The The - This Is the Day
A Sea Change of a Day
I’ve already discussed my last day at Cedar Hills Rehabilitation Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Let me tell you about the first day.
Well you didn't wake up this morning 'cause you didn't go to bed
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red
The calendar on your wall was ticking the days off
You've been reading some old letters
You smile and think how much you've changed
All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days-Matt Johnson, This Is the Day
What Mr. Johnson describes there is precisely what happened to me. I left the mental health ward in Maryland, flew to a base outside of Tacoma, and then took a van trip to Portland. I didn’t sleep at all. A heady cocktail of anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion has that effect. I was mentally checking the Xs off on the wall. I reread all the letters people who love and care for me sent. I smiled an ugly smile because as much as I wanted to go back to my carefree playboy days while also refusing to address the gushing head wound of my psyche, I knew that was not going to become a reality. I was into the further now, beyond the door, stabbing knives into the darkness.
Checked in. Vitals taken. Peed in a cup. Surrendered all devices. Shown my room. Then I laid facedown on my bed wallowing in a seemingly endless pool of self-pity. Then this dude, we’ll call him Bronson, showed up, a bandana wrapped around his head. Just what a needed - a fucking bearded, “Keep Portland Weird” hippie. Nah, son. The homie took a look, didn’t say shit, took a seat under the window, and looked up at the ceiling.
You pull back the curtains
And the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying
Across a clear blue sky
This is the day, your life will surely change
This is the day, when things fall into place-Matt Johnson, This Is the Day
This was my first of 30 days (30 days in the hole!). Bronson worked there. He’d seen hard cases, soft cases, all manner of addicts, problem children, and contrite souls seeking redemption. I was the visitor. This was a home game for him. He knew what he was doing. He just sat there, waiting. He could go home at the end of his shift. I was going to stay right there. Time was on his side.
This was the day everything would change. More than a torrential downpour, more than a blizzard, this was going to be a sea change, and I was too much of an emotional coward to accept it at the moment. Bronson saw it on my face and in my body language. Robert De Niro on his best day and in his prime couldn’t act his way out of that. Bronson sat there calmly waiting for me to fill the air with my bullshit because he knows it’s human nature to fill silence with whatever’s available to avoid listening to the voice inside. Now? I’ve learned it’s sometimes best to let silence play the song. Other times, it’s best to let it all go, but we’ll get to that. For years, my family told me I could be anything I wanted, then crippled me just enough to ensure I wouldn’t. They spent all that time teaching me to walk and talk and then spent years telling me to sit down and shut up. Bronson was there for the next 29 days, and he’s still out there underneath the window, just listening.
And all your friends and family think that you're lucky
But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with your memories
That hold your life together, like glue-Matt Johnson, This Is the Day
It’s not going to war that’s difficult. The hard part is coming home. No matter how hard you kick and punch against the things that hurt, the hurt persists. Eventually, we all have to accept an apology we know will never come. We could all stand to be forgiven, but true forgiveness comes not from those external sources that hurt us. It comes from a spring within. We have to offer ourselves an apology and we must find the fortitude to accept it. We must brace for the jarring impact of revelation, for the near-violence and clarity of self-actualization. This is not the time for sedatives. We need to feel it in totality and we need to let it rip away the extraneous. Then, having been to the bottom, whatever remains is what you take with you to the top of the mountain.