week 52: warrior

it is, perhaps, fitting that after putting this post off for several weeks that i should be writing the closing entry of volume 4 tonight.

three years.

three years ago last friday night i ended a 12 year long drinking binge, not with a bang (as i has secretly expected) but a whisper. in this case the whisper being a glass of cheap riesling at the end of a family dinner. usually, i tried to keep my drinking light at such occasions, preferring to go home afterwards to the vodka i had waiting for me. i know that i wasn't fooling anyone, i mostly just didn't want to make things more obvious than i needed to.

in the months approaching the last glass i had become sick, physically, i thought i was dying - cancer or something - and had begun preparing for what i thought was the last few pages of my story. i was saying goodbye as best i could without actually saying the words. 

that night three years ago i went home, poured myself a drink and was sick before it touched my lips. then, the pain began.

it was unlike anything i had felt before, a doctor described it as: "if someone were to straighten out a coat hanger, heat it over flame until it was white hot, and the stab it into one's abdomen." i agree with that description.

three years ago tonight i was laying either in my bed or on the bathroom floor unable to vomit anymore, unable to remember what it felt like to not be in pain, it was like i existed only as a small singularity of agony, where it was excruciating to move or even breathe.

three years ago tomorrow, on easter, i nearly died.

it took a week of icu care to get me to a point where i could go home to convalesce for several more pain filled weeks.

i have talked about that time here before, there are stories i haven't yet shared about that experience, ones that i may or may not decide to share in the future.

like so many of things that i was sure i knew, i was, unsurprisingly, wrong. the end that i had anticipated, was not the final pages but the beginning of the next chapter.

today, three years later, i am living a life i never imagined. not necessarily because it's all awesome and perfect, but because i had never bother to before.

there are things that i have learned, things that i am learning - long overdue and still slowly in many cases - things like i don't have to make the some mistakes over and over, that learning from others' experiences can be as enlightening (and far less expensive) than putting myself through them hoping i could somehow do better. 

things like so many of the things that i never thought i would get over were many of those things that i was unwilling to let go.  

that one is perhaps the simplest, most obvious, and difficult concept that i've come to understand, and has been and likely will be one that i will struggle with for as long as it takes to accept as fully as i can, one that i hope will become easier with time and practice.

so i close another chapter, this volume 4. it has taken me nearly nine years of writing here to get four years of posts, but considering my track record of following through with things i find it to be rather impressive.

i want to thank those of you who have continued to visit, to read and share this project. i look forward to sharing another year of my life with you in volume 5.

i have no idea what the future holds, but i hope face it with open eyes, an open mind and a heart that can stand the potential pain of being broken as the price for all of that i have yet to experience.

one of the things i think i have enjoyed the most about this project is writing these posts, usually with music playing and sometimes with my eyes closed, like im playing a piano. sometimes, these entries feel like they are the ends of television episodes or movies, maybe isn't the best way to compare it - small deaths come kind of close as well, or maybe like the last conversation you have with a loved one.

its hard explain and i don't know how to really express it better, i think i will let the following try and do it better than i can right now.

After the storm - Mumford & Sons

And after the storm, I run and run as the rains come

And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won't rot, I won't rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won't rot.

And I took you by the hand
And we stood tall,
And remembered our own land,
What we lived for.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

And now I cling to what I knew
I saw exactly what was true
But oh no more.
That's why I hold,
That's why I hold with all I have.
That's why I hold.

And I won't die alone and be left there.
Well I guess I'll just go home,
Oh God knows where.
Because death is just so full and man so small.
Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.