Sober Birthday, Work Transition, Choice
We are here, then we are not. There is no accommodation.
We are here, then we are not. That is all, really. There is no accommodation.
In the human mind with our words and worlds, there is life and there is death. Polar yet complementary sides of a single whole.
Indivisible. Interdependent. A Yin-Yang pair containing the rest. A here-and-not-here demarcating us from…dissolution.
On one side, our now iteration of presence and flesh. On the other, what our now self can never know…or ever fully prepare for.
So we wait. Restless.
In dark hours, in secret recesses of mind…we fixate on one clear line.
On imagined difference within the whole. On an imagined edge between us and…disappearance.
That is good. That is honest.
Meanwhile, under the glare of day, we busy ourselves. We take up careers and causes and politics. We stare at screens and fill the space.
Above all, we avoid the silence. Above all, we skirt the conversation.
Work, in this, is a lulling if illusory safety. A well-lit if fictional path amidst the wildness and uncertainty around us. Amidst the wildness and uncertainty that is us.
We check the boxes. We pay the bills. We waste…decades. Not because doing so is required. Rather, because it is the collectively agreed upon, conditioned control.
We shall not speak of the invisible line. We shall not consider the constant companion walking alongside.
Instead, we will imagine difference. Instead, we will fantasize and conceptualize our separateness from…everything.
Dearest Reader,
In a few weeks, I’ll mark a sober anniversary. Meaning, it will be three years since I’ve had a drop of alcohol.
Other aspects of recovery—the far harder, more relevant ones for me—are less defined and less…resolved. Likely, they never will be.
Still, I’m on the path. Still, I’m taking one skillful step after the next. Each day, each action, each thought…a practice.
Each day the question: How can I live more beautifully?
Part of that recovery—the un-ended, most essential one—involves work.
Meaning, it involves making an extremely difficult, extremely necessary choice about how I spend the majority of my time on this side of the line. On this side between here and not here.
So, I finally did. I made the decision I knew I needed to make.