Ever. Always. Almost.

I heard this yesterday and I wrote it down immediately...I guess it is another version of my “Again, Still...”

I love the idea that we are just doing things again, still and even in that far grooved repeating pattern change occurs.  Like it is ever, always, almost what we want, need and believe.

I love that my life is constantly changing, but that, I have a great number of things that repeat.  My issues remain the same but they show up in my life quite differently today than they did 30 years ago or even 6 months ago.  If I am doing this whole living thing well, I am growing and changing on the daily but the themes of my life repeat.

Sometimes being afflicted with the things I am can feel like a spinning top that I cannot jump off of.  But then again, they feel like my quests in this life.  Like I was afflicted with the tragedies and traumas I was and now my whole life’s work is to do my best to resolve them to some logical and spiritual conclusion.  I tend to think that God is like, “let’s just see how far she gets!”

And I think God and I are both pretty happy with what I have accomplished thus far.  I mean, I could always relapse or have never gotten sober in the first place.  What a ruinous wreckage my life would have been or could be if I just made that one stupid addicted choice!

But since I am ever sober, I always have a chance to grow and almost resolve that which offends and binds me.  I shall never be completely resolved until it is my time to leave.  And even then, there are likely quite a few people who might say that I had more to do or that I didn’t do enough with the time I was allotted.  I, however, feel fairly confident that I am making good use of my life and time here and hope that the satisfaction I feel with my life and my attempt to live it according to spiritual principles shall be enough to claim I did a good job with what I was given to work with.

I am ever afflicted.  I am always working on it and I almost get there...all the time, every single day of my life.  There is always going to be more for me to work on, and with. And while I may continue to grow along spiritual lines, I am always going to only almost get there. Perfection can be the inspiration but it shall never be the destination.

For me, this phrase is best represented with my Again, still...I am doing it again, still.  But it is never exactly the same as it was.  It is a successive approximation of what was before, a little more evolved, almost better, but never completed, resolved and over.  As long as I am living I am forever, always, almost there, wherever “there” might be...

Again, still...