Wake Up Call

This has not been the year I wanted.  I caught a cold in the second week of January—a mild cold, I thought, until I coughed and heard the noise feared by everyone with severe asthma: the deep hacking cough followed by wheezing.  Monty and I looked at each other when I coughed and said, “Uh oh.”  “Uh oh” was right.  My cold turned into bronchitis which turned into pneumonia which turned into pneumonia with complications which required shots—shots that gave me three separate infections.  Now it’s almost December, and I finally feel like I’m coming out on the other side.  I haven’t had to see a doctor or go to a hospital for a month now.

In all of these months of illness and being unable even to leave home at times, I’ve had ample time to think and write and reflect.  Last week, I read through some of the notebooks I’ve filled this year, and I realized that this year has been a gift—I’ve gone through some difficult times, and I’ve learned some valuable lessons.  One of those lessons was how easy it was to let myself fall back into a pattern of drifting from day to day without purpose—to be lulled into a kind of stupor where I was simply surviving rather than thriving.  I hadn’t seen that with clarity until I read back over what I’d written during this past year.  I see it now.  And I’m woke.

I’ve been seeing the word “woke” all over social media lately.  It’s obviously not a new word, but it’s being used in a new way.  Instead of saying, “I woke up,” for instance, people say “I’m woke.”  I looked it up on urban dictionary, and it’s defined as “a reference to how people should be aware in current affairs.”  Example:  “I didn’t know about the situation happening on the border, but now that I do, I’m woke.”

You can be woke about current events or you can be woke about your own life.  Another way that urban dictionary defines “woke” is when “you get a sudden understanding of what’s really going on and find out that you were wrong about much of what you understood to be truth.”  This is the definition that resonates with me.  Reading back over my thoughts of this past year, I see many ways in which what I thought was the truth was wrong.  So now I’m examining those so-called “truths” to see where I was wrong and what was really going on.

I was wrong about sobriety.  I’ve been on this journey of recovery for almost six years, and it has taken me that long to realize that I was wrong about getting and staying sober.  I used to believe that addiction was my biggest problem, and once I got sober, I’d only have tiny problems.  What’s really going on?  Addiction was my biggest problem for many years, but getting and staying sober didn’t take away the issues that drove me to substance abuse in the first place.  Addiction just masked those issues—it was the most obvious scapegoat.  I think many of us have one major issue in our lives that we focus on.  And we spend so much time working on that one issue that we never see the other ones that need to be addressed.  Now that I have, I can take my blinders off and begin to work on other areas of my life.

I was wrong about arriving.  A part of me has always thought that if I could just get a handle on this or that issue, then I would arrive at a place in my life’s journey where life would be easy.  I’ve thought, If I could just get sober, I’d have it made.  If I could just stay sober.  If I could just find a way to use my writing for God.  If I could just find my way out of depression.  If I could just find a place to belong.  What’s really going on?  I did get sober.  One day at a time, I’m staying sober.  I have found a way to use my writing for God’s glory.  I have learned to cope with depression.  And through my recovery meetings, my friends and family, and my life here with Monty, I have found a place to belong.  So I’ve arrived at a place where life is easy, right?  Wrong.  Every new day brings new challenges.  But I’ve realized that if life were easy, I would quickly grow complacent.  And complacency is the enemy of growth.  I don’t ever want to stop growing towards being the person God created me to be.  I’ll be content.  But I won’t be complacent.

I was wrong about resiliency.  I’ve always envied people who were resilient—people who seemed to roll with life’s punches.  I wanted to be resilient like that, but I thought resiliency must be a quality that you’re either born with or you’re not.  And I’ve always told myself that I wasn’t born with it—that I’m too fragile and too easily hurt by life to be resilient.  What’s really going on?  This past year has shown me that resilience can be learned.  I’m slowly learning that when life knocks me down, I am capable, with God’s help, of getting back up and trying again.  And again.  And again.  Yes, I’m easily hurt—but I’m not as breakable as I thought.  And if life isn’t breaking me, it’s building me.

I don’t like to admit it when I’m wrong.  But in this case, it’s been surprisingly freeing.  And it’s been an awakening.  I spent ten years of my life wandering through the wasteland of addiction.  I don’t want to waste any more years to sleep-walking—to settling down to a new normal, getting comfortable, and languishing in that place rather than continually working towards improvement.  I’ll never arrive at a place where life is easy.  But I can be resilient enough to keep going.  All of the voices that tell me otherwise can sleep.  I’m woke.  And I’m staying woke.