Last night, someone very special to me showed me a photo of myself on a trip to Barcelona in 2018. She pointed out how happy I looked in that photo. I agreed with a smile, but I didn’t think much of it. That is until today, when all of a sudden, all at once it hit me. I broke down (and am fighting the urge to continue to do so as I write this). The boy in that photo was innocent. He got caught up in his head, and fought his way out. He believed anything was possible. He believed in only the good. He held so much love in his heart.
He’s dead now. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t deserve to die, but in many ways he had to die. It hit me today that I never got a chance to mourn him.
As an alcoholic and drug addict, my growth was significantly stunted for a decade, ages 16 to 26. While most people have their “innocence lost” moments around 18, mine came at 28. I don’t have any shame over this - honestly, my decade trapped in addiction is the main reason I’m writing today. I’m incredibly grateful for it. What I’ve always struggled with, though, is making sense of who I was during that time. See, many addicts and alcoholics have stories of complete and utter debauchery - wild times, wild people, wild sex. While I certainly did a lot of things I’m not proud of, I still held on to a tiny shard of innocence. I didn’t do anything that bad. I was a “nice guy” 99% of the time. My addiction primarily looked like isolation, loneliness and self-inflected pain. Now that I have a tremendous amount of shame over.
When I first got sober, I clung to that shard for dear life. I didn’t date for a full year. I read the life’s work of C.S. Lewis and many other great thinkers. Life opened up for me, and I only saw the good in everything and everyone. I was living in a bubble cradling the last piece of innocence that was left inside me. It was only a matter of time before that bubble burst.
I’m not going to go into the details of how it happened. That story may come in the future - it may never come at all. What I will say is that at the time I was more vulnerable than ever to the harsh realities of life, and they inevitably found me. It was the perfect combination of profound love, impossible expectation and naivety.
Shortly after my 1-year anniversary of sobriety, everything fell apart. I remember the feeling - a burning so deep in my core I was barely able to breathe. I started to question everything I believed in. I lost trust in everything and everyone - I could no longer tell what was true and what was false. I couldn’t trust my own mind, I couldn’t trust the world I lived in. That was the death of the boy in that picture. It was a slow process, and in many ways it continues to this day.
I want to make it clear that I’m not a victim in this story. Another result of that breakdown was an intense whiplash outward. I destroyed people I claimed to love. I didn’t know how to handle the loss of my shard - I was in so much pain and so numb to everything. I pointed the finger outward because I didn’t know what to do with what was going on inside. I gaslighted people who didn’t deserve it, becoming judge, jury and executioner as I saw fit. I didn’t realize all of this was my way to avoid mourning what I had lost.
Tonight, it’s finally time to do that. This is my letter to me, age 28:
Hey bud,
I love you so much.
I know you weren’t ready.
I know how hard you worked to see the good in everything.
You were a boy doing everything you could to become a good man.
You had the most beautiful intentions.
You were a much better person than I am.
I wish I could hold you now and tell you that one day, everything would be alright.
I envy the way you saw the world - big, bright and starry eyed.
You had a softness to you that I will always miss.
You will forever be a part of me.
Love, always.
-D
This is the first time in these Daily Reflections where I broke down sobbing while writing. I made a commitment to be honest with everything and everyone, so here it is. Looking back now, I realize that since the death of that boy, I’ve been putting on layers and layers of armor to protect myself and my heart from the world. Armor of the body through an insane fitness regiment, and armor of the soul through crawling into myself further and further and not trusting anyone. If I get really honest with myself, it’s been a tiring and lonely process.
Tonight, I think I shed one of those layers.
I don’t think there’s any particular advice I can give from this. I do hope that you resonate with my process. We’ve all lost our innocence at one point or another, and it can be a very painful, reality-shifting experience. If you never got the chance to mourn it, try it out. Give love to your former self. Acknowledge that the world can be a brutal place, and remember you’ve always done the best you could at any given moment.
That’s what I call life on life’s terms.
Love you and great to see you on Saturday!!