Autocorrect

He insisted on having a meeting. He had mentioned it a few times, there was excitement in his voice. I was skeptical of it, small group meetings make me feel uncomfortable, I do not like to be seen so closely. I care not to ever stay on the surface level, why should I bore you with soap box spouting and pretty little packaged thoughts and words. Truth is I come from a long line of the emotionally belligerent and uncontained, we either speak our truth or try to drink and use it away. I don’t care for the smaller meetings, especially when as of late my heart and my head are having such the battle. An emotional fight with realities logic is overwhelming at times, I’m not exactly sure what has been happening the past two weeks, I’ve been a bit busy inside myself. Surrender never came easy to me, it was always fight your way through it all no matter the bloody state you’ll be left in.

I’m sitting at approximately 5600 feet in elevation, tall pine trees of all sorts dotting the landscape. I had no idea there were multiple types of pine trees, I leaned this on my last trip to the sequoias. I mean I knew but didn’t really know if that makes sense. I’m in my van and it’s 1:30am, I woke with thoughts of tonight’s meeting and had to get them out of my head. It kept circling me like a shark, rewording, rewriting; that small, quaint meeting where I shared and started to cry. It was inevitable you know, the meeting and the tears, I’ve been about the water works all week. They told me life was going to be amazing when I got clean, they didn’t tell me I would be an overly emotional pile of goo the longer I stayed clean. I remind myself of Angry Dave, that guy cry’s often and I love him for it. I never understood acing the part or holding back, it’s honesty that we relate to and none of us so unique that our insides do not match someone else’s.

As I sat there weeping over my present state of mind and how grateful I am that my ex-wife has forgiven me and loves me unconditionally. As I wept over the guilt I still carry over not splitting up years earlier, for not being a better husband, for causing so much unneeded pain. As I cried for my life today, the lost feeling, the sad feeling, the empty, abandoned feeling. For the insane and uncontrollable life that spins around me and I’ve no way to stop it and surrender is a word I still don’t know how to spell without autocorrect. I cried for the moment, for the gratitude I feel, the undeniable gratitude for being clean and able to feel all this.

Dave would say, “If you got everything you deserved, you would have a toe tag in a morgue somewhere”. As harsh as that sounds there is some truth to that. I mean I haven’t taken a life and I don’t believe anyone should die over the wrongs they committed, for I am not god. But if I was paid back all I had given, I would probly wish I was dead. I think over the last 8 years that’s what has been happening to me, karma has come back around to me and I am getting my due. Needless to say, it’s been a long 8 years. I’ve earned it, I’ve earned it all, if not in this lifetime in one prior to this one. It all revolves around heartbreak and not just by lost loves, but everything that happens, I feel it all in my heart. I have been given something so beautiful to experience, feelings. All of them. The painful, the joyful, the fearful, the lovable – I have been given the ability to feel and not use over it and as of late have I been feeling.

So here I sit, at Dinky Creek Campground, typing away by blue light nightlights that came on these auto dimming reading lamps I’ve mounted to the space above the head of the bed, which is at the back of the van.

Popping chewable Pepto-Bismol tabs and listening to the rumbling of my guts. These are my middle of the night adventures nowadays, a far cry from what was so many years ago.

My mind is baked, like cooked and fried. My heart on life support – my entire life anew and adjusting has not been without complications. For all of us it has been this way, who woulda seen a world pandemic coming that now just seems to be a bad flu, the media has such a way of controlling perceptions/reactions at times. But this is not about political nonsense or over opinionated self-centeredness. No one really cares about how I feel about the media or the president or the BLM or any of what has transpired over the last 8 months for that matter and if I am to spout about it without being asked, I am living out of ego. The world I’ve worked so hard to have is changing and adapting to it has been hard. All the plans, all the ideas, most the goals, all changed without my permission…

I really just don’t want to go back down the mountain on Sunday and if I have too, I would rather travel Southwest to see my sister, to be consumed by that Texas heat and humidity. To be watching sunsets from the desert floor in Arizona, riding red rocks in Utah, thunderstorms in New Mexico, all the way to Austin where they are keeping it weird. I know this cuz its spray painted on a wall on South Congress … I want to drive to her cuz we split to soon, in her African heat valley house where the AC is new and the walls have words you can hear if your quiet enough. Where you know your meant to be for longer than a cycle, but you don’t control the world and fear is a mother fucker and I can want all I want but I will always end up where I am supposed to be until I am supposed to be somewhere different.

And where is that turning point, how do I know when I am supposed to change directions. When the sign says go? When there is a roadblock in the path? When the anxiety gets to be too much? When you want to choke out your employees even though you know how unBuddhist that is and you still want to do it anyways. Thank god I’m only a part-time Buddhist and the Catholic in me can atone for the impure thoughts later. Where is the turning point, where I know I’m not just running in fear, but changing my life cause it’s time. One would think I would know all this by now, bring 2 decades long in school and all.

I think, ‘there has to be more than this to my life’ and then I think, ‘can I not see the forest for the trees’? In all my haste have I been missing it all, blinded by my attachment to change, to have more, to be free, to be loved. I sit here in this van I built from nothing, propped up against this headboard, 8 inches of memory foam beneath me. Blue nightlights, ship style cubbies running along the walls holding all my favorite clothes. Jumping down to check the fridge cause I haven’t heard it click on and off and taking a pic so you could see how magical this moment is and all I can think is I want this forever. And for myself, therein lies the problem. Wanting. Takes me right out the moment and enjoying what is and desiring what is not. In this case its more. In this case its her. In this case it’s traveling. In this case it’s the same as all the other cases, more.

Thursday has come and gone, it’s now close to 3am on Friday morning. My stomach has all but completely settled, Pepto-Bismol is such a remarkable product. My heart is content at the moment cuz this is my autocorrect and I am so grateful for that. Sleepy eyes are back upon me and I am looking forward to surrendering more. Letting go of my life and trusting god has a plan and I need not know it and only trust in the path. Getting back into the ritual of prayer and meditation. Being of service more often. Forgiving myself for not always being perfect. Loving unconditionally. Working on remembering the Prayer of Saint Francis. Riding my bike. Being a dad. Being a friend. Letting go of my attachments to everyone and everything. Being in the moment.