Another Day, Another Park

You probably think I fell off the wagon and am stuck in the muddy ruts somewhere. I'm not yesterday was Day 3 of my abstinence and it was glorious. There were not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything I wanted to get done. So much better than laying on the couch in the throes of a vicious hangover counting down the hours until I can go back to bed and try to go back to sleep. Today is Day 4 and it's what I like to call a molten lava sh%* day. I always like to imagine that my cells are ridding themselves of all the poisons I've forced on them and are finally able to take a deep breath of fresh, clean air. I wish my memory cells would do the same. Seems that I'm spending the day rehashing everything that I've ever done wrong, every embarrassing moment….I wrote this in my journal on one of these days in one of my previous recoveries…
In my transient lifestyle, I found myself wandering the paths of another park. This one was not littered with the refuse of humanity but that was okay because I was feeling pretty bottom of the proverbial garbage pail about myself. It was one of those weeks when I had found myself to be embarrassingly human and even though the bruises weren't readily observable to the human eye, I was feeling pretty tender from the ongoing onslaught I was inflicting on myself.
The cap'n kept trying to reassure me that I was a good person, a nice person, a kind person but….he has to say that because he loves me and he was desperate because it ain't fun living with me when I am in this state of mind. So I didn't believe him.
So I'm on this path early one morning and I see an elderly gentleman ambling toward me. He has the rolling gait and the vacant stare of a Parkinson's patient. I am really in no mood for any kind of encounter but my good manners kick in and I smile and say, "Good Morning."
The man's vacant eyes light up, and he says, "Not everyone is friendly. I just passed a couple and said Good Morning and they didn't say anything back." He says, "I speak to everyone."
I go a few more steps down the path and dissolve into tears. I know that man was God.
P.S. Please don't write and tell me I'm a good person, that's not the point of this little article. Instead I challenge you to stop yourself today every time you tell yourself that you're stupid, fat, ugly, weak…..You're human and you're doing the best you can!