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Awakenings

Occasionally life will smack you right between the eyes with important lessons and wisdom. More often than not, the truth hides deftly in a shadowy corner, just out of sight, silently defying bad habits and resting secure, smug in its inimitable correctness.
Something vital has been missing in my life for a long time now, years, and yet, other than a dull ache that cropped up here, or there, unexpectedly, I was otherwise unaware. Not blissfully unaware, because that would have required feeling, but just behind intricate webs of words designed to put the majority of people off, and leave the rest confused, similarly put off.
As a pretty observant person, I could tell that whatever capacity I had for emotion was going unused, perhaps in danger of dying altogether for lack of concern. As usual, evil has shown me the way, rather than good, although some good has befallen that I could not, in a sane world, expect.
Here is a brief article that summed up my state of mind as emotion, and not nice emotion, decided to rear its ugly head. There's nothing quite like the failure of an otherwise drop-dead reliable part of your life to bring into full focus the failures that I knew were around me, yet refused to face. I look back on the past five years (a conveniently round stretch of time, marked by my going out into the cold yet wonderful world and escaping the nest), and although there has been much good, much also has happened that is not good. As is my wont, if I had the magical opportunity to make changes, I'd do things the same way, counting the wisdom gleaned (such as it is) more valuable than any troubles avoided. What's the point of learning if it's not applied to the here and now?
And yet, although this year has been a series of kicks to the teeth served between heaping slices of humble pie, I feel more hopeful and alive, more cognizant, than in any of the years of my adult life. For a man who decided long ago that he'd rather be happy than rich, that is a tremendous gain, though gotten with loss of some self-respect. Good thing that humble pie, though hard to swallow, is easy to chew, or else I might have choked and found myself holding council in hell, or whatever passes for the nonexistent afterlife.
Being a natural pack rat, I find myself surrounded by various things, toys, electronic stuff, tons of books, that have been shorn of their glory and momentary satisfaction. They sit around me like an elephant, choking access and strewing fecal offerings around the rubble of my mental and emotional state. To stand one must first kneel, and then crawl. So I have done, so I am doing, but with more hope and less dread than I've felt for a long time.
There is even a bright light in my life that came wholly unlooked for, presenting itself (as such things often do) when things seemed darkest. Perhaps the resounding thud of my jaw hitting the floor woke me up to the indignant realities of what had become my life, and the luminescence exposed for me the rubble strewn around by heedless acquisition and substance induced mindfoggery. Still, given that most of this year has been spent in various forms of abasement and revelation, this is more a symptom of rather than a cause of my return to self. It's been so long that I've flipped head over heels that the experience is disorienting, but all the more do I feel that I have to set my house in order, in the vague hopes that I can share again a part of myself so long closed off and locked away that there is still doubt as to whether I can ever fully expose myself again. To all the people I've hurt over the years because of this, I apologize. You deserved better.
Having traveled back in time in some ways, I find that although the background hasn't changed much, I have for the sake of traveling forward into darkness, not knowing that there was a light at the end just around the corner. I do not belong in the place where now I spend a good portion of my waking hours, but being there gives me the chance to regroup and reassert the positive aspects of existence so long denied. Where did it begin? I'm not even sure that matters now, so long as certain mistakes do not repeat themselves. Any new mistakes will have to be dealt with on a first come first served basis, sooner rather than later, put off as it were by my near enslavement to the bottle. It's carried away better men and worse men than myself, but that's no reason to add another line to the long list of potential wasted and lives pissed away.
Recovery is a process marked by very little in terms of days, months, or other concrete units or assessments. It happens as it happens, without clear lines of demarcation between suffering and strength. Often it will chance that the needs of the day will behoove themselves upon you, demanding attention, while almost without your knowledge, the causes and effects of the suffering find themselves being dealt with in the background, until one day you may think yourself healed, yet the next you find it's not exactly so.
It felt good to break loose, in the company of one who knows me well, letting the acid tears flow, wearing down the shell I've so carefully built around myself, sharing at last, rather than observing and hiding. Shells, being the resilient things they are, don't disappear overnight, but to find a way of egress makes the dismantling effort somewhat easier. Still, the thought is swift in coming that there are some problems that have no easy solutions, some problems that require long and constant effort to overcome, and even some that cannot be overcome despite making all the right choices. It is possible to make all the right moves and still lose, if circumstance puts one in a truly bad tactical situation. I can't control circumstance, only my reactions to it. Time will tell whether things have gone on too far to really come back. I'd like to think not, but who knows, really. I will, one day.
A friend of mine said that she has to be good to herself in order to be good to others. This resonated with me in many ways. In the workplace, I hold myself back, knowing that I can only truly manage others if I can manage myself. In matters of the heart, I can only truly care for others if I care for myself. I haven't cared for myself, or much of anything, so it's natural that I haven't been able to do much very well for others, although to all appearances I seem to at least get by.
In paring down the emotional and physical detritus around me, my own flesh has followed suit. Whether by conscious effort or subconscious, I've lost a good deal of weight, not so much as to feel weak, but rather to feel much better. Forty-five pounds sounds like a lot, but it fell off so easily that if I knew what I was doing, I'd probably have a hit diet on my hands. This can't continue forever, but it has been a welcome loss. Some things in life are better lost than held. If only all the other problems would disappear with so little conscious effort, but then what would be the point?
At any rate, it's one thing to feel better. It's quite another to live better. Time will tell whether I can follow the straight and narrow enough to make the best of this situation, and perhaps to live up to the high opinion and potential that so many others have taken for granted. A step in the right direction can easily be swept away in reckless misadventure, or in sloth.