Month: April 2021

There are some things I take for granted that often reveal themselves from something tragic happening. They are almost always things that were once important, sought after or prioritized to obtain only to lose their luster over time, to be replaced by other “things” or less important, motive based relationships.

The most important parts of life that I am talking about are things like family, friends, making memories, etc…

I am not talking about money, possessions, fancy jobs, etc…

[cue clip from the Bob Marley interview when he says “Possessions make ya rich? I don’t have that type of richness. My richness is life, forever.”]

It’s ok to want all of those things, but when tragedy happens…I promise you it won’t be the latter that you care about. You will not care about your fancy car, your important job, the number of digits in your bank account, how many stupid ass facebook likes you have. In fact, I would bet you anything that you will be willing to trade it all for 5 more minutes with a lost loved one.

Look, I’m guilty of it too. I am saying this from my experience. There’s no judgement if any of this applies to you.

I grew up in Maryland in the winters and Bethany Beach, DE in the summers. I made more memories with people in the 3 months of the summer than I did all of fall, winter and spring. I did attend school in Delaware as well for my first half of high school. There were good and bad parts of that, just like any time of my life. I treasured my friendships at the beach but didn’t truly grasp how important those friendships were until….well…yesterday.

This sounds ridiculous to me while I write it. And it certainly doesn’t merit making my eyes water up a bit. But here I am struggling to read the words I’m typing.

We just lost a very good person. A 45 year old mother and wife. A believer in God and a woman who made it her business to help others through prayer. A staple in the group of friends I made at the beach. The wife of another friend. Simply put, a complete and total tragedy happened.

This loss caused us all to reunite to not only celebrate her life, but to support our friends and family who were directly impacted by it. People drove for hours and hours. People jumped on planes. It was a tangible example of the soul that grows in that small town in Delaware.

While we were there for those reasons, we also shared laughs and love with each other. We ate together. We drank together. They had booze, I had water but we drank together nonetheless lol.

In almost all of these moments, friends I have had for a lifetime all approached me with the same message…

They all expressed how proud they were of me. How happy they were for me. How inspired they were by me. I gotta tell you, it was kind of overwhelming. But it was genuine and it was natural. It was love.

It’s a love that I don’t share with many friends. It’s a special kind of love that I think is exclusive to people that grew up together in Sussex County. We all seemed to have picked up right where we left off, even if that “off” was 20 years ago. I don’t ever recall getting better hugs in my life than I did from my friend Nino. I don’t remember the last time someone was as interested in hearing about my life more than my friend Brad. I just felt right at home. Every single friend I encountered brought something different to the table. And we all tried to heal together.

I admittedly have taken these friendships for granted my whole life. I have let the memories we made together fade and dull out. It’s sad really.

But I was reminded through tragedy how important we all are to each other. It was very comforting and I hope that I was able to offer some comfort to the ones that were hurting.

To my friends from the beach, my lifelong friends, the people that grew up in different houses that I consider family…I love you and I am here for you. If you ever need me in any capacity, I am here.

It’s not often that I expose my vulnerabilities. I feel something like that is only merited or valuable under very specific circumstances. This may not be the case for you, or your beliefs and that’s fine. You may think that being vulnerable only leads to a better mutual understanding amongst people, better communication, an overall “healthier” lifestyle. That’s fine too. Sometimes I am that way as well, but normally not. 

I don’t care much to talk about my problems, my fears or my insecurities unless I am hunting for a solution. I am so hellbent on being this way that I often project that outlook on others and I come across as lacking empathy for other people’s feelings. I don’t really care so much about feelings. I care about fixing problems. But I know my heart is big, I know I am probably more willing than most to try and help you find the solution to your problems. It doesn’t mean that I am dismissive of your feelings, it simply means that I believe that the feelings you are struggling with will go away when a solution is implemented and not from talking about them.  

I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I do recognize that it pushes people away sometimes. I do know that it makes me come across as “cold” sometimes. I see that it makes me appear to be arrogant as well. 

This is obviously not good. 

This morning on my drive to work I started thinking about a lot of things. I thought about some issues that people in my life are struggling with and what I can do to help. I thought about some issues that I’m struggling with and what I can do to help myself. 

I also thought about what my life was like before I got sober and the problems I faced then. I thought about the problems I caused for others then. I thought about how focused on problems I was and how dismissive I was of seemingly possible solutions to those problems. 

I would wake up consumed with problems. There was one problem which always trumped all the other problems, but problems on top of problems nonetheless. I would be completely unconcerned with not only other people’s problems, but so overwhelmed with my own set of struggles that I would never consider the idea that I could have possibly helped anyone with their problems because my life was so upside down. (I see that I could have worded that cleaner, but there’s only like 3 people reading this anyway, so who cares)

It’s not that way today, and that’s a win. I have been rewired. I’m not void of empathy, I’m not cold, I’m not dismissive…I care in my own way. I try in my own way. I see things in my own way and I am happy with the work that God is doing on me. I am solution oriented, efficient and I may get to a solution in a different way than you, but that doesn’t mean that your way is right and mine is wrong, just as it doesn’t mean that my way is right and yours is wrong. It means that we are going about life in our own way. In the best way we can. 

I make mistakes. I overlook people’s feelings sometimes. I do this and it occasionally hurts people. It is never intentional and it is never overlooked. When it happens I try to learn a lesson and grow. I try to change. But I am who I am. I am fashioned in the image of God and I am still learning how to be more like Jesus. 

I am VERRRRRRY far away from where I want to be. But I recognize that God isn’t done with molding me and I hope that you can offer me the same grace that He does. 

So my vulnerability in this post is highlighting areas that I know I can improve on. I know I have things to change, approaches to polish, “warming up” to do, edges to soften, passive aggressiveness to sort out…I get it. That said, I feel like what sobriety has afforded me and how God is grooming me is a million miles away from who I was prior to getting sober and this sometimes slow process is looked at as a good thing to me. 

You can cast your judgement, and you can be as perfect as you think you are. I’ll just be over here being a student with a lot of learning to do. [intentional hypocritical passive aggressiveness for ironic humor…relax]