IN SUMMATION, I made it to here...

There was a period in my life that truly tried my courage and my sanity. This was somewhere between 1961 and 1964. Memories of that period in my life are vague and some are gone forever. Probably not a bad thing. After the predictable divorce came the drinking and moving from state to state and city to city and job to job. Actually, the drinking was always there but I don’t think that was what caused the divorce. That was our joint infidelities as neither of us were ready to settle down in a marriage. However, this is not about that marriage.
During that time, and I don’t know in what order for sure, I lived in or blew through California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Illinois, New York and landed in Kansas and eventually settled in Colorado. Those 3 years, more or less, were filled with many, many jobs and relationships and promises. Promises made not only to others but to myself. All broken promises. Drinking played a large part of all that but I am not sure I was an alcoholic. Most of my feelings in those days were of despair, loneliness and fear and of my failure at getting my life together. I really tried but a little success just brought on more failure. Like a merry go-round.
During those days I did a lot of writing trying to put down my feelings. I kept them with me for some reason. Some are angry and others are sad but occasionally, a little hope came through. Here are some I found just recently. Some don’t make sense and are probably droll but at the time I was trying to say something.

I cry for those who were affected or hurt by my weakness and pity for those that don’t understand. No one can know, who are not affected, what a day to day of existence of an alcoholic can wear on the mental facilities of one so affected.

Patience is the password by which the alcoholic lives. Worry and haste are the enemies toward the sobriety of the life they do not need or want. I find my want or need of alcohol through idleness or loneliness. Not so much the drinking as it is the companionship that accompanies me in the bars.

To some, the world is an eggshell. To be tread upon lightly, observed cautiously and ignored, if possible. One cannot firm or alter the eggshell, certainly, so one must adapt themselves to these conditions.

The daring to live is sometimes an act of bravery. The submission to death is welcomed by the very weak. Through life, I find, lies the fear of man overwhelming.

All mankind is living in fear. I find it constantly, searchingly and in course, fearfully. Fear seems to lie in the uncertainty of the world or in every day life to the most minute detail and all the way through. The factor (even with fear I say) in all this is that I cannot go on forever or even too long as it will ruin all who cry for peace within and, also, without.

It is not that which he leaves behind but only that he does. To tread the earth and leave naught a print was a life of non-existence. A man must leave some proof, somewhere, that he has lived, not died. A fitting epitaph to such a man would be recognition from his community.

I wrote this poem to my wife in 1968 when we met and just before we were married in 1969.

Chin up, my love,
and hold on to me.
I’m not strong like
I want to be
but with time and strength
and perhaps believing,
we can someday walk
side by side unfaltering.
Life is full of holes, I know.
Some are big, some small
and some only seem to be
but together we’ll never fall.
Until the day we must decide
where our paths must go,
together or separately, I fear
only God can know.

It has been 40 years this year of 2009, thanks to her. No matter how unwittingly I tried to corrupt her and be corrupted she has remained the kind, loving beautiful person today that she was when I met her. That's why I'm still here and a better person.