In A Peaceful Way

I am sitting here looking at snow on the ground.

A dusting but still, snow. The wind is howling and it is barely 20 degrees, if that. Wind chill is 444 below. I have to go to the dump today, I have to get gas, which means I have to brush snow off The Big Ride for the first time. Which means I have to venture out in this harshness.

I am taking all this in calmly.

I am charting strange new territory and I like how it makes me feel.

The tortured crucible change in my mind may finally be taking hold. I am thinking about my life, I am staring down mortality, I have been shaken up and kicked around.

I had yesterday off. I have today off. I am thinking.

I feel at peace today. One reason is that I did not chug whiskey on Friday or Saturday night, nor will I do so today. I slept well. A strange and new experience.

My health has been challenged and I am attempting to take a new approach.

Here is a little honesty for you. I started drinking at the age of fifteen. It made me a crazy man, fun to be around and it killed my pain and hid my insecurities. It became a blueprint for my life and I have been abusing it non stop for 44 years.

I have always justified it in my mind and to you by explaining that the numbness kept me at bay. Kept me keeping on, instead of running away to Tijuana.

There is truth to that, but nowhere near as much as I have claimed in the past.

Ultimately alcohol has been the single most powerful deterrent to my becoming who I should be.

And it will continue to do that to me, I will continue to do that to me, unless I change.

I am not making promises here, I am outlining what I know to be the truth.

When I got the sky high BP diagnosis a week ago, I came home and swilled down a large amount of whiskey.

How incredibly stupid. Booze exacerbates high blood pressure.

This is why I am not making promises. Reaching for the bottle has been my go to solution for 44 years, no matter how stupid, how damaging that reaction has been.

But I am comfortable in this peace I am living today. I enjoyed a sweet and pleasant Friday night with Carol. I enjoyed a sensitive Saturday with Carol and a magnificent lunch with Keith & Emily.

I feel good today.

My actions in my life up to now have predetermined the final chapters of my life and it ain't pretty.

A smart man would rewrite those final chapters to give himself the surprise ending that he deserves.

I'll see how it goes.