I woke up this morning, let the dogs out, made my coffee and while the coffee was coffeeing, I opened the curtains in my bedroom. I do this every morning. My bedroom faces East, even if it is still dark, I open them because I never want to miss one moment of the light entering the day. Today was no different.
However, this morning, as I slid the curtains back, I thought,
"Can my life really be this good?"
The thought came from nowhere but it landed with a thud in my chest. A good thud, the kind of thud that grabs your attention and then explodes in tiny, effervescent bubbles all throughout your body and soul.
Here I am on a Friday morning, sleeping in until 5:30 am (I know this doesn’t sound all that dreamy to a lot of you, but I used to get up at 4 am and often because of stress and dis-ease, I would wake even earlier, like 2 or 3). So today, 5:30 feels decadent. It feels like a gift. It feels like I have time in my life for me and all the things I need for myself, my life. I feel curiously at the center of my own world.
So the curtains pulled back to reveal the dawning day, a day that will I am sure contain some pain, as all days do. Be it physical, emotional, spiritual, some pain must be a part of every day. Most of the time they are productive pains: grieving the loss of something you loved that can no longer remain in your life, soreness from working out hard at the gym, existential angst over who you think you are and how the world sees you and treats you...
But this morning as the new day graced me with the Eastern rising sunlight, I thought this:
"Can my life really be this good?"
I said it out loud to no one in particular, the cats and dogs my only early morning companions. And they were already onto their own morning routines of nagging me for food or begging me to go outside. So they really didn’t care about my question, and are completely used to me walking around muttering to myself.
But me, I heard me. I heard the question. And as I marveled at the new day dawning, I found myself saying “YES!”
Yes my life is really this good. It is a Friday morning and I got a good, full night’s sleep. I helped myself to a cup of amazing coffee and crawled back in bed, tucked into the comfort and safety of my bedroom sanctuary where I have a date with myself and God every morning. I tap out my internal dialogue and am guided to throw onto the screen these ideas, thoughts, dreams, loving creations one and all.
My life is amazingly good. I feel almost like I have been reborn. I feel alive in a way and manner that had been gone for a long time. I do not feel rushed, but instead, the universe keeps sending me messages to slow down, stop, sit awhile. Be present. Smell the fucking roses...and you have to do that quick at my house because the goats eat them with rapidity.
The last two days I have heard a goose flying over my house on its way to parts unknown. It has called out each morning as it flew over, letting the others it is flying with know that it is present, on its way and moving forward. Me too. This is my call out to my people, my flock, I am here too, present, on my way, moving forward. Fuck, I am grateful.
So much creativity is pumping through my veins right now. So much joy, equanimity, love. So much fucking love. For my kids, parents, pets, friends, co-workers, myself, my life. This life right here where I am struck by the goodness of my life while I pull back the curtain to reveal a day dawning, ushering me into the life that I get to lead today. The life that I get to have. All the good. All the stuff. All the life.
Life can really be this good. And so I savored it. In the moment, I allowed myself to be in awe, to be in love with the life I have right now. Nothing else required. Nowhere to get to, nothing to do or say or dream or be. Just accept the good life that is present for me right now.
My sponsors have always told me that God wanted me to live a good life. Which I mostly took to mean that I had a lot of work to do since living a good life was not my natural state. Not my innate way of being. My innate living of life was to burn the motherfucker down. Myself included. A spectacular show of self destruction, a complete annihilation of all the good that has always existed in my life in my never ending quest for more. More booze, more men, more attention, more, more, more.
But today as I greeted the new day, I didn’t want more...I wanted what I had. I wanted the life that I have right now, in flux, in transition, in disarray. This unresolved life, with lots of questions and ends that are not completely tied off, this life is really fucking good.
And so I just sat with the knowledge, the feeling that life is sometimes completely not understood, completely up for grabs, but in even turmoil, one can find a deep and abiding appreciation for just the existence of life. And today, that happened while I opened curtains. Nothing spectacular. Nothing all that special, except it was. For me. In my house, that I paid for, with money that I earned for myself, in a home that contains all the beings I love most on this planet. My kids, my pets, the things about me that do not make me, me but give me pleasure nonetheless. Right here, in the early morning hours of Friday, May 29th, I found myself present and available to myself for this unfolding life. And I was amazed. Tears welled up in my eyes and I almost fell to my knees. Dramatic? Totally! But it is true, every word. Sometimes, quite unexpectedly you find yourself in the middle of your very own life and you wake up to the fact that you have never, ever had it so good.
And if you are very, very lucky, you feel that with all that you are, all that you were, and all you shall become. I hope you find that moment in your life, today!
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