"Life Isn't Always Exciting"

I'm having a cup of joe at my favorite coffee shop, sitting outside on the patio, and listening to my brain. I'm listening to the world around me, too. It's a Sunday afternoon. Traffic on the street is light. The occasional cyclist flows by. Music drifts out from the open door of the cafe.

I've had several conversations lately with friends and family about how things are going. I keep coming up with the same answer, that things are mostly just fine. I could find reasons to complain--still being out of work, missing an ex, or the fear that I might not ever find a woman to be with for the long-term. There are good things, too. I'm pleased with my recent redecorating of my bedroom, I continue to get better at shooting pool, and I am excited about the music projects I'm working on with other artists.

All those things feel like mere blips on the radar, occasional spikes in an overall even line. One thing about doing the work to create a calm life for myself is that life is now calm. It sounds a little silly, doesn't it? I worked so hard to reduce and remove chaos from my life, but I'm still not used to a life without drama. I am grateful for my new life, for the lack of insanity, but there's still this holdover that somehow I'm not living life to the fullest if things aren't bonkers. Thankfully, I can recognize that as the disease speaking to me, never ceasing in its constant quest to take me out of the moment and make me focus not on what is but what isn't.

It's so easy to forget that life is good. I know some people in Recovery become totally filled with an amazing sense of peace and contentment. I do feel that way at times, but there are also lots of times where I'm sitting in the middle; things are neither good nor bad, they just are. I can look at the whole of my life, focus on the bad or the good, but overall there is a balance. A metaphor comes to my mind--a balanced see-saw doesn't rock.

My Recovery is a powerful force in my mind, though. It kicks in automatically when situations call for it, definitely, but it also shows up in other less urgent moments. When I think about being lonely, that I'll never find a woman to share my life with, it asks me questions back: "is that really so bad? Do you really need a woman in your life in order to be happy?" And I know the answer is 'no'. I think about this desire I have to do something great with my life, and my Recovery plays back a whole list of great things I have already done, people whose lives I have touched. And I know that my time here on the planet hasn't been wasted.

Even right now, in this moment. I was feeling a little down about how even, perhaps boring, life often can be, and what happens? A blog comes out of me and I feel better. Recovery has created in me a force for feeling better. Call it God whispering in my heart, call it the improving skill of practicing the spiritual life, call it nothing more than improved self-esteem. It is all of those things, and more. It is self-love, continuing to grow and well up within me. My skill at recognizing when I am not centered, and then centering myself, gets better and better as time continues to pass.

I think I'll go home and mix.