Borrowing Time

Scheduled my sentencing hearing.

It is what it is.
When people ask how I stay so calm, accepting of calamity, of things that happen beyond our control.
The legal system taught me a lot of "hurry up and wait."
You get used to that sword of Damocles and learn to just live your day as it is.

I'm looking at some time which sucks.
The hardest part, and this will sound cliched, but it's the truth.....is the effect it will have on my mom and my girl.
It's true what they say, they do the time with you.
My boys know I'll be fine and sure they'll miss me, but it's different for the women in your life.
It would honestly be easier to just break up with her and do the time and not talk to anyone but every few weeks. The last time I was in, my girl was the only person I called.
I didn't call anyone else.
Talking to her was hard, one of the hardest things I've ever done.
I'd be fine, sitting, waiting for the phone to be free, and as soon as she'd pick up, and I'd start to hello I'd feel that invisible baseball that makes your throat ache and swell and lock.

I don't know if it's selfish to break up with her or let her stay with me while I go in.
It would be easier on my end to just break it off and do the time quietly on my own and retreat into my mind and forget about the outside world for a bit and treat it like some strange buddhist minimalist monastery full of n'erdowells like myself.
She's the only thing I'm afraid of losing when I go in there.
The money, the job(s), all that, I can recover that in time when I get out.
I've always been a survivor and this fact/reality has not changed.

It's when you have things you care about, things you fear losing....you feel that weakness, that chink in your armor. I've kept that part of my life cut off for so long.....and as I prepare to go in I've been inadvertently letting myself begin to hope and care about her in an authentic way.
I've let myself see us in the future, kids, traveling, working, a family....the whole motherfucking deal.

I sit in meetings and I have those fleeting moments where I wonder if down the road, in a year, when I'm out, will I be telling my story and sharing how I had a lot of things and lost them all when I did my time and came out.

I'm tired of running.
I'm tired of being Peter Pan.
I'm tired of being a lost boy.

But it's not enough to be tired.
You have to enact change.
I can do the things that I know will keep my life between the lines, between the lanes.
Or I can do nothing and expect things will somehow miraculously change.
It's the old adage, God helps those who help themselves.

Already hit the gym today, now I'm headed to a meeting in the hopes I can make it another day sober.
Flashback to last night. I hit the gym, had dinner, my apartment was empty and quiet. I headed out to see some music. Met some cute girl and her busted friend. Had them back at my place because frankly I couldn't sleep because of my work schedule on weekends and we chilled for a bit. Normal people, chill, pleasant to talk to.
When I stop drinking, and this happened the last time I was sober for awhile, people approach me out of the blue, people open up to me...there's this....and I hate using the word, but "serenity" I guess that comes out of me...and people feel the impulse to talk to me at random.

Good luck and happy hunting,
    - Yrs. in Christ