Fresh Start

As I begin this new year in a drug treatment center in Cleveland Ohio’s downtrodden and left behind to die Central neighborhood, a fresh start of every kind consumes my thoughts. It’s simple to say, “I quit shooting heroin again, so my health will soon return”. Having been struggling with this addiction for half of my thirty-five years on this earth, I know that to be far from the truth. And the word “health” encompasses a variety of categories. Sure, the first step to all around wellness for me is to quit doing drugs. Check. Despite all the abuse, I’ve been blessed with an athletic physique and a body that somehow continues to bounce back. I actually enjoy exercise and always have. I have a tendency to eat healthy as well. After receiving a bone marrow transplant in November of 2016 for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, I lost any desire for sweets, which makes maintaining a healthy diet much easier. But I know my physical wellness will falter without mental, emotional and spiritual wellness . As aforementioned, physical well-being comes somewhat naturally to me, the other three....not so much. Those will be my focus of this year. After an 11 month hiatus from heroin in 2019 I was very physically healthy, but allowing my mental, emotional and spiritual health to fall by the wayside lead me to relapse. I realize now, as I make a goal for all around wellness this new year, these must come first. There’s no such thing as a “bandaid” for that can help me achieve my goals to fix these problems. I could ramble on and on about the many different issues and what the remedies could be. If such a “bandaid” did exist, it would be called, “passion”. I left what I was passionate about behind for drugs. Cancer furthered this departure from my passions. The next relapses removed them completely from my heart. Without passion, life becomes very mundane, dark and empty to a level of absurdity. Pointless and hopeless even. I began to fear and resent what I once loved. I looked at my guitars and any other instrument with disdain. Notebooks, once always opened and filled with personal ramblings on life and poetry from the depths of my soul, sat unopened in closets and storage units. Some (in Kafkaesque fashion) ended up in the fireplace, embarrassed at years of attempting to express pain on to paper and imprudently believing it to be a fruitless endeavor. Nature, my constant companion and love since I was old enough to roam the wild woods where I grew up, remained as beautiful as she is, yet disregarded. The sunsets behind my beloved Lake Erie continued to paint the skies with vibrant, beautiful, unimaginable hues, but I allowed my view of the world to become so dark, I became colorblind. And last but certainly not least, my love for humanity disappeared. I avoided people at all costs, to the point I would cringe when someone would recognize me and call my name. Old friends, loved ones, strangers, it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to see them or them to see me. In essence, I became a misanthropic antithesis of my true self. Being knowledgeable on what I let go of to lose my well-being is paramount to finding myself again this new year. A few months before I did my last shot of heroin, I began this road to recovery without knowing it. I picked up a guitar for the first time in years. I could only stop playing when my fingers were throbbing. I began writing again. Poetry, songs, prose. Admittedly, not my best work, but it was still my words on paper. It was a start. A start to the end of my passionless and painful days. I began rebuilding relationships I walked away and hid from. I didn’t realize then that I was slowly, stone by stone, pebble by pebble, building this foundation of all encompassing wellness on which I now stand as I try to build the rest. I won’t get into the events that directly led me to finally kicking heroin at the end of 2020. For that’s a whole other story or craziness itself. ‘Twas a fitting end for that year from hell though. A year that had me lose hope, not just in myself, but in my fellow man. A year that brought unimaginable trials and tribulations with with the ones I love most. A year of death, one of the deaths being one of my best friends. A year fraught with suicidal ideation from sunup to sundown. But alas, there’s always enlightenment lurking in the darkness. If you search, you’ll never find it. It will find you when the time is right. I know to be patient to process and interpret all the lessons sequestered away in the pain of the past year. But the main teachings gleaned are obvious for me. For my fresh start, I must return to old passions. To achieve mental, emotional and spiritual wellness there’s certain things I must never let go of. I continue to play guitar and write more fervently than ever, with a passion I thought unattainable. I cherish my longtime relationships and enthusiastically enjoy building new ones each day. Since I believe true intelligence and self awareness is birthed from an empathetic and compassionate understanding of people, that strengthens another resolve for this year. Furthering education to any degree possible. Insatiably reading again and seeking out the answer to everything I don’t know. More importantly, listening to everyone I speak to. Galileo said, “I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him”. I desperately seek out the words of strangers from which I used to hide in an effort to understand my fellow man better. And by doing so, understand myself better. Though unadulterated nature is not commonplace in my current location, I seek out and find beauty in this concrete wilderness. Whether it be those long since abandoned homes or buildings and imagining the stories they hold, or the everyday people I briefly speak with on the street, the long forgotten and forlorn historical sites, urban street art, or witnessing random acts of kindness in this sometimes cruel environment. It’s all nature to some degree or another. By following these passions of mine, I will eventually reach a stable level or mental well-being. I will one again feel a purpose and will finally be at peace with myself and with the world, which will bring me emotional well-being. The amalgamation of mental and emotional well-being produce spiritual well-being. Believing everything adds up to something in this life is all it takes to appreciate each day. Even if we have no clue what the meaning is, take note of and love everything and there’ll be a much better chance we see what it is at the end. The meaning of a fresh start can and will have a plethora of interpretations depending on the perspective of life each individual has. For me personally, a fresh start simply means, to live again.