Sometimes, You Just Cannot.

A few months ago, a single three word sentence came across to me via a social media account.

Hello, (my name).

And it was kind of like that Hitchcockian special effect, where he pans the camera back, but zooms the camera in....everything is moving, but the focus is stationary.  I always thought that time travel would look like that.

I also thought that time travel would cause the traveler to spend the first five or ten minutes after completing the journey to throw up, and drink copious amounts of water....because it HAS to be like drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster (which is defined by the great Douglas Adams as: "having your brains smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.")

That's what it felt like....running full speed backwards to the Fall of 1984.

Things had gone horribly wrong about that time....and it really took me about eight years to right the ship.  I was drinking a lot.  I was ignoring responsibilities.  I was desperate for something to grasp on to; something to give me the focus I needed to find True North again.

Yeah.  I know what you're thinking, and you're right.  I know that.  NOW.

And everybody has to go through an idiot phase, and this was my time.

And the person who sent the three word message to me was something I tried to hold on to.

Have you ever been in a relationship that you thought was a Relationship, but it turns out it was not so much a ship as it was an inflatable boat, and you were alone in it and the person you thought was in it with you was actually removing the air from the inflatable boat, and chumming the water?

And I kept going back.  Time and again; through all the broken promises and half-hearted vows and hollow flattery.

I'm shaking my head just thinking about all of the wrong, wrong, wrong things I did to myself and others, based upon this one......one-sided, tunnel-visioned, self-destructive....mistake.

I have tried since the moment I woke up on my front porch in January of 1993 (temperature below freezing) with the last taste of vodka on my tongue and the first taste of "I actually DO want to live" running through the little gray cells, to be a better person.

I strive to look at all sides of an issue, reserving the right to knee-jerk first before settling into analysis.

I strive NOT to define people by the worst thing they ever did.

I try to forgive the real-or-perceived wrongs done to me.  And like an organ transplant, sometimes it doesn't take.

So.  The person who sent me that three word message, in a significant way, made me a better person.  Of course, not right away....I still went through nine years of self-destructive self-loathing, and I carry that with me as a reminder (in a little jar on my desk, marked: Ashes of My Former Self.)

And, as biology tells us, every cell in our body is basically renewed every seven years, so by the time my sobriety came along for good, I was a totally different person, physically, than the one I was when the damage was done.

So.  Person who sent me the three word message, I say thank you.

And don't ever contact me again.

I can forgive myself for the foolish things I have done; and I intend to do that, one of these days.

And I don't forget them.

And I'll never forget you.

And I will never forgive you.