I’m sitting in the Austin airport (November 1) recharging my phone and laptop (Austin has the best plug-to-people ratio in the general seating area), wondering why time seems to go so quickly these days.
I think that’s a function of sobriety.
As I think back upon my adult life, much of it seems compressed into one long, dark night. Not that the night is necessarily bad. There were amazing moments, filled with crunchy goodness that I’ll savor throughout the rest of my life. Moments I look back upon with such fondness I sometimes wonder how I was lucky enough to have it all happen. But much of that was surrounded by the lurking-ness of addiction.
The last few months have been a different time sphere. There have been moments of badness, times when I could feel the creepy crawlies climbing through my body and into my head. This is the nature of recovery, I’m told. The constant reminder that indeed I am broken. Yet those moments are the exception. Not the rule.
These days I blink and the moments of goodness disappear. Followed by the next same moment. Like wind rushing through your face as you speed downhill. On a bike. Or skis. Or whatever it is that you go downhill on with wind rushing in your face. Like that.
And as I sit here in the airport, I can’t believe that it’s been near five days. I can’t believe the time slipped away from me. Again. Although slipped is maybe the wrong word because it didn’t get away from me. I jumped in, swam around, toweled off. It’s just not enough.
Not enough time with my friends. Not enough time in my house. Not enough time in my city. Not enough. The good not enough. Not the old not enough.
That’s okay, though. Because I’m returning to Muncie, my latest new adopted home. The other place where I’ve found serenity. To the trains. The roosters. The farmers’ market. The students. The school. The small-town slowness that I’ve come to love.
I also return home with a new friend, one I met at the conference. One I bonded with in the way that happens sometimes. Geo-located in real life in some far off geographical region. Not so distantly located in the ways that matter. A friend that will remain in orbit in my life. In some way.
It’s hard not to be at peace with this not enough. It’s hard to be sad when the cause of the angst isn’t something missed, but not enough of the somethings that fill me up. It’s hard to not shake my fists at time, begging for more when I know it won’t come.
Which is just the way that it’s supposed to be.
