I’m sitting in my Muncie apartment, staring out the window into the snowy neighborhood wondering why I’m so happy.
There’s no really good reason for me to be this upbeat. Or a better way to put it: nothing particularly positive has happened in the last few days that would lead one to suspect that I would be in a good mood.
The past week was, in fact, exactly the kind of week that would normally send me into a hibernating funk, locked off from the world, silently sad and miserable.
I haven’t quite been able to make the world work the way I wanted. Everything is a little off. People are doing (great gods) what they want to. Or maybe what they need to. Either way, I’ve not been able to bend things the way I want them.
It’s sounds foolish, but if you’ve ever had run-in with an addict, you’ll recognize the mentality. Maybe it manifests for other reasons too. I suspect it does. I can only speak for me and my addiction.
For so long, if I couldn’t make the world the way I wanted it, it wasn’t worth being in the world.
***
The last time I spoke with The One I Thought Was the One was in 2001. She said horrible things to me.
It wasn’t entirely unexpected. I knew the way her mind worked, the way she needed to jettison things from her past in order to move on. She scorched earth behind her because the very real demons from the past were too much to keep. Not the kinds of things anyone should have to keep.
Still, I thought I’d survived the Great Purge. We had four years of cordial semi-contact, an email once or twice a year. Nothing big. Nothing deep. Simply notes to check in. The kind of thing you do with someone who was once important in your life.
She was getting married. And graduating law school. And starting a new life.
When my email arrived, it was not welcomed.
The very last words she ever exchanged with me said, in no uncertain terms, that I was the worst human being she’d ever known (and if you knew the whole story, you would understand why this was particularly bad) and that whatever she had felt for me was certainly not love.
***
I’ve run through our email exchange for years, trying to understand where her words came from. Trying to understand how I woman I’d loved – and who I’m fairly certain loved me – could now look back at that time so differently than I did.
My gut instinct, of course, was to write her emotional outburst off. And there are many good reasons why I could have done that. There was always one good reason I couldn’t: I had more than a passing suspicion that she was right. That in some – maybe many – ways, I was far worse than even I knew.
Ironically, I wasn’t drinking during our time together. I was “white knuckling,” not drinking but not working the Program. I was convinced I could do sobriety on my own. That I didn’t need anyone.
That I could bend the world around me to fit my way of life. That I could isolate myself, protect myself, and insulate myself enough that the threat of drinking was never around.
That meant controlling nearly every aspect of my environment.
Something I got very, very good at.
I spent much of our relationship trying to manipulate my world to conform to what I needed – what I wanted – without worry of repercussions and consequences. I was supportive only when it benefitted me. I was emotionally available only when I needed something.
I constructed a world around us that was mine. And I did it under the guise that it was for us.
I’ve only recently started to understand that about my past. I’ve only really started to see why, after all those years, she hated me so much.
***
All of this is an odd way to understand why I am happy this weekend.
But I have started to come to grips with the parts of me that have caused the most damage. I’ve tried, when I can, to make Amends, knowing full well that the product of my process will never change the harms that were done. It’s a process that demands you relinquish the idea that you can bend, with your will, the hearts and minds of others.
It’s a humbling experience, one that begins to strip away the pretense– if you do it rightly – that your will can or should change people.
You begin to feel, in ways that maybe normal people already do, how your words and actions and movements through the world ripple through others. You see the power we have in the lives of others. And at some point, you realize that you must be careful.
***
I am happy this weekend because despite the reality that the world didn’t break the way I wanted this week, I am light and free. Because the mantra of my meetings resonated beyond words and into my life.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Because I spent no time trying to manipulate or pull or cajole the people and events of my life into place. I simply let them unfold around me. Interacting with the world on its terms instead of mine. Enjoying the moments as they were instead of as they weren’t.
***
A last thought on how I have chosen to view my weekend, one I shared with my gorgeous, amazing friend.
I had a plan for this weekend, one that involved dinner and one that involved my college friend. For various reasons, neither happened. Instead of getting angry, or lashing out, or hiding, I simply lived.
Today I went to Target and finally purchased the matching wash cloth and towel sets I have wanted. Then I went to Kohl’s, where there were scores of sweaters for sale. I found two perfect ones.
The towels and sweaters are nothing that won’t still be for sale next week. Or the week after. Or the week after that.
However, I’m convinced I am supposed to have them now.
Otherwise I wouldn’t have them.
Maybe my life right now is just about matching bathroom towels and cool sweaters. Or maybe when I finally get around to having that dinner, my sweater will catch her eye. Or maybe the eye of someone I don’t know yet.
And maybe I’ll just feel good in them because I like the way they look.
It’s nothing but possibilities right now. And I’m anxious to see what life has in store for me.
Which is why I’m happy.
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