Autumn

There is a tendency for the living to try and justify the dead. To point fingers in circumstances we may never come to understand. Of course we struggle to find rhyme and reason to fit our grief. To fit our comprehension of life and living. 

I surrender my ideas and ignorance of your lives to the creator. I surrender you to the universe for it is there that you are free and there where your truth exists. I have no right to tell you to stay because I've come to understand and to know within every nook and cranny of my being, just how many reasons there are to leave it all behind. 

For today however, I seem to have found the reasons to remain outweigh the alternative, but it is a daily process and it is separate from my gratitude, which is full and overflowing. 

I understand better today. Not fully, but better. 

The world appears to be hopeless. The rich and greedy suffocate the rest with their unreasonable demands. 

I understand and send my love. 

It sometimes seems pointless and very often hopelessness slips in the slightest crack, but that I suppose is the point... Today anyway. To find the love and light within the overwhelming sense of impending and present despair. 

No matter what your reasons for leaving, you are loved, I send this love to you now and whenever and wherever your spirit happens to soar, this love will be there... Amongst the ether. 

This is for you. 

The lost. The floundering. The disenfranchised because the franchise is crippling our spirits. 

The slowly fading and those extinguished in the blink of an eye by any number of difficulties and tragedies. 

Those who know that being human has become nothing more than a hustle, a thing to trade for fame of the 15 minute variety. 

For you, for your family and all you held and hold dear. For all who still hold you close. For those who judge and those who love. Equal light into each of you. 

For you. 

To somehow shed light on just how far it takes us. The depression. The anxiety. The delusions. The paranoia. The mental illness. Please don't tell us to get over it. Don't say, if you were just stronger you'd be fine. And please, if you're not trained in medicine of the doctor variety, don't pretend to know who should and shouldn't be diagnosed. 

It is with sadness and sorrow but hope as well that I write this. A song for those we've lost and for those we will lose, but also for those who keep going,  trying to live. I have no right to write this. I am but a small voice in an ocean of millions. 

For you, my now long lost friend. I leave this here for you and the others. Maybe simply for myself... 

As I lay beneath the chilled breeze, amongst the dead and dying blades of autumn. Every molecule twitched, writhing suffocation in remnants of regret and hopelessness built in mountains of shame and denial.
What would the world think, should I acknowledge all that I seem to hold within...
Muscles ached from foot to neck, the heart sprawled broken by the weight as your mind wrestled to cure itself.
It is impossible to be what I know myself to be... Impossible for family and friends to love the real me despite those strangers, mocking and manipulating.
Desperate clinging, fuelled longing clung to frozen lungs in daylight's faded disappearance.
Dreaming lost in sunrise clamouring, forgotten memories slithered deep, burrowing hardened soil.
With every drink,  the truth became solid. The way out ever clear. The world becomes rigid and your end clings desperately, hanging on their every whim and insult... 

All of my love as you rest in peace, that which this world could never bring you. 

David Lewry 

​Where Does The Time Go?

It is like being normal for the first time after a lifetime of abnormal...only to find out that normal was never really that normal to begin with. To recognize that the very definition of "normal" will never quite sit right from the moment your eyes open to lack of the elusive actual, which you had hoped must be hiding right around the next turn. 
The years have melted away, but that's not to say they were easy in any sense of that word...easy. That word is on its way to the garbage heap of the English language which simply may not apply to living a life for anyone, anywhere, in any circumstances ever again. Now I can take it easy, but once I try and mix that with those who have their own unique ideas of what that might look like, the puzzle starts to get scrambled. Anyway, I imagine you get my first point; the longer I'm here, the less I actually know with any degree of certainty.
​
You're welcome. 

Often times I find myself digging in the dirt for a reason to stay; sober and alive. Although there rarely seems a reason to pick up a drink; the continuing to live however, that's a bit of a different story... Sometimes those reasons are harder to find. 
Even when life is good and trust me; life is pretty damn good when I look outside of me.  

Work is wonderful, I am truly blessed to do what I do and cannot imagine a better work place than where I am presently. Family, friendships, and even romantically life is more stable and comfortable than it has ever been. It is much easier to maintain and flourish in the world of relationship once I came to and embraced the reality I had been fighting for as long as I can remember. The truth about who I actually am despite my ignorance about how to be that person has set me free in a new way. Most incredible journeys begin and require a whole lot of acceptance to be what they were created to be. 

The continued lack of peace was a bit of a head scratcher until I got down and accepted, surrendered to, and moved forward to another reality of the self which has been so intricately wrapped within the personality and character of the "who" I was created to be. For me life has become a series of surrenders; some are large scale, personality and character type surrender while others remain slow and steady, daily types. 

The deep seeded depression which is not reasoned with or cured; that which was always there or may have been developed through the years of alcohol and drug abuse and untreated trauma...it seems like it has always been that one friend who is hell bent on watching you destroy everything beautiful in your life because he or she wants their company to be equally miserable. As for cause and effect and what came first; my doctor once said, "David, it doesn't matter why because the what is which may lead you to suicide...or better yet, keep you from it..." tears filled my eyes and he continued, "we must address the what in order to potentially get to the why..." 
He was not convinced that uncovering the seemingly necessary "why"  would make a bit of difference at my age, considering how long my mental illness went untreated...mind you, he was similarly not convinced that the why was not essential for treatment either. Hence he referred me to someone who might know better. 

I firmly believe that we must uncover and release old circumstances, rigid and often ignorant morals, values and beliefs; those which have been formed, either in the present (by limited exposure to a group or population -  over generalization)  or stretching back generations from what I'll generously call "lack of information"(it has to be acknowledged that not all people have the same access to information, albeit I do understand how the over generalization contributes due to" fear analysis" and other improper forms of "research". I'm avoiding as best I can, calling generations of human beings, 'malicious and "evil"'. Although there does seem to be a large enough population of " malicious" people out there... 

I dunno, that is way off topic, but it is my blog and year in review after all. To leave out the seemingly constant and overwhelming tragedies happening across the globe would perhaps allow you to think, it doesn't affect my state of mind from time to time or help form some of my social procedures. That would be untrue; not only am I human, but I'm a reasonably connected to my fellow man type of human. Reasonable enough that as my fellows suffer, there is a part of me which suffers as well. Much like as I watch my fellows succeed  I feel joy and wonder at the feats, capabilities and potential of our species. I suppose from last 12 years of trying to see a whole rather than only the dark, which admittedly, was always easier because my mind gravitates towards the dark like moths to a flame. I want to say that I  have spent every minute of the past twelve years working towards seeing the absolute and never ending beauty of our shared world, however that too would be a lie. 

Anyway, enough of that for now. Let's get back to the last couple of years because honestly, it seems like the passed three have been one long, unending year surpassing time, space, and logic. Through this journey many things have been presented to me from God, the universe and perhaps even everything in it. Not to me alone of course, but I happened to occasionally open my inner eyes and spy what seemed to swirl all around and within me. 

I lost one of my closest friends this year and although I am uncertain how exactly the universe has been altered, I simply recognize it is substantially different. It is always difficult to sum up a life in a few words so I won't attempt such a thing, besides, I was gifted but a small portion of her life. That which she shared with me openly and lovingly. 

To me, she was a brilliant child of a loving creator. Her name could have been moonbeam or sunkiss, but it happened to be tara, which was appropriate as well. The "oh tara..." saying for when she pulled a "Tara" has a good ring to it... "oh moonbeam..."well, I suppose that has a pretty good ring to it as well though :) 

We had only been friends for a few short years, but somehow we managed to find a deep connection right away. This is important because at that time neither of us seemed to have deep meaningful friendships with new people. We played it safe in that arena in order to try and protect ourselves from the harsh realities which sometimes come from developing friendships. She was one of a small group of people who was able to teach me how to try and love better, deeper and with more sincerity. 
I may never understand why she kept me around as a friend, but I can tell you that when you meet a person like tara, you somehow just want to be near or at least able to hear the beauty of her heart and amazing soul when they sing. I knew that for as much as she struggled, she continued to, no, increased somehow, her capacity for loving her fellow human beings. She was some kind of suffering angel, who continued the fight for other's rights and existence constantly throwing herself down that dangerous flight of stairs to soften the blow for others. 

I will carry you in my heart and soul, as you were, and continue to be, a major part of shaping who I hope to become. 

Wow, the last year on its own has been an incredible mixture of joy and pain, love and frustration. From watching people I love experience great joy while suffering their own pain to watching many people prepare to leave this world and those who left far too soon. At least that is my opinion of the matter even though a strong part of me knows it is not about what I think or what I can see, it is about a universal intelligence I could not possibly understand. My vision is so limited as to what the world would or should look like, in moments of clarity I'm extremely grateful the world is not modelled to my specifications. 

And now for some lessons from last year; what kind of review of a year in sobriety would it actually be if I didn't spout off any lessons I picked up, which may change seamlessly if not painfully by next year :)  

Numero uno might as well be "the truth", which many people think they have a monopoly on and fight over their words and ideas like it's Russia and we're all last in line for the single, remaining loaf of bread. As far as I can tell, and I'm no authority, "the truth" is not only constantly evolving, but it is so deeply connected to how, where, and with whom we were raised that there is no wonder the truth varies across the globe. I watch others and myself struggle and suffer over the defence of our individual ideas and perspectives sometimes so ferociously that we actually forget that we really don't know whaaaaat the whaaaaat. 

I know that when I let go, I feel peace. When I stay in my yard; only wandering to other's in order to lend a hand and offer help, I know God then and feel the human purpose I've searched for long and wide. I try and argue with this "truth"  but it sits so comfortably in my entire being, that argument makes way for acceptance that it is exactly as it is supposed to be. Regardless of my opinions on the matter.
The next thing which I have studied through the year is what it means to be an "old timer". Here's something which is definitely open to interpretation and thankfully grants a wide birth for a definition. Having said that, I really wonder how it'll be if, by the grace of God, I make it to become one. I can totally understand being a bit crotchety and grouchy; life has a way of wearing us down, there's no doubt. I think where my appreciation of the "grouchiness" ends is when it's accompanied by arrogance, condescension and a hint of cruelty in the name of "tough love". I've seen individuals be unnecessarily overbearing to the point of having to counsel the recipients of their "love" afterwards because of fear of going back to "those kinds of places, filled with "those kinds of people". 

Also, according to recent studies... I'm just kidding, but honestly, I've learned that when people read those few words, they tend to pay more attention to what comes afterwards... Good luck with that. Just remember I can write it as well as anyone else... Recent studies suggest that any jackass can suggest anything, no matter how ridiculous, so long as it comes from an "actual" "research" study and you don't out yourself as the jackass. 

As the days approached my sobriety milestone, the days lingered long and heavy. I am not certain if it was worse this year for any particular reason but it seemed a bit heavy, like far too much was going on all around me. But if you asked, I wouldn't have been able to quite put a finger on anything in particular. I imagine it has a lot to do with all that was shifting and changing within me as the external circumstances solidified and stabilized. 

Often times people underestimate the power and effect of things finding their place. We expect to simply feel relieved, well at least I half expect to, but the truth seems to be that for each part of my external life which finds its home, whether temporary or seemingly permanent, there are dreams I did not even know I had, now dead, which must be grieved. 

Of course things continue to change when everything seems to have stopped moving. I can look around and see nothing with my external eyes that appears out of place yet feel completely off balance; floating above, below and within those circumstances. Seemingly no ground in reality, all the while experiencing the day to day grind that is the human life. What a gift and what a confusing trip it can be. 
I realize now there is no set type of "old timer"  any more than there is a set type of person. I also recognize more and more each day that today, tomorrow or next week are not a guarantee but a gift we may or may not appreciate in the moment. 

In fact we simply may be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually incapable of seeing things beyond our own perspective. Those are the toughest times I experience and like most people, reaching out is not always easy. My hope is that while we're here, we'll march forward, together, slowly and steadily teaching each other how best we can love and gift that love to and receive that love from one another. 
One day at a time, as that is all we have. 

Thank you, 

David Lewry 

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