The Start of a Dream

Today, as I read the results of the test, my eyes started to water with joy.  Something that had been on my mind for the last 8 years was finally becoming a reality.  At about 2 years sober,  my life had become pretty dismal.  I was a waiter at a restaurant in town and I went to the gym. There wasn't even one young person in recovery in all of Northwest Arkansas and I had been going to AA meetings for 2 years.  It was starting to become a lonely place fore me.  A recent arrest for fighting had really woke me up to the reality that I wasn't doing my best.  I was basically hanging on my a thread.  All the cliques about being a dry drunk were coming true.  My life was lacking passion because I wasn't doing what I really wanted to do.  I was thirsty for adventure but, it seemed  impossible with only a few hundred dollars.  After my arrest, I was required to do 200 hours of community service, anger management, and pay restitution.  My parents could see that I had slowly spiraled down even though I was still sober.  I was what some may call "white-knuckling it".  Therapy had been a great tool in the past but, it just didn't seem to fit at this time.  I wanted to get excited.  I wanted to dream.  I wanted to be who I was mean to be.   My parents suggested a life coach and I liked the idea.  We talked for the first time over the phone and I could feel the conversation was different.  He asked me what my life's purpose was and he asked me to tell my story as if I was a hero.  He didn't tell me what to do.  He asked me what I really wanted and sat silently waiting for my response.  Amidst all the setbacks, I still knew I wanted to go out West and be a counselor.  That was the starting point to one of my greatest adventures.  As the weekly calls gained momentum, I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  He asked me what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be and I started thinking.  I signed up for life coaching workshops in Chicago and saved up enough money to drive back and forth.  During this time, I was also hustling to get my court requirements done.  I knew I had to finish in order to leave so I would do community service from 8-3 and then go to work at the restaurant from 5-10.  I worked weekends to make sure I would have enough money.  Although it looked like shit on the outside, I was becoming more fulfilled by the day.  All the BS I was dealing with was getting my closer to my goal.  When I arrived at my first workshop, I could see I was the youngest person there by about 15 years.  It wasn't new to me as I had always been the youngest person in the room in AA.  Everything felt so natural and I connected what my coach was doing with what I was learning to do.  The classes even increased my enthusiasm to keep moving forward.  As I continued to work with  my coach, show up to work, finish my legal requirements, and attend the workshops, life began to take off.  I was finally on my way to being who I was mean to be.  The story makes many more twists and turns.  I could talk about how I ended up living out of my car in San Francisco for a couple months, how I ended up working in a town of about 500 people in southern Utah, or how I circumnavigated the globe but, those are stories for another day.  Today, I finished the requirements to become a Certified Life Coach through the International Coaches Federation.  My hope is that I can hold the space for many people just like myself.  There is always more to be explored inside and out.  It's time to reach further and jump higher.  This blog is part of what I want to give to the world.  Thank you for reading and feel free to share if you found it inspiring.