These Are the Seasons

A single year in our lives can constitute phenomenal change, challenge, and decision. Change who we were to who we become, challenge to overcome adversity, and decision to face the morning with new resolve. This is where I am. I have become, I have overcome, and I have decided. I will change, I will challenge, and I will decide.

A full compilation of seasons has come and gone. Winter to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall, and fall to winter once again. Each represent a time in my life where a decision was made, a change took place, and a challenge grew a life in leaps and bounds. I look in the mirror and each genuine smile is a new reason to forgive if only to forget. I taste life ever so palpable and sweet.

Here you go, and may you enjoy.

Clean. No more smoke in my lungs. I breathe easier and easier each day. I sleep better. No coughing. No guilt; no pressure to succumb. It was never me. Yet it was something that came so easy for so long. I make the decision and it is easy once again. Give it up. Start over again. But at what cost?

Betrayal. Loss of her. A love once so strong that was actually transparent as the rising wind, blowing her away from me, blowing away a life so close to my grasp. I see her in the hallway, and she looks at me like a stranger might on a busy street corner. No sign that two years had come and gone with passion, love, hope for a better day. Nothing. It is not until months later that I find out there was someone else. The challenge to grow becomes evident once again.

Battle. I fight through the nights when all I want is to fill my lungs with release, with smoke, with failure. Instead I fight to survive until morning, until sleep, until success. I fight through the daily illusion of student at morning, consultant at day, and addict at night. I sit through meeting after meeting, listen to the sad stories, the abuse, the uncertainty. I leave with the knowledge that my path is right and that it is paved with true intention. I walk in my door, smell the pungent and acrid smoke, hear the laughter, and ask for courage. One more night became one more morning. Outside the snow falls.

Time. Days turn into weeks and weeks blur into nights of bottomless bottles, clinking of tide, and lost memories mired deep in a liquid fog. When will enough be enough? When will it be time? Soon. Soon you will find who you are meant to be. Patience. Weeks become months. Exams, papers, more exams, and then, a decision. Where do I go? Bermuda? Australia? New Zealand? Stay in Halifax? Where next? Write my last exam, the next day write my last paper, and then I am free from my commitment. A voice says go for it. Go for it. Buck the naysayers and the unsure because they never understood you anyway. It never was and never will be for them. It is for those who believe. Go for that dream. Outside the flowers wake and embrace the light.

Complete. I walk down an aisle, feel the paper in my hands, see my mother beam at me. A graduate. A degree. It was supposed to be our day. I listen to her speak about her educational experience, think about how we were meant to leave together. Make a road trip. Start a life. Instead, I listen to her speak of a new destination. A place where I once lived yet where I have no place by her side. The sadness wells in my throat and robs me of the true happiness of a day that can never be replaced. We go to dinner and celebrate our success. I confess my love, watch her cry, listen to her tell me as we both agree that it had to be. Days later I drive her to the airport and watch her walk out of my life. Gone.

Write. And write. And write some more. Blank paper becomes pregnant with potential as words scrawl across the surface and a plan, dare a dream, becomes a reality. I sit in front of people with my future in their hands and yet I do not bat an eyelash. This is my destiny. I have been walking to it since one fateful morning after waking up in a hospital bed, my skull fractured and my back shattered. I always knew that adversity only develops character. That the hardest challenge is only accepting that choice. The rest is easy. Outside the sun shines and splits the ground with love, with hope, splits my sadness apart and replaces it with faith.

I start my own business. Buy a car, find my own space, do the impossible: ignite a business from scratch without a single client and only letters of intent. I walk the concrete, find people to meet, sell, sell, write, write, and write some more. Each night is spent alone, nothing more than myself and a computer screen. The solitude I wanted so badly becomes a tomb of silence. It is unbearable. I long to smoke away the silence, to inhale the darkness, to break down and admit defeat. Yet I wake in the morning, more alive than the day before, and face the day with courage. I face life with knowledge that my path is right and that it is paved with true intention. Believe. Have faith. Believe. Trust. You are only given what you can handle. Nothing more. Believe, damn you, believe.

Then the night falls and begs me to play. It begs me to come back and join the fray that once almost took my life. You are missed. It is no fun without you. Okay, I say, okay. One more time becomes one more week and one more week becomes one more month. Then came the day I will never forget. The day I said it is enough. It is enough. I decide to face the day without any drugs. I decide to embrace the night sober, with no smoke, no spirit, and only my courage to test the hand of fate. If is this is how it is meant to be, if this is the right path, then I walk it with true intention, with true faith, with love in my heart. Outside the leaves begin to fall.

Opportunity. One single night, on Halloween of all nights, nine years to the day I almost took my own life…I meet her, the woman in control, the woman in charge, the woman with certainty in her step, and beauty in her voice. She meets me, the addict who is sober, the addict who is clean, the addict who believes. We dance. We laugh. We smile. We walk and talk, and laugh some more. I travel to an island far away and laugh with friends I have not seen in years. They see a man they do not know but yet always believed they would one day meet.

Home. I return. We sit. We talk. We laugh. She sings to me in a voice literally stolen from the heavens and trapped on earth. Be patient she tells me. It will all come when it is meant to come. I just want to get to know you, learn you, see if you are truly what I believe. Okay, I say, okay. I tell her that I am glad to be the man she met and that she will never meet the boy I used to be. I like this person she knows. So do I, she says, so do I. Outside the snow begins to fall.

Celebrate. I sit down at a table laden with holiday cheer, share a cup of coffee and not-so-ordinary conversation with my mother. So proud, she says, so proud. Days slowly become the best holiday of cheer, of music, and yet no spirit touches my lips, and no wasted nights passed out in a forgotten mist. Sober. A business ails as a market falls. A decision to make once again. Do I drink the frustration and stress away? Do I roll it all into a simple burn of faith and lose myself in the rising cloud of failure? I smile. Shake my head. Laugh at my demons. Make some calls. Join the market once again and plan for the day when I will once again be my own boss. Adversity. The creator of kings.

I feel that each day is a step forward. A movement, ever so subtle, not to meet a woman meant for me, but to the man who is waiting for me. I am smiling, watching my journey to the place I have been sitting, waiting ever so patient for the man who is clean, the man who is sober, the man who understands that adversity is only a reason to develop character. That one day is another day to place one foot in front of the next. To walk toward my destiny, no matter what it might hold. I know that my path is right because my intention is true. And I will know that when my day comes I will meet it clean, I will meet it sober, and I will recognize the man I have become. The seasons change, the demons call, but the courage to succeed stays with me every step of the way. Nothing but me and true intention.

Until we meet again my friends. Until we meet again.

“Say hello and wave goodbye...we were born before the wind. Who were we to understand? We were born before the wind...say goodbye. Through the rain, hail, sleet and snow...say goodbye."
- David Gray