Once Blurred, Now Focused - A Pair Of Glasses

June 09. We made it through wednesday, another day sober, spiritual, and doing our best. I hope that statement is as true for you all as it is for me. I made a discovery in my thinking today that I would like to share. It's more of a recognition of a "similarity" between my life & something else. First though I want to speak about my day. I started off early this morning, set off to enjoy my day after the sun came up & find a spiritual outlet. Accomplishing that didn't come easy at first. I got to spend the morning with people close to me & also got the honor of doing someone a favor that would never be possible without my being sober. Let's just say I helped someone in need, the specifics would be gloating & I am trying to remain humble about it. After the morning out I came home to relax & get out of the cold rainy day. I caught up on the season finale of my favorite tv show, Glee on Fox, and kept warm under a blanket. A few hours later I took an hour nap before dinner, fixing my cousin's computer, and heading out to a meeting.

The meeting was small, but the topic was big. At least for me it was. After thinking for quite some time about it & a conversatioin with my sponsor, a comparison of my life right now to something else amazing clicked in my head. Perhaps it was a spiritual recognition of sorts to exactly what miracles are occuring in my life today. Cutting to the chase, this thought came to mind. For 14 years I lived in active addicition, out of touch & focus with all things that normal people take for granted. Things like a favorite tv show, the beauty of nature, the warm feeling of a friend, the list of things that were oblivious to me goes on. All of these things were a blur, fuzzy pictures & out of focus for so long. Not immediately upon getting sober, but slowly & through compounding changes & efforts as well as my higher power's grace.. something occured. Before I say what, I want to go back to a story from my childhood.

I was a young boy in elementary school, sitting in a 2nd grade classroom, struggling to see what everyone else in life could so freely see... the chalk board, the room around me, the grass outside the windows, life in general as it pertains to visual means. We hadn't know it, because I was never used to seeing clearly, but I needed glasses. I could not see farther than a few feet in front of me, much like in my addiction, I could not see much or perhaps anything at all around me in the world. I don't mean in a optical sense, because that year in 2nd grade I got glasses. When I put them on I could suddenly read billboards, see the shape of clouds, copy notes from the chalkboard & see how pretty a girl looked with her sunday best on. In my addiction I could see visual things, but not spiritual or life enriching things. It was as though life itself was blurry & I was only getting bits & pieces, a fuzzy outlined shape of a clear picture. Sobriety has done for me the same amazing, colorful, and vital change that glasses did as a child. Only now I can see life's great things, those things worth cherishing & thanking my higher power for. Gratitude is something that is in focus with every once blurred spiritual event that used to pass by, now suddenly all so clear to me.

This comparison was not only made by me, some of the earliest members of AA wrote about it, but I never understood what was being spoken of until experiencing it for myself. I have a new set of glasses today, ones in which I can see the world for all it is & in all of its beautiful color & shape. I cannot imagine how I made it so far without creating means to end my miserable existance before, because going back there is not an option after experiencing life in this new focus. I must remain humble, teachable, and grateful one day at a time. To see things in the light of the spirit I must keep on my glasses that are sober & spiritual principles in my life & I must constantly get check ups to see if I need a stronger lens. By that I mean I must be willing to live open to others who have done what I have not yet been able to & that is experience on more day sober, alive, and well on this earth. And may all you be well enough one day to find your own glasses. Good Night.. Good Morning... <3 Jimmy