A post by Liz Strauss at her blog Letting Me Be… triggered the most amazing response from me (amazing to me that is). I’m modifying my response to her post only a bit to work it into this post. It’s about one of the hardest things in life that you might go through and everyone might have to sooner or later. This is how it went for me…
There came a time in my life where everything became black and white and at best, shades of gray. I despised everything and everybody. I was at a cusp where the responsibilities (taking care of ailing parents) were horrendous and my life was at a major turning point. The kind of change that you survive…or don’t. Without getting into too personal details, I found out three things from the experience.
It doesn’t take drugs or alcohol to hit “rock bottom”. Not at all. It’s finding your life turned upside down and losing everything you ever knew so quickly that there is no time to adjust. Simple as that and it can happen just like that with little or no warning. So take nothing for granted.
The second thing I learned is that it’s not hitting rock bottom that drives one to consider ending one’s life…hitting rock bottom means you’re forced to look hard at the “dirty” side of your soul, that place you shove all the bad experiences away in where you can bury them…forget them. You have no choice now and it’s that looking that can drive one to end their life if they find the sight too much to bear. And the third thing I learned is…
I could never take the life that I was given. My life had been filled with all sorts of unusually unique experiences, both good and bad and all marvelous and to take away what had been built up over all those years would be unforgivable.
Funny about how Liz put it in her post, about how she made to the allusion of a place or a room where the bad things are because that’s how I saw it also. I forced open the door and walked in and saw the light streaming in from the cracks and seams of the boarded up windows. I took a deep breath and pried those boards off and the “sun” streamed in. I propped open the windows with the very boards I had pried off and turned around for a look. The room was full of dust and cobwebs and in the center of the room was a pile of trash. Some in bags, some loose…all the nasty experiences of my life were there. So I went over and sat down in front of the pile (it seemed not as big as I thought it would be) and started picking through it one piece at a time. Those pieces that obviously didn’t matter anymore I threw into a discard pile to be thrown out and when I was done, all that was left were those experiences that I had failed to learn from before. And one by one I picked them up, turned them over and took them apart…and I learned what I should have learned before.
When I had finished, I bagged up the discards, put them outside the door and swept the place out. I left the windows open and the last thing I did was remove the door and prop it against a wall inside the room. I shouldered my broom, picked up the trash bag of discards and made my way back to reality and my life.
It took a few years before reality’s sun started to shine for me and I began to see the world in color again but I found that climbing out of the well I fell in and reaching the top was only the beginning (as I lay on the grass catching my breath from the climb). Now I had to continue on for nothing had changed as far as reality was concerned…only my outlook.
It’s a different life now and it’s a continuation. I’ll never again regret anything that came before. Answers to those questions everyone asks about who, what, where and why they are or why “this” happened, have slowly come my way, always when I least expect it, something that never happened before that fall to the bottom of the well.
And life is good again.
All this took place almost 9 years ago. I’m still having those “questions” answered as I mentioned above and although my own health has had it’s ups and downs, life is still good and looking better everyday. Sometimes, when our lives are at it’s darkest point and there seems to be no hope…no end in sight, we just have to hold on for just one more day and every day we have to say the same thing…just one more day. Nothing ever remains the same and if we can make through the darkness we’ll eventually come out into the light. I’m certainly glad I did.
This is a great post Kirk! I like your comment about not needing drugs or alcohol to hit rock bottom, VERY TRUE! I guess it’s human nature that we “shove those feelings” deeper and deeper. Or lift the corner of the rug and sweep those problems under and POOF all gone!
I know so many people that are great at that. Eventually though it has a way of catching up with us and that’s when we really see what we are made of.
I’m so happy that the sun is shining for you again.
OMG!
I actually just popped in to grab a look at your ‘plug-ins’ list, with the intention of pinching a few and saying a quick hello on the way out! What I have just read in this post (and the associated blog) almost brought me to my knees.
I’ve always been a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and I think I was meant to come here this evening! You both put into words things I have been experiencing and struggling to understand in a way that has opened my eyes.
Thank you….
Richard
Hi Elaine,
Amazing isn’t it? Have the time we are struggeling to make things better while the other half of the time we do our best to destroy ourselves. Yup…that’s human nature alright.
There are a lot of people I know for sure that have all sorts of things “under the rug”. Did you ever hear anyone say; “Oh, that’s a subject we don’t speak of” or something similar? I know there’s always sensitive subjects in anyone’s life but you can’t bury these things forever.
Sun’s still shining!
Hey Rich,
The eyeopener I found when I went through my dark times was that it turned out to be not so much a struggle as it was just plain old hard work once I saw what was what. I guarantee it’s one of the hardest things anyone can do but it’s most definitely worth it.
Oh, by the way…I’ve been stopping by to check your blog but all I was getting for the longest time was your directory listing on your server (as in what you see in your FTP program when you’re uploading themes and/or plugins). I see you got it working properly within the last few days.
Keep the faith. All good thoughts your way then.
Dear Kirk,
I say dear because you’ve become dear to me.
What a wonderful photo you’ve found to illustrate this experience that we lucky ones have to go there.
I read this again a few days later and I’m ready to write some thoughts in response that might mean something.
To me, it’s appropriate that we call it hitting rock bottom because I think of it as going to the foundations of who we are. I know that when I went there my foundation was build on sand and dirt — not very steady, not very strong. I was a reflection more than a person, a reaction to the world. I had been trying too hard to belong, to fit, to reconstruct to some outer ideal rather than make the inner ideal bring itself to its best reality.
So it was either go back deal with it or keep locking pieces of my history and my “self” away where I denied everyone including me access. That, of course, meant that folks noticed I wasn’t entirely present or available when they met me, even though I thought I was. No wonder they often had a problem with trusting who I might be. . . . I didn’t know that I didn’t trust me.
Going back to build my foundation on concrete meant I could show the world what I am.
This is a beautifully written essay on how to do just that. It’s inspiring and supportive. It shows the character behind the man who wrote the words. People have a choice when they hit rock bottom. Drugs or alcohol not only can take us there, but they can be the escape when we arrive. You didn’t make that choice, you opened the windows to let in the light; you went through the trash; and you picked up the broom to clean up the room until it was a place where you might want to live.
You said YES to life.
Thank you for writing this.
I sign this with my love,
Liz
M’lady Liz,
One of the very unfortunate things about having a personal blog and a half finished series on yet another, is that I can’t quit the day job yet. So I’m off to work and I refuse to just write out some quick reply to your wonderful comment.
But after work…I’ll be back.
Wishing you a wonderful day with love returned.
Hi Liz,
Isn’t it strange how people try so hard to fit into a world of people who are as individual as they are? There are countless little groups of folks everywhere you look who believe that if someone doesn’t think the way they do or are a new comer, then they “don’t fit in”. At work, in villages and towns, the neighbors on a single street or amongst a group of friends that have known one another for several years. Let’s not even mention families.
And each one of these groups are unique unto themselves as well so when you get down to the bottom line, there is no “fitting in” anywhere…because you are unique.
You said it perfectly; Bringing the inner ideal itself to it’s best reality. What a great statement. The strength was always there. You either have it or you don’t. You just never knew it. Neither one of us had a chance to find that hidden strength until we needed it. That, I truly believe, is what life is all about. An lifetime of lessons (experiences) to work through and then learning from them—good or bad. It’s when you stop learning from them that you begin to fail.
I’m glad neither one of us stopped learning. Otherwise who would there be to talk to under that tree?