Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes…

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? Measure a year?

In daylights,
In sunsets,
In midnights,
In cups of coffee,
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in a life?

~ Seasons of Love, from the musical “Rent”

How do I measure a year?

September 28, 2020 I moved back to Atlanta from a season of couch hopping, indecision, internal and outward strife and a longing to not be here anymore.  And that move to Little Five Points, a trendy, eccentric area that I’ve always been drawn to did little to quell that fight inside me.  Instead it may have been part of the elixir of strife that set the course for the next days.

One year ago.  Not the day of victory that I claim so boldly and proudly, but a day that I was desperate to stop.  I just didn’t know how yet. Not to stop the disease that claims so many of us or the mental anguish that I’d been continually battling my entire life.  To stop the ragged breath, the physical pain, the emotional hurt and the spiritual fight to know a God that I had openly questioned “why?” so many times in my life.

525,600 minutes ago…

It’s 6:15am.  The stars are still out surrounding a not quite full moon and the day hasn’t really begun.  Yet I’ve been up.  I had a battle to fight yesterday.  And it was a doozy.  I have a relationship that was broken from the start that I still maintain for the sake of my child.  A person who doesn’t care to understand anything but ‘facts’.  Not emotion or spirit, just the facts that a sick dad (me) did everything he could to protect his son from ME last year.  Not that I was ever willing or able to hurt him, in fact when I started my downward spiral I sought first and foremost to protect him the best way I knew how.  But I wasn’t present and I was hurting.  So now I have to show her, for his sake, that I’m ok.

This year was one that I didn’t think I’d see the completion of.  A journey that started in 2006 that has had severe peaks and valleys that led me to that 260 square foot carriage house apartment in Little 5.  One that included one more trip to get my head straight.  One more dive into the battles that I fought with myself.  One more drink.  One more drug.  One more trial lost to the pain…

I write this not as the victorious crusader returning from conquering, but as the man who stands.  On two worn and weathered feet.

And breathes.

Here’s the hard.  I didn’t want to breathe last year.  I was suffocating on self and misery and just wanted it all to stop.  And there’s the revelation.  Life doesn’t stop.  We all have pain.  If you don’t have some sort of pain I truly question your journey.  I’m not saying that you have to wear your pain like the hypocritic religious leaders of some past age, but damn it, if you’ve never faced a demon or two then have you ever had to move through something with reliance on a power greater than yourself?  It’s how you face it.  Christ came and was tested.  Not just by the ‘church’ of his day and not just by the power of satan himself.  He was tested by those closest to him.  It’s how you suit up, show up and walk through theses moments.

And last year I FAILED at it.

It took one more deep, dark slide before the moment of clarity came.  As I was describing that moment the best I could last night to a new friend, I said it ‘became calm’ - maybe a simple man’s version of the calm on the sea as Christ calmed the storm.  The silence beyond the tears as this man on the cross died.  The room that I sat in stopped spinning.  Stopped shaking with my insecurities and doubt and I was asked, very, very clearly…

“Chad, what do you want?”

I chose the one thing I had ran from my ENTIRE adult life.  The one thing that I had always believed was a lie.  That was unobtainable.  

“I want to live…”

But not the life I had been barely clinging onto since the sins of my attacker became known.  I wanted to truly live. 

I just didn’t know how.

Today is one year since I came ‘home’ to Atlanta from being a wandering gypsy (I still have a gypsy soul - look it up, it’s a thing!).  And it took another bout with “Me” before that moment of calm struck.  I wasn’t ready for what was coming.  Who is ever ready for your life to be turned upside down.  But what kind of life had I known up to this point?  Pain.  Disbelief.  Loss.  The only thing I was sure of is that He wouldn’t let go of me.  That He still wanted more for me than I wanted of myself.

I’m sitting here breathing.  Tears falling.  Yesterday was the first hard cry in a long while.  I forget how cleansing the spiritual reset of crying out to a God that I believe is truly there is.  I have a feeling there will be more tears in the next days.  I’m hurting over my son.  Just the battle to see him and show up, that I wasn’t always the best dad a year ago - hell, I wasn’t there for him a year ago; let’s be honest here.

525,600 minutes…

How do YOU measure a year in the life?

Tell me your thoughts.

~ Peace

The Burtle.