Truth Be Told

Thirteen years ago I quit drinking and this past week I celebrated a very different life, a sober life, a truly happy and authentic life. 

My journey in sobriety has been scenic and full of adventures. I’ve done some cool shit like hike the Camino de Santiago and climb Machu Picchu. I’ve become a writer and artist. I’ve traveled the world and actually remembered what I saw and who I met. I met a life partner and together we converted a school bus thinking we would one day live off grid. We compromised on sticks and bricks in a small rural haven in Oregon instead. 

Sobriety hasn’t been all sunshine and roses though. Being awake, being sober is facing truth, accepting reality, and diplomatically when appropriate calling out shit that is wrong. I’ve felt a lot of feelings on this sojourn and many have been tough to accept. I’ve fallen in and out of love. I’ve endured another profound heartbreak with wrong guy #2, and suffered through PTSD and disillusionment with the election of trump. Yes, trump is in the top three of shitty events that have happened during my sobriety. This is the curse of feeling my feelings and caring more about the planet and a country and its people than many seem to care about either. 

I recently read an article that said that Americans are among the most stressed in the world. I believe this is an accurate assessment. We work too much and make too little. Housing prices are exorbitant, causing many to be forced from their homes. Student loans are drowning young folks in a lifetime of debt. Many people can’t afford sick insurance. Veterans are committing suicide at higher rates than ever before. Farmers are being ruined first by Monsanto and now trump’s tariffs. Tax returns are dwindling. Gas prices are going up. Meanwhile, record numbers of animal species are going extinct because our consumption habit is killing the planet and we’ve installed an authoritarian government that is looting the country, turning a blind eye on climate change, violating human rights, and sleeping with other dictators. This is not making America great again–it’s demolishing democracy one day at a time and the cult following is not only pleased, it’s complicit. No one is coming for your guns. Immigrants are not stealing your jobs or your money yet we are kidnapping their children. This, in a country founded by immigrants. Shameful.

You think I’m stressed? I am beyond stressed. I’m angry, disgusted, and ashamed by what we have become in the country. Where is the uprising against hate? The fight for equality? Where is the constitutional mandate to put country before party? When are we going to get rid of Citizens United and take money out of politics? When are we going to start doing the right thing, America? What we are doing is wrong. The way we are living is unacceptable. Our government is abhorrent and needs to be brought to heel. 

I’ve held my tongue on these issues for many reasons that I cannot state. I’ve avoided politics on this blog. I’ve been focusing on mindfulness and am doing my best to be at peace with world. I’ve moved 3,000 miles away from DC to place distance between myself and the embarrassing shit show on Pennsylvania Avenue. But there is a time and place to speak out, and on the anniversary week of my sobriety, I choose truth, honesty, and compassion. 

We must care for each other and do for each other and the planet what our federal government is not and will not do. We cannot count on our federal government to save the planet or provide us health care or give us raises and lower housing prices. We must do it ourselves. We must turn to our local, county, and state governments to make right what is being doing wrong by this administration that cares only about lining its own pockets with OUR money. We are in crisis, despite what it looks like on Wall Street. Sitting by and watching it all happen like a slow moving train wreck is unacceptable. Voting is not enough. I implore people to get involved in their communities to do what is right for the planet and for each other. 

We are a young country and we make mistakes. Like a stubborn teenager, we insist that we know best. Our European brothers and sisters have already been where we are. We should strive to be wise beyond our years and look to them for guidance because what we are doing now, isn’t working and its not who we are. Four years can be forgiven. Eight cannot.