From an undisclosed location

I set out about finding the answer to a question (actually a couple of questions) that has bothered me for a long time. And what I found out is that there are questions that are meant to remain unanswered. There are things you simply aren't supposed to know, and those things that you wanted to happen, so badly that you thought you couldn't live if they didn't - there is a reason things didn't work out that way. There is always a reason. And it's probably a good one and it probably isn't for you to know or understand. And yeah, maybe this goes along the lines of saying everything happens for a reason - and sometimes I believe that and sometimes I don't - but I can tell you that I won't go venturing to prove it again or to find out just what lies beneath the way that things are or turn out to be. Sometimes the *why* behind it is worse than just the fact of it.

I've been asking myself a lot lately if it's better to know the answer to the question or to live with the uncertainty - and I guess you would say that it depends on the question. But it depends on the answer also. And the thing is, even when you know the answer, that doesn't make setting out to verify it less painful when it turns out just exactly and horribly as painful as you knew it could be. Whether or not it's better to know the answer or to live with the uncertainty is something you can only know, well, after you know the answer. And then it's too late. I decided to go walking down a road that I've been down before - metaphorically of course - it's a road that I've been down so many times that I can find my way in the dark, in the silence, just by the feel of it. It's a road that doesn't go anywhere, and I know that. But I go walking down it as if just one of these times it is going to lead to the place that I want it to lead to. But it doesn't, and it isn't going to.

Going down that road is pretty easy and familiar. Coming back, however, is not. Because walking in the other direction - the road is different. It's different every time you have to come back. You hope that the unintended consequences of what you were trying to discover are, well, possible to live through - or stay sober through - that's what I really mean. That's the most important. I suppose though that the ability to stay sober through something is not the best indicator of whether or not to do it. I mean, knowing that you can walk down a street lined with bars and all of your worst temptations, and get to other end in tact and sober, doesn't mean you aren't going to be completely and totally fucked up when you get to the other side. Knowing what taking responsibility means shouldn't be used as an excuse - you say to yourself, but if I don't make it to the other end of the street - well, I choose that, and I take responsibility for it. So sometimes, taking responsibility turns into an excuse to make a wrong choice, when what you would really do, if you were behaving in a really sober manner and taking responsibility, is to choose differently. That's how you take responsibility, by making a right choice.

I'm getting off track. I probably don't need to tell you that I wish I had not walked this way this time. Most times, I don't feel that way. But this time is different. I think it was inevitable that I would find myself here though. Because I think I needed to have the answers to the questions in order to move beyond the things that I was unable to move beyond. At least that was what I thought before I was sitting here. What I set out to find the answer to, are some of the questions that lie at the very heart of what has made me unhappy and what has gone wrong in my life. This is one of those moments when, like in the process of coming into AA, the illusion is yanked off of everything, suddenly and all at once, and you know that things will never be the same.

I hope I find my way back in tact this one last time. Just a couple of hours ago - I wasn't so sure that I was going to. I went to a meeting and I shared about what was going on with me - and I was talking to this woman after the meeting and she said she would never forget me - and that she knew my higher power had something in store for me - because I wasn't done with what I needed to do yet. And we also talked about the Serenity Prayer and how in accepting something, you give it back to your higher power in faith. Lack of faith is the reason I am sitting here right now. And people always say that the opposite of faith - is fear. The less faith you have, the greater the fear you will be living in. That's definitely true for me.

Well, anyway, I won't be coming this way again.

Edited to add: morning changes everything. Things always look different in the morning. The realizations that come out of these situations are many and varied. Sometimes I think the best way to tell whether or not you have changed is just to pause for a moment and look around yourself. And what I realized, during that moment when I slowed down just enough to consider it, is this - it is painfully and excruciatingly obvious, and pointedly clear, that if I had changed, even a little in the past two years, I wouldn't be sitting here.