Here's a timeline for me- I moved out of my old house into a new house; I became foreman of my landscaping crew that I work for; and the consoliated holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years) are coming to a close. What has changed? Not much in particular? Still, there are people around me are relapsing, and I sometimes sit around and wondering what I am doing around here? Sometimes, I feel like I am playing a game of cards, but the deck is only half there.
I know this is self delusion or fear. The wonder of where my future lays, but a good deal of this comes from my past that every so often pops up and sticks it's head to remind me of who I am or what I was.
A week or two ago, I had some friends come visit me. I should start by saying I have two classifications of friends from back home, both of which I am sure care about me, just one was based around the party scene (drugs and alcohol) and the other group was based around who I was- I mean friends I made because we sat, talked, clicked, and got to know each other. Group one I got to know through drugs and then we got to know each other. Group two, doesn't do drugs, drinks like normal human beings, and we got to know each other normally. Both group have people I love in them, and both groups are full of great people in them, but both groups subsribe to a variety of lifestyles that at some point create an exclusivity that makes me wonder how I was able to maintain a friendship in such two different worlds. For instance, it's hard to imagine that my best friend in group one is a pot-head manager at McDonald's (he's a good guy, don't get the wrong impression), and my closest friend from the second group is a senior at Texas A & M, ex- Younglife leader. The irony is, I've known both cats since back in the day, but my relationship with them began around my second rehab about four years ago.
Anyway, two people from the first group came, Matt (my closest friend from that group and my ex- roommate) and Pake. But, let me backtrack a few days. I was sitting in the room where the CA (Cocaine Anonymous) meeting I was going to attend was to be held. I was waiting for it to start (I was thirty minutes early for some reason), writing in my journal, sitting in a chair, when my father called me. I answered the phone, and talked to him for a bit, made some plans for the weekend for when he was to visit me, and then right before we were going to hang up he said: "Oh, hey, by the way, I recieved an e-mail from a friend of yours- someone named Pake." As soon as he said the name, my stomach dropped a bit.
"He just wanted to know how're you're doing and so on."
"It's a she," was all I could think to reply. My mind colluded with thoughts trying to figure what exactly I should do about this situation(when I thought about it later, I lauged because I really just heard a named, panicked because there was no "situation" to do anything about in the first place) and how the hell did she get my father's e-mail (Texas A & M's web page).
"Well," he says. "Okay, she just wanted to know how you're doing, and she left a number. Do you want it?"
This was the critical moment and I didn't know what to do. I sent out many letters to make amends, and she was one of the letters I sent to make amends to, especially to the fact that I haven't seen her in a year because she left to Germany to study abroad, and when she came back, I was gone. I also knew at some point that I had to begin to make amends again face to face with the people that deserved it, but still, I felt like ice ran through me, and it wasn't because it was freezing outside (I was sitting in my car with my heater on at this point). Finally, resigning that it was God telling me that it's about time to get over my fear, I said yes, and my father gave me her phone number.
I call her up immediately, and of course, she was suprised to hear from me. She tells me that Matt was hurt with everything that went on. That he felt betrayed by me hiding my meth addiction, my relapse from all of them (they only smoked pot and drank, and little coke and ecstasy didn't hurt either, right?), but he was beggining to forgive me and wanted to see me, and that she felt hurt, but really wanted to see me, blah blah blah, and so forth.
Anyway, jump ahead, because the rest is just my life, but here are two things that worked out from this situation: one, I decided to make those face to face amends and I'm going to make my first trip back to College Station since I left in August on January 5th. I am taking my sponsee Eric with me, the one that I went with to Fort Worth with so he could make his amends, because he has an amend in Bryan, and we are staying the weekend. Two: Pake and Matt decided to come up that Friday after she talked to me on the phone to visit.
So, we are caught up in the story to where I want to be. That Friday, I get off work, relax, and take a shower, and almost immediately after my shower, Pake and Matt arrive at my house. There is the awkward, how are doing?- and so on, but in the end, we move on.The first thing we do is get a cup of coffee where I make my amends. I admit to every big lie I ever told, everything I stole, all the things I have done, even somethings I thought I wouldn't tell. Suprising myself when I broke down in tears, telling them how much of a coward I am, and how sorry I am, Matt tells me that, "Today, you are not a coward, but you are becoming a man." I just wanted to shake my head and respond, "There are cowardly men, Matt," but I smiled and said nothing.
Then, we went to dinner, talked about old times, and they caught me up with the new drama, which in the past would've interested me, but for some reason, I was dying of boredom for a new topic. I was skipping my meeting, and for some reason, I kept wondering what the topic was. Then, they left eagerly, because, it was obvious to me (especially when Matt ordered a beer at the restaurant, which didn't bother me, I have passed that point where it bothers me to be around alcohol and drugs, I just wondered why he couldn't just not drink for the day...?) that the sober life bores them.
The whole next day at work, I felt somewhat depressed and I didn't know why. My mind blank and dull, and I just worked like machine that needed maintenance. Then, a moment of clarity struck me. As I thought over all the moments of drama they told me about and the root of that drama struck me as the party scene that I removed myself from, I realized that I don't want to go back to that anymore- I realized that maybe, sadly that my friendship with these people will never be the same anymore. Their problems almost seemed childish to me. This guy is sleeping with a girl he doesn't like and this guy is in jail but now weed isn't getting stolen is so sophomoric compared my other friends that are talking to me about marriage, post graduation, careers, and relationships, or in my life, recovery and God put in the mix. I became sad because, I realized, at that moment, that I might have made amends to people so I could also wash my hands clean, and really CLEAN, of a group that no longer appeals to me, or no longer really connects with me spiritually or mentally or physically anymore. It's more than being on a different page, we were two different books on different bookshelves and there is only one person to read us.
It was a growing moment, which is seems of late, I'm having these huge momentsw of growths, and that's all I have. Moments of growth and clarity (which I am sure has to do with my mind clearing up and becoming more rational).
But, I talked with my friend Felix, who's from the second group, and then there's that feeling that we're in the same sentence- does that make sense? The realization that social classes and cliques and groups don't make you who are is great, but the realization also that those friends of yours make and break you, are critical to helping guide down your path of life, is somewhat euphoric and cathartic and mellowing at the same time.In the end, I became grateful for the friends that were there with me on the outside of the world drugs and stuck with through this sickness becuase while they'll never know the pain of the disease, they will always know the love of God, and for that they are blessed, and for that, I am blessed. For that, I am blessed.
For that, I am blessed.