2008-03-25

DO gratitude.

I got an email this morning from someone very dear to me, someone who, over the last few years, has been more important to me -- and my sobriety -- than I could ever adequately put into words. He has always managed, in his manner and in his actions, to lead by example, and when I find myself, mentally speaking, going out to the packie to pick up supplies for a little pity party, it's his voice that I hear: "Oh, Cinderella -- your life is SO HARD."

His mother passed away last night, after a long and valiant struggle with grave illness. He has been grappling with this for so long, and all he could say in his message to me was how relieved he was that his mother was no longer suffering, and how grateful he was for all of the good people in his life.

I am someone who struggles mightily with this concept. I find myself having to fake gratitude a lot, the idea being that if I keep TELLING myself I'm grateful, the actual feeling will eventually emerge, blinking and yawning, from the cave I've banished it to all these years. Another sober friend of mine tells me that this is wrong, that I have to "DO gratitude." She's right, of course. I hate that.

I have people close to me who are dealing with more crap than I could ever conceive of...just voluminous PILES of it everywhere. We are -- sadly -- capable of doing such horrible things to one another, sometimes not even realizing it, sometimes with full realization rendered crippled by whatever "justifications" we've concocted as an excuse to be beastly, selfish, duplicitous shits to the people we're supposed to love. And then there are things that we just have to accept and try to ride out the best we can. Illness. Heartbreak. Death. We all experience these things directly, or else we stand by helpless as we watch others go through the motions of living while the ceiling's caving in around them. And then someone fuckin' goes and tells us to remember to say "thank you."

Yeah. "Thank you." I'll get right on that. Meh.

I remember that this friend of mine -- the one who's just lost his mother -- was in a total state in his fourth or fifth year of sobriety. He was actually going around with quarters and looking for near-expired parking meters to stick them in, because he felt so adrift and wanted to do SOMETHING positive, even if it was technically not legal. I didn't quite get it back then, so immersed was I in the battle to just get through one day without drinking myself into a thick, black stupor.

I get it now. I want to fill my pockets with change and buy everyone more time.

I reply to my friend. I tell him that I don't know what I can do for him now, but I will do whatever he asks of me, and that he should definitely ask. And then I read through a series of messages from my friend Lynette, and one from PK that makes me laugh out loud, and then one from Diane setting up dinner plans in a couple of weeks. And one from Renita, and another from Jon miraculously not chastising me to hell and back for confessing that I think "Pyromania" is a REALLY GOOD RECORD. I should print out all these messages and stick them to my forehead, I really should.

Thank you, I say. Thank you. Thank you.

lisamcc at 1:13 p.m.

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