Life Expanded

Expansion. What a great word. Expansion. Expanding. Expanded. Expand. It is one of the many words that describes my life right now.

Merriam-Webster defines expand as
1) to open up: unfold
2) to increase the extent, number, volume, or scope of: enlarge

It is humbling to be able to look back at my life when I was drinking and compare it to how my life is now. I can hold them up side by side like charts or a split screen and clearly see the glaring differences. I look back and I see just how limited my life had become. My world had become so very small and my existence, now seems, practically irrelevant. As my alcoholism progressed the smaller my world became until I finally found myself strangled by its grip and gasping for breath.

Being sober is giving me the opportunity to experience how it feels to expand; to experience the state of expansion. I can feel it rising from within my existence and overflowing into my outer life expanding my world. The progression of my sobriety is happening much faster than the progression of my disease. The distance between then and now seems light years away and yet I know it is important to keep what my life was like then very close. As my life expands, I must remember what it felt like when I couldn't breathe. I must remember that picking up will only serve to put me right back where I don't want to be; one drink will take me right back to that small world where I cannot breathe and it feels way to good to be able to breathe.

I am thankful to be where I am right now and grateful to know that I don't ever have to feel that way again.