Love is a crazy thing, it’s a word I reserve for myself, for God, for family and dear friends. Only lately, after 15+ months clean and 99% serene, have I been thinking about that relationship type love. It’s not tied to any one person. (Lie) Maybe it’s chained to two. One I know as well as myself. The other was a beautiful stranger a month or so ago, who I’ve gotten to know because of a little randomness in time led to an exchange in numbers. Since then she has been living a situation I went through years ago, where my world caved in around me, where I felt so alone.
When I got clean, and learned to strive to be selfless, that that was the key to a peaceful life, that helping others provides pure happiness, I began to pay a lot of attention to those who were living situations that tore my sanity into pieces, that pushed me into such a dark place, I couldn’t even see a glimmer of light in my imagination. I’m not letting that happen to a friend, he or she will know I’ve got their back in whatever way possible.
Naturally I do my best to help addicts, to get them through the steps, which for me birthed this change in me, that full-scale shift in perspective that altruism produces. The wholly selfish asshole was murdered when I tried to kill myself, and begged God to not intervene. Shift in perspective- God always listens, he’s always there. He answers with Mick Jagger wisdom- I got what I needed. I was lucky enough to be given incredible amounts of hurt, so that I can appreciate and feel joy to the extent of my pain.
There’s a lot of times things just don’t work out, regardless of mutual feelings. I get that, I am sadly beginning to understand this lesson. When I started this blog, there was no homework assignment, now it’s setting in, the years are not always kind, the roads we are on intersect at finite times, and who we walk along that path with isn’t always the one you dream about. Now I’m feeling a certain kind of sadness.
I am realizing this has little to do with the title, and maybe that’s more than alright. Good people can appear evil when assumptions are made, good people can make a ton of wrong decisions. More than anything, I can see myself in people, the miserable empty shells, that are so fun to be around, laughing and joking while everything inside is so wrong. Funny thing is this one isn’t an addict, but she’s mirroring my past so much it’s kind of scary. I know she feels nothing will go right, that the sky is falling around her and no one cares. Someone most certainly does.
I have no idea where this is going, and maybe that is the point- Spotify just played a Bustelo commercial- and if you follow this, you know Bustelo and I have this tangled affair going on, but that’s another clue where irony is the mystery that won’t be solved. I used to pack a ziploc of Bustelo in my bag, and add it to my Dunkin coffee. I stopped doing that, in fact, I’m out of Bustelo currently, but there are certain things I always have with me, I carry a Big Book, a composition book, and a journal. I carry the journal because it has a variety of words in its pages. Among them are words written in blood, a terrible habit when I was using.
Then there is that paragraph, that ideal girl description. I haven’t read that in a while, life has been so hectic, and well, that journal and I have this connection, Hear me out, I open it and there’s notes from a Buddhist monk, forgotten moments from Thailand that I read at the perfect time. It got me to make a leap of faith, and find something I lost many lives ago, my old soul wasn’t whole, and the lesson- a soulmate isn’t necessarily a forever thing, in the physical sense, it gives you back what was thrown away. I have that, and when my room is quiet, I find my mind thinking about her. Tangent drift…sorry, that ideal girl thing-
“Battle-tested, treasuring the losses for the wisdom gained rather than the spoils of war.”
I’ve met people who like that line, know that line but don’t live it. She understands. The best thing about life is I’m not afraid to see where this road takes me.
Peace and Love,
-MFJ
PS- This poem, I just found, in that journal – 4/25/15
Shell Game
I’m pretty sure I knew what I was asking for
Fairly certain we were a shared exit
Now journeying to different destinations
Not even heading the same direction
Makes the separation inevitable
Adjust the rearview
I glance, she stares
Cosmic collision and I know my role
Overnight distraction when more was imagined
Hold my hand, maybe no envelopes should be pushed
No matter the stationary inside
Is it the words written, the phrases spoken
Or the flipped coin actions that caused the disconnect?
Who let go first?
Doesn’t matter, I wasn’t holding on either
Think what you must to sleep uneasy
My peace was the attraction
Especially in the context of my wreckage
Of self
Of soul
Wounds scar
Forever remember that moment
Where undesired freedom
Gifted a stranger on the same road as me
Where I grabbed an outstretched hand
And felt her grip tight
Maybe I’m not letting this one go…
Blurred Clarity 