Journeys

I’m grateful for a long evening walk in the crisp Fall weather to settle my mind. I’m grateful for the hanging plant in the kitchen that finally started to bloom. I’m grateful for service commitments that push me to do deeper investigation into my sobriety. I’m grateful for a sustained period of higher elevation gains during my runs. I’m grateful for the various seating arrangements around our house that allow me to be comfortable and productive throughout the day. I’m grateful for the power of example inspiring me to gain confidence in myself. I’m grateful for vegan nuggets. I’m grateful for smart home lights. I’m grateful for returning to recent moments where my serenity was disturbed and having the ability to perform healthy post-mortems. I’m grateful for the myriad of blessings I can now appreciate in my life thanks to sobriety.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Western part of Colorado for a few days and it was a very moving experience. The shapes of the San Juan mountain peaks and color composition of the rocks are fairly different from what I see here in Denver. I had to take a few beats throughout our trip to reflect on how crazy it was that I found myself in those surroundings. Not just geographically, but also mentally.

In the 2010s I lived in San Francisco for several years and that part of the country is gorgeous as well. However I was usually inebriated during my time there. I either had my inconspicuous thermos filled with vodka or wine bottles hidden in the trunk as trusty travel companions. While I have pictures on my phone from Big Sur and Lake Tahoe, my memory of their majesty is blurry at best. The most obvious thing is that alcohol was a constant because in those pictures my eyes are perpetually droopy. Now, with a few years in AA, I can finally absorb my surroundings with a clear mind and that is so liberating, so miraculous, and so unbelievable given the suffocating grip alcohol had on me.

My clear mind during last week’s adventures made me think a lot about journeys. I thought about my own journey and how I find myself based in Colorado despite having no prior aspirations to be here. I thought about how fortunate I am that my continuous investment in the next tiny, right action allowed me to inhabit a headspace where I can reflect on prior poor decisions and find some peace with them. I no longer incessantly lament squashed opportunities or burnt bridges, I use the clarity I’ve been gifted in sobriety to reframe those transgressions as necessary steps along my path to understanding and healing.

I also thought about the journey of someone I barely think about – my grandmother on my mother’s side. She passed before I was born, but I’ve heard many stories about how strong a woman she was. Being uneducated and from a village with no modern amenities under Colonial rule, she managed to raise and educate 9 kids, ensure their success by bringing them to the U.S., and nurture them such that they all still speak fondly of her. I never gave her much attention because 1) I never met her so sadly a bit of “out of sight out of mind”, and 2) I immediately discounted her believing if she knew I was gay she’d shun me and would therefore be my “enemy”. Now the second point around her not being ok with my sexuality may be valid (I’ll of course never know), but that is not enough of a reason to shut someone out, especially someone crucial in giving me the beautiful life I have today. Yet that is what alcohol did to me. I didn’t provide any grace when even an iota of negativity, whether perceived or real, came into play. My thinking was simplistic, binary, and often delusional. During my trip, as I thought deeply about her life trajectory I became genuinely moved.

Regularly working the 12 Steps has given me the capacity to go down avenues of thinking like this. The Steps permit me to see nuance where there was only black or white. They permit me to reassess relationships and historical events in an effort to promote balance in my present. They permit me to expand my empathy by honestly putting myself in another’s shoes. I love how I was able to soberly draw inspiration from new mountainous surroundings to look internally in new ways. Through that introspection I discovered renewed appreciation for my journey, for my grandmother’s journey, and for the journeys of others who brought me here. I am indeed lucky to be in a phase of my sobriety where digging into my past isn’t a demoralizing endeavor. Instead it’s a beautifully layered journey of discovery and growth.

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