Now I know AA is apolitical and does not endorse stuff (especially presidential candidates), and I may get myself in trouble for saying what I'm about to say now. But I'm grateful for Bruce Springsteen. And I'm grateful for Stevie Wonder, and I'm grateful for U2, and Beyonce (who isn't), and Mary J. Blige (how could you not), and Pete Seeger, and Jack Black, and Herbie Hancock, and Usher, and Garth Brooks, and cool choirs made up of military people and high school kids. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm even grateful for John Mellencamp, and James Taylor and even Will.i.am and Sheryl Crow. I'm grateful for the show biz people because they put on a hell of a show that stirred my soul to kick off the inauguration festivities, and maybe I can say it this way, I'm grateful that we're going to have a new president in a couple of days.
Hope is an important thing. I know what its like to loose hope. To have no hope. To loose it deep down. To know that no matter what I did, in the end I was still going to have that hole in my soul. I was young and had a lot of things going for me but I'd lost hope. It was real scary. The things I had "going for me" really didn't matter. So I'm grateful that getting a new president after such a long wait has helped me remember the time when I had no hope, and also to remember when I got it back. It didn't come in a lightning bolt. It came (and comes) slowly for me. Little things. Putting a few days together, listening, holding my head up, being afraid and doing it anyway, and telling the truth, led to little glimmers of hope, little glimmers of "Everything's going to be allright." Little fleeting glimmers of light in a very dark place. I'm grateful that everything's going to be allright even though I have no idea how it happened and/or how it will continue. But I have hope. Or is that faith?
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2 comments:
thanks swizzzzz
i share your gratitude for the long-awaited change of the guard. hoping for a brighter (and more solar-powered) tomorrow.
the bit about hope resonates. i was in grad school when i got clean, making straight A's in creative writing; near the top of my class. yet, despite having everything going my way, i had lost all hope. i was THIS CLOSE to dropping out and looking for a job as a janitor--somethinge menial and not too physical. I imagined I could just bake my life away pushing a mop down a hall. That, in my mind, seemed like relief.
Then I got into this program.
Yea man. I almost quit my dream job (after getting sober). The grooves in my crazy mind have taken (and still take) a long time to recover from
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