WISHING TO LIVE

Survival.

We all want to survive. We want to sustain our lives as long as possible.  Yet, this word comes off the tongue with such a biter taste.  It seems as though there is something wrong and missing with this word.  There should be something more....

Living.

Now there is a word I wish I could get behind and truly do.  To live implies that there is a greater meaning to all things.  Something greater than merely surviving.  A defining measure to survival--of more than eating, breathing and sleeping.  

Many years of my alcoholic life I just survived.  The driving force was to find that next drink.  Daily chores, work, and minimal family obligations were only a means to get to that next drink. If I went through these actions no one would be the wiser of what was going on in my life.  I could continue to survive as a drunk, and give the appearance of living. 

While my body was surviving, death was slowly eating at my heart and soul.  There was no life.  There was o living.  To know what joy and happiness were was an impossible feat.  These things had left so early in my drunkenness that all I could do was survive and fake the emotions of pleasure.  The sad thing is that in trying to fool others, I started to fool myself. 

As sobriety came, I started to find some small things that brought a small measure of happiness.  Nothing big.  Nothing that most normal people would get excited over.  I was excited!  More than that I was elated.  I was learning how to live. I was starting to move past mere survival into something more.  

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Now that my relationship of 12 years in ending and I am on my own again, I am back to survival.  I am back to eating, breathing, and sleeping.  There is no joy or happiness.  I don't know what to do to enjoy life.  I just know how to survive.  I give a smile.  I give a laugh.  I try to cover the fact that my soul feels as though it is dying again.  A place that I did not want to return to.  This dying was a major driving force in my finding sobriety, but to get out of it now, I don't even know where to begin.  

But...

I can survive well.

I can keep my body alive.

In hopes of being able to live comes again.

I want to learn how to live.  I want to have meaningful and enjoyable friendships.  I want to find fun and enjoyment in doing something.  However, right now all of this eludes me.

For now and as in the past---

I am only a survivor until I can learn to live.  So, as I learned in A.A., I will take this pain and sadness one day at a time until I can find some strength and encouragement and something to bring life to me.