Today, I am reminded of where I’ve been.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget.  Sometimes it’s easy to take things for granted.  Just now walking through the halls of my office, I had a thought of…I just have so much on my mind.  Then I paused and thought, no…. I really don’t but I used to.  I remember walking through these halls so consumed with worry, dread, regret.  Consumed by a panic feeling that there was so much undone and so much to do.  Feeling like I might not ever get it all done, that I probably wouldn’t.  Just accepting that for life and trying to find ways to move this worry to another place to temporarily give it ease.  I don’t live life like that anymore.  I can’t really even put my finger on a time when I felt all of that weight lift from my shoulders.  When I was finally able to wake up without that gnawing sickness in my stomach, without the racing heart, and negative thoughts.  Sure, at times I still have things that concern me.  We live in a fallen and broken world.  That hasn’t changed.  The change that has happened has happened within me.  A change that can happen to each one of us if we allow it.
This past weekend, I did something so out of my character, my new character, my new skin… this new wine skin.  I have spent the last two days beating myself up about it a little.  I opened a door and stepped back into my past.  I didn’t have to do that, I don’t even know why I did it.  I went to a bar that I used to hang out at to hear a singer/songwriter friend of mine.  Her music has always had a way to speak to me; her music speaks to many people.  I know I am not alone in that.  She is special.  I decided to have a few too many drink-drinks.  I don’t drink very much anymore and when I do it’s usually because I am hanging out with friends in a social setting and we are all having a few.  This time, I was the only one drinking.  I was drinking captain and diet as if it was water.  The next thing I know… I’m intoxicated and making no sense to those around me or myself.  As I sit here right now, in this moment I still can’t tell you why I did it.  I just kept saying, yes each time I was asked if I wanted another.  Even when I knew it was too much, I thought switching to beer was a good idea.  Clearly not thinking and living in the second.  It’s not that it’s wrong to drink. I know its wrong for me to drink to that point because I do not make good choices and I open up a can of regret each time I do.  I regret not being a sober friend to my newly sober friend.  I regret not being sober enough to have meaningful conversations with old friends that I remember.  Instead, I feel like I was a display of who I used to be and not who I am now.  Someone that doesn’t have to drink to have a good time, someone that doesn’t have to drink to cover up those mounds of unmanageable worries.  Those have all been removed by the Grace of God.  I don’t know if it was because I was following old habits, maybe it was a moment of rebellion, simply just a bad decision.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t worth it.  I ended up crying myself to sleep in the passenger seat of my own car.  I ended up being destructive to myself by my own words and being nasty to someone that truly cares about me.  I think the thing that haunts me the most, is that I wasn’t a present witness that night.

Today, I am reminded of that person I used to be that had to drink to have a good time.  I had to drink to dull the pain, to make the panicked voice inside me... silent.  I had to drink to get the courage to even smile. I have so many reasons to smile.  Today I smile simply because I can.

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