Blog entry for:

so this morning it is difficult to identify who the winners are, and if i am a winner as well. a friend and a sponsee took his own life last night and one of his last acts was to send me a blank text. last night i was numb, an was angry at myself for not doing anything more for him, and for not feeling anything, absolutely no feeling whatsoever. the numbness has passed and as i write this, i am overcome with waves of sadness. i cannot pretend that i have any clue, why he would take such an action, not the blank text but the whole sense of desperation over what one might think is a temporary, correctable medical issue. the recriminations go far deeper and this morning i woke with a sense of gratitude for this life i have been given.
as i sat and listened this morning, i could not get him out of my head, nor could i stop thinking about my lack of emotional response. dammit all, i thought i was better than that. i thought by this point bin my recovery i could feel the entire range of human emotions and when i got news like i received last night, my emotional response would be one of sadness and not nothing, zilch, nada. of course, the thoughts go deeper than that, especially since he considered me a part of his life and i feel that i failed for not keeping him on this side of the grass. i feel dirty. i feel cheap and i feel way less than human this morning, and when i get down to brass tacks, as the cliché goes, i blame myself for something that really was not my doing. the “if onlys” start to fly and all of a sudden i have made it all about me. the self-centered, self-obsession kicks in and man of man, do i want to change the way i feel.
i can take consolation in the fact that, as far as i know, he died clean and deserves and infinity chip. the action i will take today, is to go to a meeting, reach out to those in my network and the part i am dreading the most, let those who knew him here in the fellowship, what has happened.
it may be a good day to be clean, but it certainly does not feel like it, and today i am the one walking around with a big red “L” on my forehead. this too shall pass, life will go on and in this moment, i can feel what i feel, good, bad or indifferent and be more than i was yesterday, to all of those who i call my family, friends, sponsees and acquaintances.

∞ DT ∞