Lets Get Personal

Leaving Santa Rosa was a turning point in my life. That time after moving to Sacramento was a kind of rush that took me away. Imagine a windy day that lasts many years and you a leaf. The years before and after surgery were devastating. Not because of the surgery per say, that was some of it but also the isolation the loneliness topped with excessive drugs us.

The day dad called asking me to come and look after him I thought would be a new beginning. It was not, it was reconciliation with him, a strange kinship with a dying man, a mother with dementia and a cabinet filed with exotic medication that lasted almost a year.
After dad died and mom was settled in a home I went back to Sacramento and lived little over a year in what would best be described as me scraping bottom. Each day was a search for the dope to deaden my mind and the money to pay for it. That year ended with a call on my cell phone as I was living in my car under a bridge in a drunken stupor. My sister called to tell me mom had passed away.
For another two years I still was compelled to dull my senses to isolate and self-destruct. With some help I managed to get into a trailer park using each day, each day still a search to destroy myself.
I thought of Santa Rosa often, I thought of the intimacy I found there and the peace. Someone had written that “you can never go back home, you can go to that place and see the people but not back”.
After the family home was sold and the estate was settled I moved to Atlanta, purchased a house and began a new life without the use of drugs. That will be three years ago on April twenty fourth. Three years ago a new beginning more than that, a new birth. It took a year and a half to drain all the crap out of my system, another year to come to terms with all the damage I had done to myself and to others.
I left my childhood home on drugs every place I went and left, I was on some kind of dope. I am now at a place I call home, clean, learning to trust again to love again to be at peace again. I am home responsible for my past and my future. My mind is clear and seeking, I move with thoughtful action, I have a decided heart and choose to be happy, I greet each day with a forgiving spirit, and I persist. I am on my path. For me, today, life is a beautiful mystery welcoming me to a new beginning.