Fly

I started off 2017 with such firm intentions of posting here every day, not my usual endless diatribes, just short-sweet, gratitude-filled post.

You can see how far firm intentions have gotten me. Just about as far as my yearly intentions to exercise more have gotten toward a firm body. I think I might be stuck in reverse.

I have been writing though and I have been busy, blah, blah, blah...

So as a cop-out. I present this post I wrote for yesterday's Druary Day 7 Post:

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Welcome to Day 7!

Can I ask you a few questions?

Why are you here?

Do you feel like you need to be here?

Or, do you want to be here?

Either reason is a good one, but, as two different points from which we can start this month, they have a huge influence over where we arrive at the end of this month. More importantly, it makes a huge difference in the journey.

Are you here to escape the pain drinking can bring, but can’t think of any place to run to? Has drinking become your only refuge?

Or, are you here to discover other places of refuge? Some place other than a bottle in which to immerse yourself?

For most of us, this month will not be easy. And, yes, there will be times, in the first few days, when we think we’re not getting anywhere. We might stumble. That’s okay. As babies learning to walk, we stumbled lots, but we got right back up, didn’t we? You might fall. That’s okay, too. As a kid learning to ride a bike, I bet you fell, didn’t you? Of course you did. I’ll also bet you finally learned how to ride a bike, right? Because you didn’t give up. No matter how many skinned knees or how much road rash you suffered. Because you wanted to learn so bad. Because the reward was worth every bit of the pain.

It is our nature to persevere, then, triumph.  Drinking can too often persuade us to stay in the stumbling stage and on the ground when our hearts keep saying, “Fly!”

We could use this month to just concentrate on not stumbling and falling. By not drinking, we will avoid the hangovers, the fights with our spouse or significant other, the invariable tiredness that dogs our days, the irksome guilt trips, the bewildering feelings of shame that persist no matter how many times we tell ourselves we’re no worse than the next guy-no matter how many times the next guy tells us we’re not that bad, to quit making a big deal of our drinking…All that in itself could be reward enough. We could even hope by just accomplishing damage control, permanent change will come.  Our bodies and mind might heal enough. As might our relationships. We might even enter February with firm intentions to drink less.

But, why? Just to keep from falling again?

Is that all we want? To just walk through life? Not fall down too much?

Or, do we want more?

 Do we want to use this month to go in search of something to keep us sober on Friday night because we can’t wait for Saturday mornings all year long? Do we want to rediscover what it’s like to laugh so hard we beg for mercy-without being drunk? Do we want to see what joys the evening can bring without all the joy being sucked out of us the next morning?

So, back to that question, are you here because you need to be?

Or, are you here to learn to fly?

Submitted by Kary May