The death of hope is the birth of change.

My world is still colored in shades of you.

Maybe instead of abandoning you, they stepped back to give you the space you need to become who they know you can be.

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Scars create ridges, ridges that look like mountains depending on your perspective. Once you’re standing on top of the ridge however, your perspective of the landscape will never be the same.

I sit at parks, watching my kids play and texting people who never text back. I’m dying on the inside—dying for human contact, for adult contact.

The illusion is real: a phone full of contacts and social media just a swipe away. It creates a false sense of comfort, a feeling of connection that just leaves me vapid and alone. I suspect these are things all single parents think about and do; we just never talk about it. We post pictures and witticisms that seem to prove our lives are full, and for a moment, it masks the void.

So many times, I’ve thought the universe was aligned my way, or that I was aligned with it. All those ideas have failed. Either there is no pattern to the chaos, or it’s on a scale I just can’t see.

From my limited perspective, it just looks like noise.

When the search for meaning is over, the only thing left is to just be. Maybe that’s the paradigm?

Hope must die, but it must die of natural causes. You can’t speed this process along.

When the silence becomes more silent than deafening, And the void starts to fill in on itself, That’s when I know it’s over.

It’s over, and she’s not coming back.

I wear my losses like an ex-lovers t-shirt. I want to breath in deeply and feel the memorey next to me. The scars, the anger, the grief, they feel like the only tangable part of that person I have left to hold.

What if I let those go? Then they’ll really be gone.

If I can’t hide behind the mask of my loss, you might see who I actually am; that’s a vulnerability I’m not always ready to face.

So I let it go in increments.

Slowly deconstructing the mosaic, one tile at a time.

I can’t just be a dad that’s been my entire identity for a long time now. I push people away I’ve made a conscious decision that if I’m going to feel lonely I rather be alone. I’ve taken that role more as a shield than just a part of me.

I do not want to feel lonely and I do not want to be alone.

It’s time to stop hiding, it’s time to give myself time and just be alive.

It’s quiet, my house is empty, and I’m examining the remains—surveying the damage from a storm I never saw coming.

This storm started 23 years ago.

I am a man who has violated his core values, who has crossed his own line in the sand, and I’ve done it more than once. I have recklessly pursued what I wanted to the exclusion of all others, and it has only left me hollow and alone. I’ve cried out, “When do I get mine?” and I’ve nurtured that thought in my heart. I have left people with physical and emotional scars in the wake of my pursuit. I have finally, sincerely looked at the damage I have done.

The weight of my past has been almost more than I can bear.

On February 15, 2018, I physically pushed the woman I loved. I hurt her in ways I may never fully understand; stitches only tell part of the story. I violated her trust. I took away her sense of security and her God-given right to feel safe. I left a mark on her soul that I cannot make right.

I thought my life was over. I believed I would always be alone from that moment forward. How could anyone trust me? How could anyone love me? I hated myself, and I didn’t trust myself either.

Then you told me you felt safe around me—safe in my home, safe in my arms. I needed that more than you will ever know. That’s when I started to wake up. That’s when I started to see. That’s when I started to feel alive. That was the birth of my hope.

I have blamed my anger on many things over the years, and there is some validity to all of them. Tragic, horrible things that no one should ever see or experience have happened in my life—but they’ve happened in other people’s lives, too. I’ve never been overly skilled at sorting it all out.

As an adult, however, it started with a lie. It started with me.

In June of 1996, I met a girl whom everyone else already seemed to know. I didn’t understand the buzz around her, but one thing was clear: this girl was going to change things. By January of 1997, I knew I loved her, and I knew that nothing else mattered. We had met in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a tighter, more close-knit social circle than I can explain to an outsider; it makes for complex social interactions that others never really face. I am an alcoholic and a drug addict; I have been since I was a pre-teen. The only way I’ve ever found to stay sober is in AA.

But Stacy meant more.

We started dating, and it required more lies than I was ever okay with—but I told them just the same. I lied to my sponsor, who warned me about the outcome. I lied to my friends. I lied to everyone because I knew it would cause a storm, but I could not escape the idea of her. I could not let her go.

“Storm” is a misnomer; this erupted like a volcano.

I could not deal with the judgment. I could not deal with my own guilt or the discomfort I felt in a place that had always been my home, my safe place. So, I left. I attended a few meetings at other groups, but my trust had been shattered and the guilt was more than I could take. I stopped going altogether. I kept praying, but even that became strained because I couldn’t understand why God would let me be treated this way.

A year passed. I moved out of state because I didn’t want to see anyone anymore. Twenty-seven days after my four-year sobriety anniversary, I drank.

I was so angry. I felt abandoned and betrayed. I dreamed for years about the friends who had turned on me, and I grew to hate the idea of the God I thought I knew. I told myself I would be okay, though—I had Stacy. It was just her and me against the world.

Then she died.

I hated you all, and I hated your God most of all.

A rage that I cannot articulate built in me over the next 14 years, and it ended in a jail cell on February 15, 2018.

In August of 2018, I met a girl—a girl everyone seemed to already know. I didn’t understand the buzz around her. But I knew an inescapable truth once again: this girl is going to change things…

There is a principle that states: “Do not let the sun go down upon your anger.”

Alcoholics Anonymous has a similar principle which states: “We continued to take personal inventory and, when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.”

Both of these principles are the same; they hold the same underlying spiritual truth. Time is only on my side when I understand that the time is now. Now is the only time I have. The passing of time only deepens and widens the chasm.

My life is no different. My relationships with people—all relationships with all people—require maintenance; they require growth. Things are sometimes uncomfortable, but only as long as I allow them to be.

Now is the time. The time is now. How can I set my part right today with all people?

It’s springtime—or maybe it’s summer; only a calendar could clear the confusion. I’m sitting on my front porch, drinking my first cup of coffee of the day. These are moments I cherish as the sun starts to peek over the horizon at my back. It’s warm outside, but the breeze is cool as it sweeps across the heavily dew-covered ground. The silence is only broken by the sound of birds singing, and all is well in my soul. This is what I long for: slow, silent mornings, coffee, and quiet contemplation.

I look at my flower beds and, if I stare closely, I swear I can see the tulips waking up at the hint of sunrise. They close their petals at night—such delicate and beautiful flowers. However, it’s morning now, and they tilt toward the morning sun, slowly beginning to open up to take in all the warmth and sunlight they can. By midday, the petals are wide open, the tulips are in full bloom, and their beauty is resplendent.

I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you closed in the dark, your petals shut to shelter you from the cold. I’ve seen you slowly, almost imperceptibly, tilt toward the sun and begin to take in the life-giving light. I’ve seen you close again as newness comes upon you, but it was too late. The light was in you already, and you no longer feared the storm, even though fear told you to take shelter. You’ve opened and bloomed before my eyes, and I’ve seen the resplendent glory of your heart and soul. I’ve been privileged that you’ve shared your colors with me.

The spark in you has awoken my muse.