Today, October 19, I am four years clean.
And I am enamored with life.
There is so much here. Trees reaching into the sky. Laughter passing from one person to another. The simple, astonishing fact that we can love someone and be loved in return.
I spent years looking for something that would finally make me feel like enough. More achievement. More approval. Always something beyond the life in front of me.
Recovery has given me space to look again.
And what a thing it is to look at something familiar and find that it still has the power to surprise you. To meet ordinary life with a little of the wonder a child brings to something they have never seen before.
My mind still needs care. I still have thoughts to notice and things to learn. There is room for all of that in a life I love.
If you’re living with mental illness or working through addiction, I hope there’s some company in these words. I’m still learning, too. There is so much about living that I’m only beginning to understand.
But I know this: being here matters to me. Being able to notice. To listen. To love. To discover that something I’ve seen a thousand times can still be beautiful.
Today, I get to celebrate four years clean.
And this beautiful, ordinary life keeps giving me reasons to look a little closer.