Lately I've gone through a period of reconstruction and late-in-life maturing in some funny ways. One way I've tried to "grow up" is by equipping my house with common things that adults have but that I've forgone out of a lack of common sense. I've bought new socks and underwear, changed the oil regularly, new shoes, jeans that fit properly, etc... Last Summer I briefly dated a really nice and interesting girl who made the keen observation that I didn't have any hand soap in the bathroom- just bar soap, not the pump-pump-squirt variety. I bought a bottle of cheap stuff from Rite-Aid and smiled a couple of days later when I heard her notice that I had bought some.
The problem is, I inadvertently purchased a brand that I owned eight years ago when I lived in Hawaii. This is the kind of scenario that I imagine must only be a problem for alcoholics like me. You see, this cheap hand soap has a particular, clinical, unmistakable smell. A smell I will forever associate with the years I lived in Hawaii which were the beginnings of the truest alcoholic Hell that I have known. These were the years that blackouts became ordinary and expected. The years when I began to let myself and everyone else down. The years when I treated women badly and struggled to keep names straight. They were years of unsettling loneliness and years defined by a crippling clinging to self-will and a sad inability to "let go".
It's good and maybe even healthy for me to be reminded of my past so that I don't tempt myself by thinking I can ever drink like a normal person. But, I really don't need a reminder every time I use the bathroom. It can be jarring and unsettling. I'm trying very hard to let go of the past and some of the people in it.
I remember a story I read in the news during the Hawaii years, I will paraphrase it here:
A man on trial in Florida wrestled a gun from a bailiff and shot him and a judge and escaped the courtroom. He holed up in a motel room and took hostage a woman who was trying to get clean from a meth addiction. She had a troubled life and two years prior caused an accident when she was high behind the wheel and heard a voice say "let go and let God." She took her hands off the wheel and totaled the vehicle at highway speeds. Now, she was held hostage. Her captor asked if she had any weed and instead she convinced him to smoke meth with her. In his meth-induced psychosis she was able to convince him to free her.
My lasting memory of reading this story is that it was the first time I had heard the phrase "let go and let God" and it was in conjunction with a stranger's suicide attempt. Today I hear it often in my recovery circles and it has newer, hope-ier meanings. Letting go is not giving up but allowing others to live a self-determined life and acknowledging that I don't have the answers anymore.
I struggle very much with letting go of those I care for. It causes me some serious trouble. I find myself demanding that God bring back my dead friends and I'm ready to get in the ring with him about it. But harder still is letting go of those who still have a pulse but possibly no desire to live. The talented, melancholy musician Conor Oberst writes in Land Locked Blues "If you walk away, I'll walk away. Just tell me which road that you'll take. I don't wanna risk our paths crossing someday. So, if you walk away, I'll walk away."
Note that he didn't say "I'll walk away and then turn around and follow your ass around for a few months to see who you screw and how you change your haircut." Nope, he didn't write those lyrics. But hard as I try, letting go is never easy. I'm sure those are lyrics too. Wait here while I go google them. Be right back. Okay, Coldplay wrote something similar. Fuck my life.
Letting go is the hardest part (those are the exact Coldplay lyrics) because ex-girlfriends leave physical traces and fingerprint smudges all over your soul. I have been separated from my last ex for over a year and I'm still finding hairpins in the couch cushions. I cleaned my house top-to-bottom a few months after we broke up and I invited a girl over for dinner. I thought I had gotten everything but there- smack in the middle of the refrigerator- was a love note. It had become invisible.
Like the hand soap, I need the occasional reminder to help me from making the same mistakes again. But, I don't need to be reminded of life's previous hardships every time I brush my fucking teeth. Still, I find it therapeutic but painful to discard of the old resentments and struggles. Failure is familiar and familiarity is where I like to be. Healthy changes are hard to make because I set myself up for a new failure and I'm afraid new failures might kill me.
But I'm on a winning streak these days. I haven't lost a job in years. The electricity is not in danger of being turned off, I've had three squares a day for two years and I've been on several dates with gorgeous and interesting girls since I split with whatshername. Today I can let go of the past injuries and let in the victories. As a friend says, "let go of the 'Rebeccas' and let in the 'Stephanies'." *
When I can't seem to let go on my own, I can always ask for help. Or listen to Coldplay for inspiration.
*these are not actual names of anyone I've dated.
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