I’m thirsty again, yes, for booze, and maybe a smoke too. Welcome to church. Sincerely, Aaron Nichols.

If I wasn’t afraid – I would really spell out the richness and depth and intensity and burning desires… of my appetite. An appetite for change and for stuff and food and drink too. I am a hungry man lately…

Hours have been spent drooling and salivating. I look online at stuff I want. I think about places I’d rather be. My mind is locked into images of maybe-somedays and golden hued moments of brilliance gone by…

I have a deepening relaxation with thoughts of popping the top on a cold bottle of beer. And not root beer. The real stuff.

I hear a new song by those same ol’ guys from the Band of Heathens…. “I miss my life… I miss the way it was… I miss my life… just because…” Yeah, something like that. Nostalgia and longing for travel has bitten me, smitten me and left me grumpy with the real right-now moment at hand…

Funny thing though, most people have this desirous-want in their consciousness most of the time. At least I think they do. Because I do, I have, I will, and yet it’s unwelcome…

I’ve had again that cycle of issues with my car. Over the years, every six months or so, I begin to believe it will suddenly blow up on me and I must do something right now drastically to fix it. Although I usually do nothing, or next to nothing, and it continues to Troop on. And this time, as I seriously consider a big investment, or to sell it. I had to think back, at where that truck and I have been together.

The Isuzu Trooper SUV that I drive was a symbol of a new way of life for me, when I bought it in 2008. I had just sold my big 4 door, Heavy Duty GMC truck, to rid myself of the payment. I took a wad of hundreds up to the city, with the two best mechanics on the planet, Brett and Kevin, and we test drove the Troop. I bought it for 40 $100 bills.

Since then, that truck, and my life too, have been all over the place. The first of many trips was skiing in Colorado. Then it drove east, all the way to the ocean in Florida. Then a year later it drove west, and then north-west, all the way to the ocean. It snaked along the western-most edge of our country in the fog mist of the Pacific. It was amazing… It also drove up a winding path to where the oldest living tree on the planet is. Together, we were all there… That truck took my fiance up and over the Alpine Loop, in the Rocky Mountains, a month later we wed. I have been tons of awesome places with the Trooper… I get nostalgic thinking about it all…

Really though, a new adventure sounds awesome too. Maybe a Toyota, or a Jeep, or another SUV that looks like it could go on safari. That sounds awesome, and I look for them on Craigslist. I am hungry for this change, and it seems possible right now.

At work, I’m hungry too. I do graphic designs on tee shirts. I have done it almost my whole life. I create artwork and play with clipart. Fonts and colors for sports or 5K’s or church groups or whatever. I only work 3 days a week doing it now. I’ve sat in front of the screen so long though, sometimes I wanna never see another tee shirt design again. I hunger to release that responsibility. I want to never have to please a picky customer again. I want to just let loose and tell someone that I don’t give a crap if they like this font or that font or that font or this font! I want to say that it isn’t going to make any freakin’ difference once it’s printed, someone will really like it, someone won’t! That’s the way it is! I do want to give that up. I have a skill, I am efficient, but sometimes, I just want to not have to do it anymore! I hunger to let it go forever, move on to a new adventure…

I know that most people out there want a new car, and a new job and want to travel again or be younger again or have less responsibility again. I get that. There is a slight difference in the story I believe about myself…

I’ve done it.

I’ve been here before, but more intense even. I’ve had the rage boiling inside, bubbling and percolating, disallowing any thought of stability or calmness to re-develop. I’ve had a moment where it seemed the only next step was ESCAPE! And I took that step. I did.

I’ve got the new car. I quit the job. I went travelling. Just me and my dog. And then my Cousin Nick too… But anyway, I have done that. It was magnificent! It was a highlight of my life. I can still remember rumbling over a back-road border into Utah, on a path no one uses right next to the shallow banks of the Green River. I laid in my tent at night, hearing the motors braapppp-brapppping over the sand dunes on the edge of Oregon. I watched the sun set over the Pacific as I drove along, wishing for a place to stop and rest my eyes.

I remember what it is like, to make a huge leap, and leave the world behind… I miss that sometimes… In these itchy weeks of unrest that come along every few months, I ache and fidget, contemplating that beer again, maybe a glass of vino, maybe smooth expensive scotch, and a cigarette too. Yeah, I said it. A menthol cigarette crackling as it’s lit, on a black cold night under the stars. The smoke trailing up and the rough minty flavor tickling on the long inhale… These are the mini vacations I used to take. A five minute cigarette trip to another world. Letting go of everything else, but just that one fine smoke. A glass of wine with my wife. A bottle-full of possibility. A dark cherry dryness with hints of eternal love and sensuality too. Another glass ma’ dear?

All of these things are gone from the context of my recent experience now. It is a different world now. Feels bleak sometimes. Over two years sober can taste desert-ly. The only outside sources I indulge in, are fried foods, coffee and some pop. Too much internet, for sure and I am working very hard. I am out of touch with that old life, in so many ways. I am something else now. I am, is a term that I’ve proven is flexible. I’ve flexed it. I’ve stretched it, I want to stretch more, and sometimes, I want to put it back into a shape it was before.

I am suffering, from the what I choose to believe ‘should be different’, than the way it is right now… or as Byron Katie says it:

So yeah. I’m suffering intensely this week, with that hunger of an empty-something-ness. It seems like booze will fill it. It seems like travel will fill it. It seems like quitting my job/s will fill it. It seems like just saying screw it all, and leaving the world behind, will make the difference, and I could then be happy again…

But Shit.

I’ve tried all that.

Literally. I have tried all that stuff. I’ve been there and done that. I have done what most people only daydream about. I quit my life once before, and started over. Guess what, it didn’t fix everything.

Ha! Jokes on Me!

I’ve smoked and quit. I’ve drank and quit. I’ve headed out, and headed back home. I’ve been waaaay single and now deeply engaged in holy matrimony. I’ve danced with the devil in the pale moon light, and just last Sunday, I lead our whole church in key moments of a beautiful worship service. I even motioned the congregation to rise and then said ‘you may be seated’ 🙂 Life is one freakin’ crazy ride my friends…

So what about this hunger? This stress of what’s next? What about the finger tapping on my shoulder to turn back to old ways? What is the thing that will fix all this right now?!?!

I don’t know. As I type up these experiences and the emotions connected up with them, I see a detachment from ‘me’. I notice that it really doesn’t seem like ‘I’ could have been all those things, and yet I know I was there. God has created the structure of this existence. I didn’t. God has crumpled and twisted up the canvas we paint our lives upon. God can render it perfect again too. I chose so much, as I’ve expressed myself, yet I can’t explain the value of the image as a whole. I never intended any of this, to feel as it feels so much of the time. I can’t be the one who is orchestrator of it all. I can assume my responsibility as participant though.

I have made choices, some new, some old, yet the feelings return cyclically again and again. It’s such a paradox. How can one be born again, living renewed, and yet recycled and rusted all at the same time?

It’s a grand mystery.

When you find out the answer. Let me know. I wanna know. I do care to know. I think about someday knowing, yet knowing that I have experienced reaching destinations and finding myself again at square one.  An enticing exhilaration of possibility and hopeless eternal starvation simultaneously…

Insanity? Maybe I am that…

And maybe, just maybe, something was expressed here. An idea sent through me. Is it for me? Is it for you? Is it a seed planted for harvesting in the future?

I can’t know. Knowing is ethereal. This clean clear breath is what I can have right now. It is is delicious. And yeah, I’m probably too afraid to write all that out tonight, I’ll just go back to sleep where this dream seems to fit, to fight, to flourish in pure expansive freedom…

Thanks be to God Almighty, Redeemer and Father: Abba… Daddy…

Sincerly,

Aaron Nichols


5 thoughts on “I’m thirsty again, yes, for booze, and maybe a smoke too. Welcome to church. Sincerely, Aaron Nichols.

  1. Maybe you just chronicled the longing we all feel. Different addictions, same devastating, devouring, soul-hungering thirst.

    Thankfully I’m in a spell of satisfaction without feeding the addictions. But I’ve been there, brother. I feel your pain. And I know what you know, if you can remember that you know –
    the thirsty season will pass. To come again. To pass again.
    Here we go…

  2. Each and every day brings a new surprise. Such a foundation that you have
    built and still growing, separating the good feelings from the bad, making plans
    for the future with the Holy Spirit as your guide — like they say, “Rome wasn’t
    built in a day”. Blessings, Grandson.

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