Someone told me recently, it is time for a celebration. I was standing with the paperwork in my hands. I felt more like a lost loved one, had finally passed after a lengthy illness. I mean, even though life had checked out for well over a decade, the reality of the signed documents left me indifferent, and wondering where my soul had really gone for all of these years. I think if the experiences I have had in my life had not occurred during the time they did, I truly believe, I wouldn’t be here today.
I’m an alcoholic, so many years ago, I really had to look in the mirror and understand humility, as it didn’t apply to my life at all. I was living a certain arrogance in my every day dealings without taking any responsibility myself. When I finally figured it out, I thought everything in my own life and the world around me would change, but in the end turns out it was only me – everyone else in my life seemed to have gone forward and just left me trying to follow their steps in the sand.
So, I tried to define myself, make my time my own, and gradually over the years I was successful. I became engrossed in my work and my own passions, and I had a lot of help along the way. I learned what it felt like to feel human, and I did not want for the life of me to let go of that. I felt for a moment a natural love in every aspect of my being. In the end, it was just another fantasy in the life of someone, and so I returned to what was my reality, a place of unhappiness and less fulfillment.
Standing holding these papers with the judge’s signature did leave me indifferent, not celebratory in any sense of the word. The next few days would carry a certain pain, that finale of a part of my life that I learned so much in, I can never get back again the innocence I once wanted to hang onto forever.
Now I’m faced with finding some new innocence six decades later.
© Scott F Savage 5/2020
Personal Testimony 