I was thinking the other day about how many days go by in a row without a crisis, a bad day, horrible news, terrible pain. I was thinking about it because I realized that there were a lot of days like this. So many in fact that I failed to even notice. My life was so crisis lacking that I had come to take it for granted.
There was a time when life did not bring a crisis, I would create one just to make myself feel alive. I was so addicted to the drama and trauma of living that I had to manufacture that shit just to make myself feel something. I was so dead inside that only horrific circumstances really helped me feel like I was living.
I spent a wonderful day off yesterday, hanging in the backyard, reading, listening to music. It was lovely. I hung out in Ojai downtown in the late afternoon with friends. It was drama free and it was lovely.
It has taken me far longer than it should have to allow the crisis management mode to leave my life. For a long time, it felt like I was not really living, the calm disturbing in its novelty. But like any new skill practiced and honed, I have now so come to enjoy the lack of crisis in my life that I began to take it for granted. The deliberate manufacture of misery something of the past. And I am not so far gone in the peaceful equanimity of my life that I don’t stop and marvel at the change. It is lovely. It is really, really lovely.
So today peace is not just the absence of crisis. It has become something else. I am here living and enjoying life even when it is crisis marked. What seems to be happening is that I am enjoying my life regardless of what level of drama arrives. Crisis comes, no big deal. Crisis leaves, no big deal. No crisis comes, no big deal. No crisis leaves, no big deal. The accumulation of days where I am just good, life is just good and peaceful are wonderous. But because I am human, I take it all for granted.
So I want to dedicate this moment right here to me not taking it for granted. For me honoring a life well lived where not much is really going on. I am not starting anything new and I am not quitting something ongoing. My sponsor told me to do this about six months ago, and it was excruciating! Every single day was painful because all I wanted to do was quit something ongoing and start something new. Today I am living in the moments in between life taking care of that for me. Life directing when something begins and ends, me just rolling with it.
Life’s loose garment style being way more comfortable than my straightjacket mentality.
Who knew?
So I begin day number two of my work/child free vacation with only a beach walk and short commitment this evening. The day is wide open and I am amazed. So good to be amazed...and crisis free.
