Whew!

It’s hard to make a comeback, especially
when there is nothing behind you—only now.

Drinking fire on Dad’s lap at five, I let
my first crush pass me by…

There were no feelings, nor a safe place
to explore or express them…

Until I got to Betty Ford at 22, and a black
social worker named Lee intervened on
my dishonesty.

In time for me to abandon the sickness of
telling lies, in time to join Al-Anon, overdose
twice, join AA, and finally have sex on my
third sobriety birthday.

I was thirty-three in human years.

Thirty-three!!!  Seven short of a Steve Carell
comedy on the subject, and of a sad topic in
my Abnormal Psych class at UCSB.

I’ve been on a long second childhood and
adolescence post-Lee and Al-Anon, since
telling the truth and trying to “move on…”

It’s hard to be a child with a beard.

It’s hard learning to say “I love you” and
other truths for the first time in a man’s
body when they expect you to “Go to
Work.”

My mind without alcohol beating down on it
was “working.”  That work I did…

Work was Force multiplied by Distance, said
my Physics teacher, known to live a life of
Celibacy—how could he?

Easy.  Hard.  Difficult, but with a God or Higher
Plan about you, anything you want to do can be done,
even moving the canyon from there to there.

I have given up sex to honor my first crush, the
Wife of my Youth.  No one told me to do this,
but the idea came like a prayer to wrestle my
mind from confusion.

Honor.  Honor your parents, yes, keep the
Sabbath day holy, believe in God, don’t kill,
lie or steal, but also:

DO NOT COVET and DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.

Do not pretend to be single, when you have failed
to keep your commitment to the Wife of Your
Youth…

I am married to God and her.  She lives not with me;
therefore sex is not possible for a moral man.

No one told me what to do with sex growing up,
No one told me about it, what it was for and
with who to have it…

My first life was a dishonest pass through love,
never admitting or expressing it.

A “childhood” of alcohol consumption, sports
and superficial relationships.

That “childhood” had to die; a new one started
in the middle of my body’s manhood—which made
many, including me, uncomfortable.

But it had to be done; I had to live the Truth, get to
here, pray to God—find my sexual and loving path,
reason and pray sex away in the current moment,
make an adult decision to Honor all that makes
us proper men and women.

“Be as a child” to enter heaven, and “rejoice
with the Wife of your youth…”

That is the plan, not handed to me by any
person, though spiritual friends have helped.

“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”

We can make our lives sublime, Longfellow
reminds, go big or go home.

“Be perfect as God is perfect,” strive to be the
best we can be, and attain John Wooden’s
famous peace of mind, if you merely strive
you surely get it.