Surrender

When I look back at my life I realize that I have spent much, if not most, of it fighting.  Fighting people, feelings, fears or failures.  It cannot be mistaken that all of this fighting has gotten me absolutely nowhere.  All I have to show for my years of struggle are scars, bad memories and a series of failures.  I cannot do this anymore.  I give up.  Fighting is not going to get me anywhere, so I surrender.

Do you hear that?  I give up.  I surrender.

For so long I thought that surrendering was a sign of weakness.  I would take any fight that came my way, regardless of the size of the opponent.  Even if I lost, at least I put up a fight.  At least I could look at my black eye or my broken knuckles and know that I did not give up.  The trouble is that in the end all I had was my pride and a fucked up face or hands.  Pride, ah pride, what a long and dysfunctional relationship we have had.

Too many fucking times I let my pride drive my decisions, I would take any beating or face any foe...at least I had my pride.  Now the problem is that my pride has been stolen from me.  I have nothing to be proud of anymore.  Maybe that isn't the worst thing in the world.  All I really have is today, it is the only guarantee I can make. 

So again, I surrender.

I cannot go back and fix the errors of my ways and I cannot go forward and set up my future, all I have is today.  I have a single choice each day and it is very simple.  I can choose to get fucked up and push all this shit inside of me back down, or I can choose to stay clean and face my pain like a man.  I surrender to the fact that I am an addict.  I surrender to the fact that I cannot change my past.  I surrender to the fact that I cannot guarantee my future.  I give up.

I can't fix this shit excuse for a life that I have been living, so I give up.  All I can do is stay clean and face my demons today.  Not tomorrow, not yesterday and not next week...just today.  All I can do is say, "fuck it."  That is the healthiest thing I have said all week.  Fuck it.  I give that up to you, God, or whoever the hell you are.  I am not strong enough to survive a fight with all the shit that has been laid on my table, so I won't.  I can worry about one thing and one thing alone: staying clean.

Listen to me, a few weeks clean and a few meetings under my belt and I am beginning to sound like a NA bible thumper.  Right now though, clean time is the only thing that I have and I must protect it at all costs.  If I don't I will continue in the same vicious cycle that I have been living the majority of my life in.  If I keep that up, someday I will meet another woman I love and someday she will rip my still beating heart from my chest and stomp on it, just like the last one did.  If that happens again I can make one guarantee.  I will take my own life.

I tried my hardest to fight this battle for the love of my life, but she rejected me because I was not doing it for myself.  I did everything for her and tried as hard as I possibly could, but in the end that was not enough.  It hurts so much to say but it is the simple fact of the matter.  My best wasn't good enough for her and as a result she has left my broken heart behind her.  I lost my whole life and came so very close to extinguishing my own breath.  I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot win this fight against myself, against my addiction and against the pain that she caused me.  So...I give up.  Fuck it, I surrender.

I leave this all up to you God or higher power or whatever I'll call you.  You can fix all this shit.  You have much bigger guns in your arsenal than I do in mine, so you fight this fucking war because I am not doing it anymore.  You fix this shit and I will fight the only battle that I know I can win: the battle of today.  Today I stayed clean and I will fight that battle again when I wake up tomorrow, but I'm not going to worry about tomorrow until I wake up. 

Fuck it.  You hear me?  Fuck it.  Tomorrow is your problem and the past is your problem.  I am going to leave that all up to you.  I cannot control any of that shit and I certainly can't fix it, so fuck it.  I can control one...no two things.  I can control whether I stay clean or not and I can control whether I do the next good thing or not.  I can only do those two things today.  So on every other day but today, I surrender. 

Fuck it, what else could I possibly have to lose.