Sometimes I can remember events from childhood as if I were there again. Not the bad things or even really good things. It’s more like ordinary things that wouldn’t be considered significant events. I can remember the brightness of the sun, or the grayness of clouds. I can almost feel the warmth or the chill. I can see the colors, and I can almost hear the sounds and smell the scents.
I didn’t realize that I had the ability at one time to live in the moment and appreciate the beauty around me. It seems like a precious gift today as I reflect on random memories.
I still have the ability.
I don’t know exactly when I stopped noticing my environment. I think it was in college. I would even go so far as to guess it happened when I began regularly numbing. I’m more convinced of that since I only started noticing and appreciating here and now moments and making mental note of them in the past year.
Could it be that appreciating the beauty in the world around me is related to my desire and/or ability to feel my emotions?
It’s ironic that in the course of self-medicating to avoid feeling pain I anesthetized myself to beauty and joy that comes from admiring dandelions blooming along the side of the road. The numbing dulled the deep and vibrant green of the spring growth in the trees and grass, the red of the clover, and the orange of those flowers that popped up “volunteer” from last year’s planting.
The numbing distorted the whole picture as well as the color, like the above picture of my mom and I. The camera and the film were cheap (and probably old), and while capturing a moment in time, it lacked the vibrancy of color. It does not accurately portray the joy I felt in that moment after finally talking Daddy into taking a picture. He even let me take my first picture that day. It is just as devoid of true color. I don’t remember that afternoon in Polaroid. I remember it bright and colorful – with cats. 🙂
This rose represents what I see now in sobriety. I took this with my iPhone at church in between services where I went to smoke. (I wasn’t hiding my smoking. I was just keeping the smoke away from others.) It was a gray, misty day that makes you want to just snuggle up in bed. But yet I was shown the beauty of the tiny raindrops on the petals and leaves of the flowers and plants.
God gives us emotions to enjoy the beauty even amid the pain.
I’m starting to believe that feeling and living through the pain makes the beauty even more beautiful.
