The Choices We Make

We had our first real rainstorm here and it was a cold one. We all hunkered down for the day and felt what it was like to have a day off. It spun by as the last pre-daylight savings time day of 2011. This morning, the pelting of Alaskan rain has made the air smell sweet and there is a dew left on the red roses in the backyard that appears silver in the light of this Sunday morning.

I slept this morning and that is a big change. Each day this week I have awoken at 2 then 3ish then 4ish A.M. and it was a kind of hell that I could not stop. Deeply embedded in my own sleeping this morning I dreamt of helping someone get sober and I know what that is about. Dreams are often some kind of hide and seek that my brain cooks up while I try to repair my body. I want to stay sober through this year as I round the corner on 26 years. However, doing so within the bounds of a spiritual community that seems to be a popularity contest has made my program feel like a parched desert. I know that I am on my own to find something different.

We went to a movie last night at what I call The Dying Movie Theatre downtown and I realized that we have not been to the movies since our beloved Rialto was hijacked by the corporate monstrosity who owns the rest of our movie houses. We refuse to step foot into the art movie house that plays the kind of independent movie we crave after bumping the Rialto out of their lease nefariously and then remodeling and acting like this is business as usual. Oh, it is.

I am amazed that in our Podunk town with such little to choose from we still have to pay for parking when everyone seems to be home watching their flat screen TVs or something. We really do live in a strange county.

This morning we are here drinking in the last of our weekend and then I can go for a run around the lake-the only time I seem to have now to do what I love. I only have so much energy now and I must choose how I spend it. I still go to the gym and swim there and run and I must be selective as I only have so much time and energy. That could change and so I keep my passion alive. I feel the same way about staying sober and I am looking for a new home for my program. It has been time for a change for some time.

Much like the movie we saw last night-The Help, I know that my own choices require stepping through moments, situations, flat, bleak stretches of life with fear and a reflection on the future that is based upon past experiences, with courage that must be dredged up from somewhere in my character. The choices we make can change the course of our lives and yet, those choices are the essence of the change itself. A mobius strip whose limits are never obvious but present nonetheless.