The Sense of Sobriety

On this, the eve of my 21st sobriety birthday, I am remarkably introspective. If you know me at all, you'll know that I'm usually introspective in some manner, but tonight even more so.

My accomplishment seems blurred and muddy in light of the death of an actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman died last Sunday, just 6 days ago, from an overdose. Alone in his apartment, found dead with the heroine needle still in his arm, the brilliant actor died at the age of 46, only one year since his visit to rehab. His acting abilities consistently enraptured me, transparent, vulnerable, brazen and shameless, his characters were deeply flawed but his performance never was. He displayed his characters as so incredibly human that I would lose myself in the film, forgetting this was an act, a play, a story for the audience's entertainment. It was life, in full force, at it's ugliest, tenderest and truest form.

And now that's gone.

This man who touched millions of people with his ability to make us feel was unable to recover from this disease, yet I've been saved somehow, by an incredible grace, from it's clutches. 21 years I've survived drug and alcohol free, able to grow and achieve so much, and now suddenly I feel so small. My accomplishments have been massive, at least for me, in my tiny spectrum of the Universe, but now they seem infinitesimal by comparison to this man. And yet, I accomplished the one thing that he needed most, that eluded him, and killed him.

He's dead right now and I'm alive. And somehow to me, that doesn't make sense.

Perhaps it's not supposed to make sense to me. The Universe and all of it's mysteries are beyond anything any of us can intellectually master. If I've learned anything it would be not to waste time trying to understand that which is so far beyond me.

I want to make it matter. I want my life to impact others in a positive way because I have been graced with a chance to do so.

I want it to make sense, for someone, if not for myself.