Full Circle...

When I was 10 years old, I saw the Beatles in concert at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland. More accurately, I saw 4 specks on a stage far away, and heard mostly the screaming of the girls around me. Afterwards, my two friends desperately wanted to find the stage door so that we could see John, Paul, George and Ringo in the flesh as they entered their waiting limo. I knew that it would upset my dad if we weren't at the appointed spot at the appointed time, so we gave up the quest and proceeded to our ride home. Last week, I had the opportunity to see Ringo Starr and his All Star band - a great show. Up past my bedtime, I scooted out as soon as the last chord was played, and there, as I rounded the corner of the Keller, was Ringo getting into his waiting  limo, flashing a peace sign to the few of us in the vicinity. My inner 10 year old squealed just a bit. I saw a Beatle, in the flesh, much as I'd wished some 50 years earlier. It felt like a completion of sorts, a satisfaction of that long ago desire.

There have been other times and situations that have felt like the Universe taking a thread from the past to lead to an outcome I never would've imagined. For example, the man that I was with for 6+ years at the height of my alcoholism, left me after I started sticking a needle in my arm. He put me through treatment, but it was a painful break-up and once sober, I struggled with how to make amends since he'd left the country and married another woman. In the way that Spirit has, he phoned a few years later to ask if I'd be willing to talk with his wife, who had developed a dependency on prescription medication. Full circle - the chance to use my darkest and most painful past to help the man I'd hurt so badly.

Despite knowing better, I'd long viewed that man as my one true love. I had to ask myself, "Really? Are you saying that you blew your one cosmic chance by the time you were 29?" I knew that it didn't make sense, but the heart doesn't always respond to logic.  And then he phoned, after nearly a decade's silence, just to say "hello." In the course of our call, I realized that this man was very dear to me, and that we'd shared a very intense time together, but that my one true love would've come back. That call helped me to close the door on feelings I'd been hanging on to for decades. Within a month, I met the man who, a year later, asked me to marry him. Without  the completion and closure prompted by that conversation with my ex, I don't know that I would've been open to the love I am privileged to enjoy today. Full circle.

According to Webster, "coming full circle" describes "a series of developments that lead back to the original source, position or situation or to a complete reversal of the original position." In Oct 1985, I began that final slide of hitting bottom, spending 4 days in a care-unit before signing myself out. This is the time of year that I reflect on those last months and days of active addiction, especially as I approach a milestone - I was 31 years old when I went in to treatment, and in January will celebrate 31 years of sobriety. The first half of my life was impacted by the disease of alcoholism - the family illness and my own. Being sober as long as I was alive under the influence feels like a turning point, a marker of sorts, a coming full circle to perhaps "a complete reversal of the original position." I am a recovering woman. While not cured, I have recovered from a "seemingly hopeless state of mind and body" (AA Big Book).

Where will these next spirals on life's journey take me, now that the scales are even? What other threads from the past will reveal themselves as no longer valid? A sponsor once said that she began to truly recover when she realized that her reasons for acting out were 40 or 50 years old. Indeed. Where do I stand today, based on my spiritual practice rather than a long ago story?  What about you? Are there places where you've come full circle?