Posts tagged porcelain black

Reflecting on a Year That Was…

Exhilirating, wonderful, terrible, splendorific, exhausting, eye opening, heartbreaking, loving, ground shaking, world traveling, beautiful, ugly, wondermous, and more.

It’s rare that I publicly discuss the fact that I don’t drink or do drugs - as the result of having overdone it in my younger days.  Really the only time I do is on the anniversary of the date I got sober, which is today.  Five years ago today I made a decision that allows me the life I have today.  I’m not a person who thinks that this is the way for everyone, simply one who knows it is the way for me.  I cannot imbibe alcohol or other substances without abusing them, I’ve tried.  Just the way my brain works.  When I’m actively drinking or using, I hear it’s not much fun to be around me, I can’t say I’d disagree with that sentiment.  Onward and upward, five years sober.

I’m in Los Angeles for the first time on this date in a while.  As is part of the amazing life I lead, I travel for work.  Last year on this date I was at the Saddledome in Calgary, CAN with Porcelain Black on the Lil Wayne I’m Still Music Tour.  It was a great day, filled with love and road family.  It was also the last day of the tour.  While it was a wonderful experience to turn four somewhere that wasn’t home, in another country, I’m grateful to be home this time, as it allows me to celebrate with some of those closest to me. 

Each year I find that I look back and see the growth I hear others speak of.  I can however say that my fifth year was one of those that was more intense and presented more life lessons than the others.  I went on tour in a new genre (as I’ve mostly worked in rock), I fell in love, I fell out of love, I lost some people, I gained some people, I lost the light of my life (my sweet angel Snoopy), I found perspective on things I had not had before, I found better direction in my art, I found myself.  For some reason, more so than I’ve ever felt before, I feel truly at home with me.  

I mended some fences and broke some others (hey, I’m not perfect).  I’ve formed new bonds and made a clean break from others.  I’ve rediscovered old friends and made new ones.  I’ve had my heart broken and had it mended.  I’ve found that some wounds will never totally heal.  I’ve missed people and places.  I’ve moved back and forth across the country.  I’ve found new appreciation for my old home and new appreciation for my adopted home.  I still have a few simple beliefs that make my day go OK no matter what life throws my way.

I’ve figured out my driving force in my work, and I’ve found a family that fills the void of the one that’s so far way - almost.  I am extremely grateful to everyone who contributes to the love I feel every day in my life.  I am grateful that I am still alive, and that I didn’t have to go the route that so many who struggle with alcohol and addiction do.  I’m grateful for the presence of a strong woman in my life who’s sober longer than I that I look to for guidance, I’m grateful that for five years she’s been that guiding light.  I’m grateful for my parents who’ve loved me and encouraged me through thick and thin, who never turned their backs on me, even when I probably deserved it, who were there to love me when I was finally able to admit I had a problem.  I’m grateful that I know that though it’s been five years, that I simply have today, that if I ever lose sight of that, the alternative awaits me.  I’m grateful that I do what I love for a living, I’m grateful that I get to document the world and let the images in my head out.  Today, I’m simply grateful.