Stage

I've never been the type who responds to burning bushes with enthusiasm. While Moses may have been convinced that all he needed was a sign from God to do something great in his world, I find that the writing in the sky doesn't convince me. Maybe it's because it seems too mainstream, too obvious, or too common-sensical. 

Because, for most people (I'm assuming), all it takes is the flashing sign that says Do Not Enter for a quick stop, breath, and U-turn. 

We've all heard the stories of these flashing signs. It's the dad who goes from a sperm donor to a real father because when his wife decides to finally utter the words, I'm leaving, the light bulb goes off. It's the woman with the dead-end job who knows deep inside that she's really supposed to be doing that, and the boss walks in to tell her the company's shutting down and the light bulb goes off. It's the man who's been a functional crack smoker for twenty years and looks in the mirror one day and sees the sores all over his face and arms, and puts it away for good when he realizes how much his family really needs him. 

Doesn't it seem that the light bulb just flickers on for most people? One moment they're messed up and on a path going nowhere, then the epiphany comes, and everything changes. They just quit, or redirect their path, or start doing something different.

That's just not how it's worked for me. 

The great epiphany hasn't been my story.

The conversation with my mother after wrecking her car (for the third time) didn't create any epiphanies. The trip to the hospital with enough alcohol in my blood to kill any human wasn't enough to turn on the light bulb. The broken relationships, the financial debt, the trips to jail, none of these was a burning bush for me. 

Why? I wonder. 

I'll give it a shot trying to answer this loaded question.

For starters, I'm the most important person in my life. As long as I still have what it takes to overcome the obstacles in my path (regardless of whether they're self-imposed or not), nothing's gonna convince me to turn off the path I'm heading down. 

I have a friend who, although much like me had repeated burning bushes in his life, the one thing I knew that would convince him was losing his daughter. But, even that wasn't enough. So, what's left? He was left, and he may still be holding on for dear life to what's left of himself. I don't know. I haven't heard from him since he went to jail.

Anyways, back to me (the most important character in this article). As long as I'm the one who appears to be the fixer, or the obstacle mover, or the hero, or the rags-to-riches-personality, I have a chance. At least, that's what I think. That's the status my marvelous mind's telling me I'm living in. 

But something curious happened one night in 2008. I was at a bar, which was normal. I was with friends, which was normal. I'd been drinking, which was very normal. I was singing karaoke, which was normal (but probably not as appreciated by my friends as I would've liked them to be). 

And as I was singing - probably some throwback Bob Dylan song from the seventies that only gets heard these days through some alcohol-induced, swaying, slit-eyed drunk like me standing on top of the world (or on top of a stage that seems like it could collapse any second now, or is that just the room spinning?) - something happened. It was subtle, but sobering. It was silent, but effective at least for the moment. 

I lost me, or, in more logical terms, I lost my dignity. And I was the last sucker to see it. 

I'm sure everyone else had already lost my dignity for me, but I wouldn't have noticed. 

As I stood there in a bar full of people, I saw myself for who I truly was - a joke, a wretch, a loser, a hopeless cause. Although there were maybe a hundred people in the room, it seemed like I was the only one. I was singing into a void, a chasm, an empty place full of mirror reflections of me at different points of my drinking career. There's me when I screwed up that wedding. There's me when I hurt my dad. There's me when I said that to her. There's me when I quit school. There's me when I nearly drank myself to death. There's me crying. There's me walking into the bar with the hospital bracelet still on my wrist.

And the most important reflection I saw that night was, There's me not being able to do a fucking thing about me.

I lost me that night, and I would never recover.

Because, when I lost me, something else took over. 

This something else was something different. It was something mysteriously hopeful. It was something that would set me on a path that I'd never known before. And I decided that next morning that I wanted more of that something. I wanted to drink that something up like I would a thirty pack of Lone Star or my favorite mix of a rum and coke.

And that something started driving me to do something, but more importantly, it seemed like that something was doing things to me, inside me, around me, and through me.

And that something, I decided, was profitable enough to pour all of my energies into. That something was valuable enough to entrust my life to. That something was powerful enough to take away the obsession that was so prevalent for so many years in my life. That something became everything.

I knew that it could either be me or the mysterious something that would determine my course, and I lost me. That something was the only thing available, and let me tell you . . . 

I haven't been the same since. 

God either is or isn't. Unless I'm crushed by a self-imposed crisis, I will always choose me. Unless circumstances have made me willing to accept that there's nothing left of me to fix whatever problem has come up, I will always choose me. 

And so, life today takes on a completely different meaning. I still want to drink up the mysteries of that something, but the only way to get the satisfaction I need is to stay in a state of lostness. I have to remember that I lost me back in 2008 and I'm never getting me back. Me is dead. Me is never going to be recovered. Me is a joke, a dead end road, a torture chamber. 

But a new Me, thanks to the something that started working in me, began forming that next day. And the new Me is who I have today. And the sky's the limit. Alcohol is no longer my master, but has been replaced by a loving something that gently guides me through life's problems, and points me where I need to go.

Either God is or God isn't. It's either me or God. I choose God today.