Losing the Battle / Winning the War

Lose.Losing.Lost. Give.Gave.Gone. Forgive.Forgave.Forgone.

still right here.

The last few years of hanging around in the rooms of recovery have outfitted me with corrective lenses to view my ever evolving surroundings. It has altered my perspective on loss, or "losing things" vs. "giving them away." One can easily lose their car keys, passport, phone, wallet, wedding ring, or their favorite lighter (but we all know someone stole your lighter.)

I believe that societal history has been misleading to us all along.. novels, films, fairy tales, have all chronicled losing the love of your life, treasures, fortunes & fame. Or just losing your fucking mind. The actuality is that someone had some choices to make, & chose to let that shit go by the wayside.

"like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."

In all of this world, in all of this life, all of time has passed through all of our hands exactly the same, & not one second of it was ever "lost." It has all been accounted for, highly documented, captured with time stamps, born on dates, & your snapchat story, & social media status updates. We choose to give our allotted time to whatever is our priority at that given moment.

 I have never been the unassuming victim of having "lost jobs, lost loves, lost friends, lost homes, lost marriages, lost sobriety dates, or of being a lost cause." Even though my insane thinking would lead me to believe that I am the casualty of many outside circumstances. The victim of myself...

There have been innumerable times in my active addiction that I used this terminology wrong..

• I didn't lose my memories to black outs, I gave them away to alcohol.

• I didn't lose countless mornings & days to hangovers, I gave them to the night before by throwing them into the bottomless abyss of a high tolerance.

• I didn't lose my marriage, my engagement, or any other meaningful intimate relationship thereafter I had plans of keeping. I relinquished them to my own self-will run riot, defects of character, foolish pride, ego, self-centeredness.

• I didn't lose my business in Phoenix to a floundering economy, I gave it away willingly tending to a stripper n' blow habit.

• I never lost precious time with my daughter, I traded it in to my relapses, choosing drug binges over play dates.

• I didn't lose my health, I gave it away to finding escape time & time again.

• Don't lose today by giving it to the regrets of yesterday, or the fear of tomorrow.

You don't lose people , people don't lose you.. or time with people, or relationships with people. You give it away to something else. You give in to your vice of choice or you choose to give up on your vices....

I really wasn't ever ( & I still fuckin ain't never not) considered a scholar or a gentleman of the English language during my formal schooling. I was truly terrible at writing papers & upon my work being graded & returned it usually had enough corrections in red ink to resemble a C.S.I. murder scene. I still know enough that I can't quite grasp the phrase "lost away" making as much fucking sense to me as "gave away."

If I find myself in love & being loved one day, (hypothetically) but then not the next day, perhaps someone chose to give away the present to something else entirely. There are ultimately two days you cannot live in: Yesterday & Tomorrow.

 It appears that time-traveling is the #1 culprit in fucking things up for this life.. letting our minds travel back into the past or too far ahead into the future. Both can be equally frightening..

Often times we find ourselves living in the fear of another failed relationship, fear of the unknown, fear of  giving up control, fear of what the future may hold, fear of selfish-pride, & letting our ego run the show.... still we won't see each other posting lost n found pictures on light posts around the neighborhood. We didn't file a missing item report with the local authorities, Probably didn't even tear apart the couch cushions, frantically looking under the bed, scratching our heads, where was the last place I saw it?  Constantly thinking "Now where the hell did I put my love for you anyway? It's has't been lost, it's just been given away to another priority, another time...You actually search for things that are lost, you don't hunt for them if you gave it away.

Many have seen me lose some battles, what they don't always stay around to see is how I continue evolving,  my perseverance, growing internally stronger, how I endure to wage a war they know nothing about. A war that I will conquer.