Afraid of Heights

I'm constantly amazed at how life moves inexorably forward. It's like unraveling a big ball of yarn to get to the chewy treat in the middle. The problem, of course, is that I can't keep my hands off the yarn. I've got the end of a strand and I'm pulling as if my life depended on it. Usually the unraveling isn't happening fast enough for me so I take out my switch blade and start hacking away at the yarn. I've got ten or fifteen pieces of string in my hands and I'm pulling for all I'm worth and the ball is wobbling and spinning like crazy, then it catches on fire and blows up and falls off the end of the earth.


"How'd that work for you?" my sponsor asks, tossing me yet another new ball of yarn.

Patience is disconcerting. I want to see what's going to happen. I don't want to wait, secure in the knowledge that everything is going to work out for the best. I want to make things go forward. I want all my dreams to come true and all of my nightmares to get back into the nightmare closet, or at least under the bed.


Sometimes I feel like I'm standing in a thick fog right at the edge of a cliff. I can't see the bottom but sense great distance. I can hear waves crashing on what I assume must be hard rocks far below. And my Higher Power asks me to step out over the edge. "I'll take care of you," my Higher Power says. "You won't fall, and if you do, it'll be OK."

"What was that second thing again?" I ask. "The part about maybe falling?"


There's a famous story in the bible about some disciples in a boat, in a storm, with a lot of wild tossing and swamping of the vessel. Out of nowhere they see the main god of the story walking across the water toward the boat, which is a pretty neat trick. I don't think I can walk on water yet. I tried a couple of times, fueled with a case or so of beer and some pretty wild hallucinogens, but don't think I met with much success. That's what people told me the next day, anyhow. One of the head disciples, buoyed by his faith, took off towards the main god on top of the water, but he got afraid and started to sink, even thought the main god said he could do it.

Something about a lack of faith, or "O, ye of little faith," or something like that.


I want what I want when I want. Screw all of this patience shit.