole different life ago, like some weird, alien brother of mine who died but still gets talked about a lot. But I like it. I like being a guest at a really fancy wedding without an RSVP. I like that celebrating isn't really a celebration unless it's shared with other people. I like having moments that are dedicated to building an altar and planting a flag in the ground as a time of change and new commitment. I like remembering that the person I was is not who I am and that there will come a day when who I am is just as distantly gone as the other guy. I like calling to mind that the Bible describes the whole of the human affair as beginning with your parents' divorce and ending with the wedding of the Man who loves you most in life.
I've done truly horrible things in my life that I extremely ashamed of. Perhaps, another time, I will describe them in some detail. But my life exists as it is today solely through the compassion of others whose trash I am not fit to take out, and yet I am invited to sit among their guests and eat at their table. It is a lesson in grace for which I am thankful to have taken part in today and will forever remain eternally grateful.
Seth, Claudia... Mazel Tov!
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