Truly Broken

I lie here.

Broken.

But this time I am literally broken.

To become whole, sometimes we have to make a choice to break open the old wounds that have been slowing us down.

Over the years, I have found it amazing how our body adapts to pain.

We learn to move forward with suffering. Adjusting ourselves to accommodate the intrusion of an unwelcome ailment.  Which eventually forces us to make the decision to extract it from our bodies in order to heal, and become who we once were.

I have completed a surgery that I have had a fear of doing for years now.  But in hesitating, and not getting it done, I have had years stolen from my life. I have suffered with the pain. Choosing to step aside and not join events I once would have.  Ignoring that my body was slowly breaking down.

I have sadly realized that by being a bystander to myself I have deteriorated gradually, year after year.

I had assumed that my body would always be the same, and that it would always be there for me.

That is not so.

I now see that I need to be there for my body.

I know this is probably common sense for most people, however for me, as I have moved through the different struggles in my life, I have taken for granted the vessel that has carried me through each event.  Not realizing that as my mind was suffering, so was my physical being.

I would catch glimpses of myself in the mirror and not recognize who was looking back.

See photos of myself and cringe.

Slowly disappearing from the history of my physical story.

Knowing this, and telling myself I would deal with it later. I am not ready to deal with this issue yet.

I will come back…one day.  I am just not ready now.

I have been treating my body almost like a line of credit…racking up the debt.  Promising that it’s just ‘for now’, and that one day I will get to it, and pay my body back all of the abuse I have given it over the years.

But now that I am truly physically broken, lying here, and actually seeing how much my body has suffered, I know now that I am going to have to make even more changes on my path of recovery.

I have used up all of my reserve.

There is nothing left for her to give me.

I have to stop and start to give back.

I have accomplished 101 days of sobriety.  Something I NEVER thought I would be able to do. But I have!!!

And through this, I see clearly all the cracks and frailties that are the aftermath of abusing my body these past 17 years.

I see now that my body hasn’t received love or support from me.

That I have relied solely on her… but she hasn’t been able to rely on me.

I have let her disappear.

She has become shattered and wrecked.

Almost, unfixable.

She is a garden that has been neglected, year after year.  The weeds are so thick and deep making the process of even knowing where to start extracting seem impossible.

Where do you start when you see destruction?

When you are the destruction?

I don’t know…except to try what I did when I knew I had a drinking problem.

Take one day at a time.

This is what has helped me get to day 101.

One day at a time.

I need to look at the garden, with the weeds and the thistles and not be afraid of what lies beneath.

To believe that as I uproot the complicated web of deeply entrenched garbage from the field of desolation, that there will be flowers waiting to bloom.

Flowers that are stronger than weeds.

More fragrant, colourful, lively and strong.

Flowers that will not shrink from the sunlight, but that will stretch out wanting to be seen.

This is what I know to be true as I lie here broken.

I want to be fixed.

I want to tend to the garden.

I want to learn about my body and how it works.

I want to give back all that I have taken.

I need to do this.

I see this clearly.  There is no more time. My line of credit is maxed out. There is nothing left to borrow.

The time is now.

And today is day one.