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And Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Kyle T.
 

One of the greatest gifts sobriety has given me is the ability to feel serene and safe during the winter months. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. I like to watch the snow fall silently at night and cover the city. There are promises to keep. And watching the sunset on those Texas hills while the coyotes bayed. That high pitched cackle of forlorn isolation. What were they baying to? And why did it move something in me? Sometimes I like to watch the snow completely cover the city.

I’ve never much found solace on New Year’s Day. First of all, it’s January, the coldest, darkest month of the year. I’ve always wondered, unless one is on and extended vacation in a beautiful, tropical place, What’s all the excitement about? Waking up in the dark and commuting to work in the freezing cold for the next two months?

However, I acknowledge the symbolic benchmark of the New Year Resolution: A New Me—and I believe it’s an important tradition to use the New Year as a time of both reflection and projection. I reflect deeply this time of year, and notice I am safely in a place I thought I’d never be, my life full of realities I never imagined, listening to Vangelis’s La Petite Fille De Mer, writing for the SLAA Newsletter. Has there been made some mistake? I am all basis points, grids and spreads.

As an individual who suffers from a laundry list of mental health disabilities, I’m not too keen on January and February, as it inhibits my ability to get outdoors and the prevailing darkness stirs me to borderline cabin fever.

But winter stirs within me a more profound sense of revery. Sometimes, on snowy winter nights, the city is so silent and deserted, it seems almost lunar in scale. The city is lovely, dark and deep. But there’s miles to go before I sleep. And I have promises to keep. I remember. They come to me in droves. For my sake. The only sound, the sweep of easy wind and downy flake.

Last January I was in a rehab in Texas, in the hill country, and they put me up in a small cabin on the edge of a cliff. I had come off the darkest bottom of my entire life. It was the only rehabilitation center I could get into with the insurance I had, and I got there. God delivered me. We would wake up at 6 a.m. and walk to the hilltop, start a fire, and watch the stars and meditate. I was broken. Miles to go before I sleep. I have much to clean up in 2019. Many amends to make. Much gratitude to give back to God for saving me, again. Outside my cabin, there stood a tree, whereon there would alight a wake of buzzards. I would walk outside and look at the fat birds, like little reapers, as they bent the branches upon which they perched. There were miles to go before I could sleep. To date, there are only a handful of the 95 of us from rehab who are still sober from alcohol and drugs. A few have died. When I’m thinking of acting out, giving in, giving up, running away from it all, from everything I’ve built, I think about that wake of buzzards; I think about climbing that hill in the dark morning, getting to the top and seeing the cape of stars above me. I think about those people I prayed with, strangers to me, but dear to me.

“Great perils share this beauty that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.”

I’ve come close to succumbing to this disease several times over 2018. In fact, I did so at rehab, swept up in the ersatz romance of two people dreaming of a better life, of limitless potential. It caused quite a bit of harm. My sex and love disease can infiltrate even the most spiritual of ambitions and manifest. When I acted out in rehab, the buzzards on the tree branches would look more sinister, stir something deeper and darker within me.

In my reflection, I recall the road I travelled to be here today. The buzzards and the halfway house. The cackles, the veritable shrieks of the coyotes baying at sunset. There’s too much to lose, and I’ve fought too hard to turn back. So I carry those treasured memories with me to remind me of what I’m working for. I look forward: Miles to go before I sleep. Promises to keep.

To be honest, 2019 has started off on timorous footing for me, and when I’m in such despondency, I often times turn to the classics. “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” I experience myself and sobriety differently during winter. Sometimes during winter, I feel like I’m not going to be able to endure. But I am miraculously on newfound faith. Though the brushstrokes which comprise my life are many hues, they coalesce to create the unique experience of being me. I like to watch the city fill up with snow. I said prayers in those hills. I have promises to keep.

To be quite frank, I was anticipating having a difficult first week of January since I was on the All S Retreat over New Year’s weekend. And I was right. When I returned to reality New Year’s Day, I felt as if I was hit by a cinder block. Transitioning from intense intimacy to my apartment in Chicago on that gray Tuesday afternoon was especially difficult, and it did not seem to really kick in until the next day. I felt the absence of all my fellows and I was wistful—I would like life to be one long SLAA retreat, but it’s not.

So what of the darkness? And what am I supposed to feel when the winter snow blankets our city, rendering it silent? Or the sun shining at the distant angle, more a distant lantern than life-giving orb. I prevail and I think of the buzzards alighting the branches like reapers, fat and perched heavy, bending the bows, looking at me, and I at them. They have desire just like I do, and when I stared long enough at them, something passed between us. Now I am here and my life is completely different and I could never have imagined it.

The New Year represents a new adventure. I wonder if I will ever see those stars like that up on the hilltop, in a place of complete brokenness like that, I hope I never forget. It’s unlikely. But I know when I see the snow and the darkness, I feel the promises I made, the prayers. I know there are miles to go before I sleep. Can I please, God, help me to remember from where I came—take me back to that place, when I am tempted, show me the wake that was thrown for me and the stars hanging engorged in the Texas sky. Coyotes around the fire making guttural sounds, grunting. Those prayers I prayed to You on the hilltop, please don’t let me forget them as I move into 2019. Standing in a hot Texas field, my back to the sun, positively illuminated by the sun, broad and strong; deer foraging, and my gaze fixed on the path ahead. I lean in. I exhale.