Part Six

The Problems I Have Today Are Problems I Used To Pray For/Why I Keep Killing Orchids

It turns out growth requires constant maintenance, even when you stop feeling the immediate reward. The fact that that’s a new concept to me is evidenced by the fact that I annually kill my this-one-will-be-different orchid as soon as its flowers start to fall. Usually sometime in late June/early July when my irresponsibly cold apartment becomes inhabitable for my houseplant, and I give up on it entirely. In years past, I’d chuck it down the garbage chute, return to my air conditioned death nursery, and spiral about how I’ll never have children because I can’t keep a plant alive but my unborn child won’t mind being unborn anyway because my AC is destroying the planet it’d be born into but I run hot and private jets exist so what do you want from me?

Then I’d impulse by myself a new orchid next time I went to Metro for the mini dopamine hit.

I recently learned, that if you prune your orchid, you continue to drop a couple of ice cubes in once a week, even after the flowers have fallen, that in time, they’ll start to bloom again. But you have to keep feeding it, even when it looks like some leaves and a couple twigs, or it’ll die.

That’s the phase I’m at with my orchid this year. And it’s a pretty lame one, aesthetically speaking. But I’m trusting that if I put in the work, even though I’m not feeling the reward right now, it’ll come.

When I first got sober (after detox), the changes were immediate, overwhelming, and ironically intoxicating. And then, chip after chip I picked up, my life continued to get better. First I got a job - someone trusted me enough to employ me. Then I made friends - friends who trust me to show up. I got my license back, the government trusts me. I reconnected with a really special person, fell in love, and moved in with him. He trusts me. I got promoted, again people trust me. I got a car - I trust me. I worked the Twelve Steps, and found serenity. I hit a year of sobriety. I started writing for myself. I got promoted again.

The rewards of sobriety keep coming. But they’re less intoxicating, they’re less of a high, because they’re not overwhelming anymore.

Sixteen months ago, not a soul in the world trusted me. And they were right not to. But as I found a tolerance for that “someone trusts me” drug, the rewards stopped feeling like rewards and became responsibilities. And in certain cases, responsibilities turned to obligations. I need to make time to hang out with that friend, gas and car insurance are expensive, my job is stressful, my AA home group is so late at night and I have to be up so early.

Simultaneously, the maintenance piece of my recovery fell to the wayside. Because I wasn’t getting the reward rush, my gratitude practice, my meeting attendance, my meditation (or, sorry attempts at), all stopped feeling important. The AC is cranked and I’m killing the planet and it’s all meaningless anyway because I can buy a new orchid at Metro if mine dies, right?

And so I took my ungrateful ass to a meeting in Moss Park tonight and connected with people who think just like I do. Some deep in addiction, some with decades of sobriety. All of us with the same auto pilot.

And I felt actual, connected, gratitude.

But all feelings are fleeting, so I’m getting back to work, and putting this gratitude it into practice.

My sponsor told me recently that the problems I have today are problems I used to pray for. So as I conclude this post, close my personal laptop, and open my work laptop that the company trusts me with, I’m going to remember, that not long ago, I couldn’t be trusted with a house key.

And I’m going to put a couple of ice cubes in my orchid, because I forgot to do that on Tuesday.

Progress, not perfection.