You stand there, surrounded by this energy…not the type of energy that you can feed off of but the type that drains you while you aren’t looking…like a small hole in a soda can. The type of energy that you can see and feel the color of your heart changing along with the level of toxicity in your bloodstream because of the glass in your hand. It comes over you suddenly. Your body starts to feel warm and numb and you look out onto the crowd – and you can feel it – that energy – running up your back and resting itself on your shoulders. And there you stand…thinking…a stale empty face – but underneath it all, you are mulling beyond anyones imagination. You couldn’t describe it well if you wanted to. So you take another sip and lean your back up against anything you can find. You watch.
The only way you can know the enemy sometimes is to walk right through that threshold and be there for a while. You have to spend time in the dark to fully understand what is trying to be accomplished. And you see the others, many of which don’t even know that this indeed is the dark. Not the act, but the energy. There is a lot of it, but you have to be careful because this energy is naturally a trickster. It will turn you into things you never wanted to be, make you do things that you will regret, and have you say things that you never had the heart to say…often of times leading to disastrous results. It is a harmony killer…taking everything you stand for and flipping the board.
There I stood, feeling the pressure, hearing the whispers that were all too familiar to be years ago. But there is no fighting it. No sword sharp enough to slice its fleeting but overwhelming ability to move around your feeble barriers with ease. The only way is to be with it. To hear it. To listen to it. And to be patient – because if you are patient with those whispers they will eventually leave to find another soul. So there I stood, completely overwhelmed and at the same time in control of everything in my heart. My mind was a fierce battle, but my heart was steady. “I’ve been here countless times” I told myself. “Ride it out.” And as I looked out onto the crowd, I knew, that I was meant for one thing – to expose this energy and to be the metaphorical cloak and arms that wrap around those who need it. To show that the light in the heart once you light it burns so hot that it could blind those who don’t understand it.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project
I often wish that I could put into words the turmoil inside me, when I see a person drowning in the same pool I have swam in. I look into the eyes of someone who I know was once a vital, free, and loving soul and I see how dead they are. They aren’t even aware of it yet. I am ranting and screaming and crying inside because I know they are not going to listen to any words that might spill from my lips. Knowing what’s in the kool-aid doesn’t make a bit of difference to someone who is wrapped in the darkness. I’m not a life preserver. I’m not a voice of reason. I’m not an example of what they are and could be.
I am recovering every single day. I won’t ever say I have recovered from addiction. I believe until I die, every day when I get up I start recovering, and at the end of that day……. well it’s one more day I didn’t let my addiction control me. But I will never be the same, I have seen the dark places inside myself. I faced them head on and excepted them as part of who I am. But they are not the only thing that defines me. That’s what makes an addict able to reason out in their mind why it’s not their fault they use. They allow the dark to define them.
I never felt like someone had been to the places I had or felt the frustration of not knowing how to define the feeling inside when your surrounded by something only you can see.
Thank you.
I like it. My favorite part is about you being the savior and trying to prevent anyone from going through what you did. It’s a nice piece.
It is a feeling that I am familiar with, but not a feeling I enjoy having. It is not a part of me anymore.
The message you are trying to get across is that you have tried all of this and where I am not sure of is that the feeling I am gettiing from reading this post is that you enyoyed feeling this way ..or still do… am I wrong?