The last 12 months have been so weird. I’m not even sure I can craft an understandable narrative in my own brain about it yet, let alone write anything that would make sense to the brain of anybody reading my words. Therefore, the logical thing is to keep waiting until I’m “ready,” right? I tell myself to put off writing until I’m more certain about what the point to ‘all this’ (life) is – wait a little bit longer, until I’ve gained a comprehensive, intelligent, unwavering understanding of God, of myself, of others – and of the whole universe while I’m at it, before I start writing anything public.

I don’t want to write something stupid and discover my points of view don’t make sense to anybody but me. What if I make a fool of myself? What if say something that hurts another person unntentionally. What if I stop speculating about what may or may not happen and instead go find out?

After 50 years trying my best to do this human thing right, and pretty much missing every mark lol, I realized I could no longer competently write and articulate (my/any) Truth (big T) — I used to be so sure. But I wasn’t anymore. I couldn’t separate the true from the false, as it’s said in meetings. I’d been sober four years, and it wasn’t alcohol I was confused about. In fact, one of the few certainties I did have was that alcohol was not an option for me. God had done for me what I couldn’t to do for myself, again, in 2016 and by His grace I’ll die sober.

What a weird year. I’m still waiting for the new normal to feel less new and more normal, but it’s taking a lot longer than I anticipated it would take. Something apparently very important to my sense of human beingness suddenly just broke from withinside me in early Fall 2020; and I still can’t with certainty name what broke or what the primary cause(s) was.

In early September, I was chairing a 7am Zoom AA meeting, with about 25-30 of us on the video call when I became uncharacteristically sensitive to something someone shared, and so I matter of factly just made the decision I was ‘done’ with AA, and I hung up the call. No fan fare — kinda robotic, eerily.

And this frightened me! I had lost my inner footing, subtly, slowly, in drips and drabs, without noticing it was happening, and I couldn’t go any further. I had a pervasive sense of impending doom. I know, y’all. It sounds dramatic to me too. Imagine what that FELT like! Apparently, I hit a wall. I broke. My spirit couldn’t take another step, because one more step would have been off a figurative cliff. I didnt even have tears.

Without much planning at all, I soon packed up my apartment and moved to another state, telling myself and others I was just going to take a 3 month ‘sabbatical’ to ‘heal.’ As vague as that sounded to me – and probably to everyone else, there was a funny acceptance about it, like ‘of course’ that’s what I needed to do, take some time away and come back refreshed. I reasoned I could run my small business from anywhere so I’d keep things running, just less full-time, while I “healed.” lol.

It’s time to start writing again. I can’t hide from my life any longer, waiting to ‘heal,’ expecting to be struck to feel ‘normal’ again – maybe that wont ever come, who knows? Or maybe this new normal will be ok once I get used to it. I’m putting up this post tonight because it hit me today that the healing cant come without the writing process for me — the writing is the healing. When I write, I reveal myself to me and can hopefully realize my narrative, discover whats the point to all this.

And so let’s begin! I am ready to heal. Night.

P.S. Happy 65th anniversary, Mom and Dad!