“And the Universe Smiles”
“We can
complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses”.
-Alphonse Karr, A Tour Round My
Garden
A number of months ago I was having a
Tuesday. I had gotten up and done all
the things I normally do to start my day.
I talked to Joe, did my daily readings, journaled, made coffee etc.… I had a list of things to do before I saw
clients and it wasn’t going smoothly. My
car was giving me trouble, my prescription wasn’t ready, there wasn’t anywhere
to park, and I was in a mood all before 9:00 am. As I walked up to my back door all but
muttering under my breath, I noticed a small vase of flowers set on the shelf
by my back door. They had been placed
there for me by my sweet neighbor, Nancy.
She has a little dog named Scooter and
when I walk past her house in the mornings I will often leave him a dog treat
to find when they come out for a walk.
So she sometimes leaves me little gifts from her garden, like tomatoes
or flowers. When I saw this little vase
of flowers I snapped back into gratitude and all the things that had been
bothering me that morning became like tiny mosquito bites hardly worth the
energy it takes to scratch. I thought in
that moment, “The universe is smiling on me”.
I have a year of sobriety again and it
feels good. I must say I’m wearing it
well and the appreciation I have for it is oceanic. This time last year I was in rehab trying to
figure out if I had any hope of ever digging my way out of the hole I was
in. Over the course of the past year my
life has turned 180 degrees on its axis.
I came out of rehab and I went to PHP, then IOP, then OP. I then got a therapist whom I continue to see
and a psychiatrist and I adhere to the medication prescribed. I make sure I don’t forget the things I
learned from the relapse prevention unit I was on in rehab. I have a routine I keep to and I try not to
take too much on because that is one of the things I do to myself which causes
me problems if I am not careful. I
meditate, journal and I talk to my higher power every day.
I was blessed enough to embark on my
second career as a therapist at an agency I really like. I work as an independently contracted
therapist for a community behavioral health agency so I have some flexibility
on how I set up my hours and my week which suits me just fine. I love my clients and working with them is
hard but fulfilling. My children are
doing so well and they so deserve that.
They have had to worry about me too much over their short lives and I
hope that now they can just enjoy growing up and being teenagers. Dermot is working at a karate studio and has
his first level junior black belt. He
convinced me to join karate and now has me working toward being an instructor
like him. The fact that he wants me to do
this with him touches my heart in ways I cannot describe. Wren is a confident and incredible young
woman who continues to amaze me with her artistic abilities and academic
prowess, not to mention her withering sarcasm and humorous take on life. She comes to my house for one-on-one time
often and we have so much fun. They both
came to a meeting with me the other night to see me get my one-year coin and it
was a special moment. It was a much
nicer moment than when they came with Frank to drop me off at rehab the year
before.
I started dating a wonderful man in
March. He’s also in the program and has
many more years of sobriety than I do.
He’s full of wisdom and kindness and treats me better than I thought was
possible and if I’m honest, better than I sometimes think I deserve. That is something I continue to work on
though. He and I are navigating our way through
what seems to be the healthiest relationship either one of us has ever had and
it is pretty magical. The best thing is
neither one of us saw it coming and it just feels natural and oh so right. His name is Tony and I think I will keep him.
So when I start to wander off course in
my head and start believing that mosquito bites are really chicken pox, I have
to picture Nancy’s flowers waiting for me at my back door. Because
the fact is the universe never stopped smiling on me, I just tend to get in my
own way and forget to look.
