There is a place where the lion inside me thirsts, roars, runs viciously toward any sign of prey in sight, pulling me along as collateral damage. The place that isn’t a place because its always sliding off the earth sideways. The place that keeps me from sleeping and eating, wiles me raging, renders me silent. The place where I spin, unhinged, in darkness, subject to panic, high and dry. Sometimes I go to that place for an hour, a day, and should I go there for 18 days in a row, it would be a good idea to read this 18 times.
Because the 19th day always comes. And I know that place too well, as well, to let myself forget it.
Let me be proof that the 19th day always comes. I am also proof of the place you’re in now and remember the death grip, the tears, the chokehold, the incessant need for sobriety, partnership, healing, reaffirmation and control. It has you swallowed now and you don’t know what you believe, but you’re buying into the belief that everything you need into order to feel any remote sense of okay is far out of reach and will remain unavailable to you forever. If you’ve any strength left in you, use it to believe me now. Use every last drop to believe that these formidable feelings and uninvited thoughts pose no threat.
The 19th day always comes and you’ve temporarily forgotten what it looks like. I will remind you. There is a place that finds you seated at the shore of a glass lake on a clean day in October, surrounded by changing trees. The lake reflects their color and the sky above them exactly. You know who you are. You are deeply in touch with reason. The worries of the weeks before slide into context, falling off you like water on wax. You are reunited with senses of larger picture and security. Again unafraid of your depth, you recline into freedom to explore the great spaces within you. You sit at the lake’s edge in total safety, timeless wonder and awe. Life meets you there and time guides you there. Let me be proof, me also being you, that the 19th day is coming.