The Weight of the Sun
A small story about finding light in darkness
I ran into a friend I know from recovery circles this morning. We sat on a bench in the perfect morning light and he told me he had relapsed a couple of months ago. He hadn’t told anyone but he was telling people now. He was drinking and doing drugs every night. He lost his job and needed to sell his truck. His brother was crashing with him and the house was a dump and he hated it but didn’t see the point in keeping it clean.
But the worst part, he said, was feeling so alone. “And I’m doing everything wrong. I know I’m doing it wrong. I keep using but I don’t want to use. But I can’t stop. I don’t know if I want to be sober.”
My friend is young, maybe mid-20s. His two girls live with their mom and he brags about them constantly. He has a rough Texas accent and wears wire spectacles and cowboy boots.
Every other time I’ve ever seen him, he’s been wearing the uniform of a big repair company in town. This morning, he was wearing a giant dinosaur onesie over jeans and a t-shirt. No cowboy boots.
“I think some part of you wants to be sober,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re talking to me. We’ve never really talked much before. You’re wearing a dinosaur onesie and you’re talking to me.”
He laughed. He said he’d gone to a “sober fun” event the night before and worn it as a lark. And then he went home and used. And then woken up in it and decided, why not.
“But you went to the sober fun thing. Did you use there?”
“No. Would have been hard,” he said.
“I really think some part of you wants to be sober.”
He squinted up at the sun just behind us and a thick tear paused at the stubble on his cheek. “I don’t know,” he said. “I feel so alone.” That’s why he’d gone to the sober fun night.
“And you weren’t alone.” No, he said.
“And now you’re talking to me,” I said. “You feel alone. But look at all you’re doing to not be alone.”
“I feel so angry and so scared and so anxious and so desperate and I feel like I fucked everything up and…and…and…” His head hung, his chin resting on the dinosaur fur.
“But,” I said, “What do you feel right now?”
“Angry and scared and…”
“The sun’s on our backs. Can you feel the sun?”
He was quiet. He let out a sigh longer than our entire conversation. “It feels like a hug,” he said.
“Hmm,” I agreed.
“You know, I was in prison for two years,” he said. I didn’t know. “I promised myself I was never going to take the sun or the moon or the stars for granted ever again.”
“And you haven’t.”
“And I haven’t.”