Staring at the Blank Page Before You

Here I go, stealing titles from songs again.

I was on my way to pick up my girls from school yesterday when Unwritten came on the radio. I’ve always really like this song, but it’s the first time I actually listened to the lyrics.

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

In my sobriety these words take on meanings so deep that tears began to run down my face. As I pulled up to the school I wiped quickly at my cheeks thinking “shit, just what I need, to be seen crying by all these parents!” Thankfully, I don’t think anybody saw me and I kept it together, but when I got my girls home I looked up the video and lyrics and listened to the song another 3 or 4 times, letting the tears flow.

Staring at the blank page before you - My life in sobriety is one huge blank page. There are no certainties as to what a day will bring. All I know is it’s my responsibility to keep “And then she took that first drink” from being written on the page each day, and hand the pen over to my Higher Power for the rest.

No one else can feel it for you, Only you can let it in – I am the only one who can choose how I should live, the only one who can grant myself sobriety each and every day.

No one else can speak the words on your lips – I have to stand up for me and I have to take care of myself. I have to open up to people. I have to share. I have to speak my words, they are unique and precious and nobody else has them.

Live your life with arms wide open – Maybe this one should have been the title of this post, it’s so important. All I have to do to allow light and love into my life is open myself up to them. I can be happy or sad, free or enslaved, open to possibilities or closed to the world. I just have to choose to be.

Today is where your book begins – Today is all we have, and just for today, I choose life.