Just Up Ahead

As I was driving today, a song by Pink Floyd called “Comfortably Numb” came on the radio. It was a live version that I somehow hadn't heard before and I thought it might be even better than the original. I turned it up and let its colors enfold me. I got home and pulled into the garage, but stayed in the car and closed my eyes, taking in the whole song.

How long I have been comfortably numb. I found a way to keep from feeling anything and lived in that desolate place since I was toddler. I didn't feel hungry. I didn't notice the need to be touched or held or the need to cry. I didn't acknowledge pain. I scoffed at my need for sleep. Sexual feelings were often triggered by something ugly. This left me feeling disgusted by all of it, but I quickly buried those feelings as well. Even when I decided it was time to give up on highly addictive things like cigarettes and cocaine, I easily turned away from the longing because I knew how to ignore any urge that came to me.

This half-life looked okay from the outside. I knew how to pretend. I mimicked the emotions of others, laughing and yelling and shaking my head in indignation at the right times, faking what I couldn't feel. I kept my secrets. I kept myself locked away where no one could find me. I kept myself safe, but I kept thinking, knowing, that something was missing.

“Recovery” is a word that made me very uncomfortable at first. What did this mean? What were they recovering from? What would they get when they were recovered? “The only way out is through,” is a phrase I’ve heard thrown around often by people who are “recovering”. This idea was equally disturbing. How could you get on a path you couldn’t see to a place you didn’t know?

It didn't really matter, though, because going through was something I didn't want to attempt for most of my life. I couldn't see the point. I was doing okay. I was busy all the time. I was volunteering at school and keeping my house clean and making sure my body was trim and my clothes were in style and my hair and nails were perfect. I was raising amazing children and had a wonderful husband and friends and activities and, well, what more could anyone want?

I’m not sure exactly how the façade of this dream-life began to fade. One day I realized that I didn't care if I ever saw my “friends” again. I stopped volunteering; I stopped all my activities. I barely got dressed in time to pick my kids up from school. The house was no longer perfectly clean, I missed hair appointments and it was harder and harder to find clean clothes and have dinner on the table. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew that I felt empty and nothing had any meaning anymore.

With no connection to the side of life I was living on, going through began to make more sense. I still didn't know what was on the other side, but where I was wasn't working for me. Still, I was terrified of what I was going to find on the way through, and rightfully so. I've been passing through a scary place with pits as deep and dark as the bottom of the ocean- and there are monsters along the way.

What I didn't know, what I never could have guessed, what is only now beginning to become clear to me is, what’s on the other side. If people knew what was there, they would be breaking down doors to get on the rough path I've been on.

Beyond the darkness is the thing that’s been missing all along, but it isn't something you can understand until you begin to see it on the horizon. All I can tell you, if you are about to venture on your own path, is that what waits at the end is worth it. What I see ahead is reality. It's connection. Beyond the darkness are authentic sensations, valid ideas and genuine emotions.

What I see is so real, I can feel it wafting in and filling me up and carrying me the rest of the way.

What I see is life.