Live To The Point Of Tears

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,

A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
But I know one thing:
Each time I find myself flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.

That's life, I can't deny it,
I thought of quitting,
But my heart just won't buy it.
Cause if I didn't think it was worth a try,
I'd have to roll myself up in a big ball and die.

That's Life, written by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon;

from Frank Sinatra's 1966 album of the same name.

Many years ago, a cartoon appeared in Playboy showing an execution chamber, a death row inmate about to be strapped in for his last ride. On the wall behind an electric chair hangs a prominent sign that reads – “This is the last day of the rest of your life.” This witty spin on a popular aphorism of the time still makes me chuckle, and in light of my father's death last week, gives me pause - what if this were the last day of the rest of my life? Would I be doing anything differently than I am at this very moment, i.e., blogging about the last day of my life?  Good questions to ask ourselves from time to time. Are we really happy? Does happiness even matter? Is there something we ought to be doing that we are not. And if so, what are we waiting for? An invitation? In an earlier entry I explained the yet list of recovery. Those consequences of our addiction that have yet to rear their ugly heads. Now I speak of one's bucket list, a concept recently popularized in film. Those places, people and things we hope to visit, meet, do...before it's no longer an option, before we kick the bucket.

I know not how long I have on this mortal plane. I don't know if anybody does. Even if I do manage to live a righteous existence, a chunk of metal could still fall out of the sky at any moment striking me dead in an instant. It's as unlikely to occur as being struck by lightening, though I think you have my point.

Several chapters of my life have recently drawn to a close. The Sustainable Living Roadshow just concluded its most ambitious tour to date. It was a bigger-than-life experience and its completion has left a void. Last Monday morning, to clear skies, my father was laid to rest next to my mother. And while he had been unable to recognize even his own children for some time, it's categorically different

now that he's gone. Lastly, after 21 years of marriage, I have moved from the escrow period of having moved out to a permanent separation from my wife.

By any reckoning that's a heap of things to all happen at once. Am I hoping for a blue ribbon for holding it together? Special treatment? Extra credit for staying sober? Hardly. It isn't that I haven't cried. I have. It isn't that I'm not sad. I am. It's just I have a different relationship with emotions than I did before. Early in recovery, my sponsor counseled me that how other people felt was none of my business. He went on to further suggest that how I felt was none of my business. This last, a radical intervention at the time.

Back in junior high, a girl I've long since forgotten dropped a pearl of wisdom into the palm of my hand. She explained, “the deeper sorrow carves into your soul, the greater your capacity for joy”.      At the time, I thought I knew what she meant. Now I know. It's an ideal beautifully-expressed by Albert Camus when he admonished us to “live to the point of tears”.   From whence do these tears spring? The place in our hearts as described in song by Jackson Browne when he sung about a “fountain of sorrow, fountain of light...”.

The fact of the matter is I have a program in place – the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a reason why our parting utterance at meetings is “It works if you work it”. I worked it and now it's working for me. Recovery is only partly about addiction, though.  It is mostly about a better blueprint for living, in my case - building a stronger foundation upon which to build my dreams.

Happy and sad are but two sides of the same coin.

You just have to be willing to toss it in the air.