IT TAKES A THIEF

The cap'n and I often travel for his work and today I am in Kansas, not far from where I lived most of my life and actually in the small town where my dad grew up. I dropped the cap'n off early at work and came back to the hotel room and donned my tennis shoes and went out for a meander. No high school tracks or power walking for me. I like to ramble aimlessly through neighborhoods watching people go about their early morning tasks, sweeping their porches, taking their trash cans down to the curb. The kids are jumping on their bikes trying to squeeze out every drop of these last days of summer. I love the tick, tick, tick of the sprinkler as it anoints the glistening grass. As I walk on I feel a tightness in my chest, an ache in my throat. I am grieving. I've lost so many of these mornings and I want them all back. But I'll never get them back. They were stolen from me. Booze was the thief. But I was the one that left all the windows and doors unlocked and let him in. He stole my sun dappled mornings and still winter nights. He robbed me of giggles and tear sprouting belly laughs, wrenching sobs. What he didn't steal out right he dulled, tinged, lessened, depleted. Alcohol has my past, God please help me guard my future.