Root Down Ash Girl

“It’s always darkest before the dawn….”  -Florence and the Machine

Yep, I have 366 days of consecutive clean time as of this morning and I keep thinking of  the ridiculousness of the question all of the jokester’s in my life like to ask me every year when my belly button birthday arrives, “do you feel older?”  except, I think the question here is “do you feel any more sober?”  Well, I suppose I feel about a day older and a day more sober.  It is definitely something to be celebrated and since I got the last section of my fourth step on paper I haven’t wanted to drink….surprise surprise.  I will say though that I didn’t have a great day yesterday.  I found my character defects glaring in my face, from my face, as me and I cornered myself with my reactivity into a slump that was a bit hard to get out of.   You see, I realized that being the traveler that I am I have been traveling since the day I got sober and have spent equal amounts of time in three different parts of the country since my sobriety birthday.  My friends joke that they never know where I am and for a long time with a shit-eating grin on my face I would smile from my soul knowing that I was perfectly where I was meant to be, all along the way.  Now though, I am craving home like never before, I am craving home earth that wraps itself so warmly around the roots of my being and sends serenity through my life.  I am craving the beginning of the chapter of my life that starts at Year One, Day 27 of my sobriety. I am craving a connection with my sobriety family and freedom from the ways of my gypsy soul that I may have friends and family who know where I am 90% of the time and count on me to celebrate momentous days of theirs and mine alike.  I miss my sponsor and the friendships that I haven’t even made yet.  I’m ready to take the lesson and hear the truth that I too want to feel a part of the community of AA and the Aspen community at large.  I relinquish my membership with the Gypsy Soul Club of World Traveling Mexican Jumping Beans.  I crave home.

I have spent a lot of time praying for clarity in my life and clarity is exactly what I have received.  Everything is unfolding exactly the way I had hoped it would and now I am met with my next great character defect, Varouka Salt Syndrom “I want it now, Daddy.”  Patience has never been my fortay… well at least with some areas of my life.  So now, I have another glaring opportunity to expand and grow in yet another way…. I have the opportunity to practice my patience and complete faith in God’s timing.  I need to constantly remind myself that things are happening God Speed and I am just along for the ride.  Today I put my boxing gloves down and stop wrestling with the momentum of the Universe – it’s tiring.  Now that I have a clear look at my defects of character I turn in steps 6 and 7 toward the only Being that could ever begin to remove these growing edges, God.  I am more than willing that these growing edges be invited by my willingness back into the nothingness from where they came and my life soften into the sweet joy that is the natural state of my being.  I SURRENDER.