Imagine...

I came across an "imagine if" video the other day. Imagine, it said, if you were to die this very minute. Right now. People would be sad. Life would go on. It then asked 3 questions. What did you love about this life? That was easy: laughter, the beauty of the natural world, family, friends, and all that we've shared; music, love, travel, my husband and his daughter, and my mother's chocolate chip cookies came immediately to mind. The 2nd question was tougher: What do you regret? That I hurt people I cared about, that I gave so much sick energy to insecurity, jealousy and comparison, that I was still drinking when my dad died... And then the hardest question: What if you had another chance? Going forward it's fairly easy to answer - less BS, more authenticity, less drama, more genuine connection. But what if I were given the chance to undo or change what has already happened? What if I hadn't married my first husband and went away to college instead? Sounds good initially, but as an active alcoholic,there's no telling what kind of trouble I'd have gotten into away from home. What if I'd gotten sober sooner? Maybe, but maybe it wouldn't have stuck if I'd skipped those last few years of "pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization."

One of the stories in the AA Big Book says that nothing happens by mistake.That may or may not be true. What I do know, from this vantage point, is that every heartache, every argument, every poor decision helped to shape my moral code. I definitely know what I never want to do again, and that is a powerful motivator. I also know what I appreciate from what, at first glance, looks like nothing but pain. My first husband and I are good friends today, having known each other since we were teenagers. From him I learned to cook gumbo, and met the woman who is my oldest and dearest friend. While I would change some of how I behaved as a 20 year old, too-young-to-be-married girl, I wouldn't change the overall experience. The same goes for my sobriety date. I needed every single cringe-inducing hangover, every bottle of cheap wine, every gram of every powder ingested, every "I'll never do that again," in order to bring me to that place of absolute willingness. I thank the Higher Power every day for the gift of desperation. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am an alcoholic. I'm forever grateful that I haven't had to fight that internal fight.

I've lived in my house now for 13 years. As I sat on my backyard bench with a cup of tea on one of the recent rare, clear days, I was hit with a wave of wistful remembering, thinking of the hours I've spent on this bench crying for lost love, excited for new love, writing inventory after inventory, lighting candles, smudging, praying - all of my various efforts at clearing out my broken bits, the damaged pieces that seemed to have me in a spiral of self-will. The gift of long term recovery is coming to the understanding that it's all part of the deal, - the tears and the laughter, the joys and the sorrows. Maybe what I've thought needed fixing wasn't so broken after all.

How would you answer the 3 questions about your life? What have you loved? What do you regret? What would you change?