Despite what your friends, family members, and recently assigned parole officer might say, circumstances that seem tragic right now will soon be something you and your future friends in Alcoholics Anonymous are going to laugh about. Don’t believe me?
Remember when I thought I’d never get over Cathy Roberts dumping me at the eighth-grade dance? Or the summer I vowed to run away after getting grounded for egging old man Snyder’s house? Or that time last weekend when I got so black-out shit-faced drunk that I jumped out of my girlfriend’s moving vehicle and caused a three-car pile-up?
Our desperate need to assign meaning to our suffering blinds us to the fact that some of our most “reputation-destroying” and “nearly lethal” decisions will one day be comical memories that will have you reclining back in a folding chair at your local AA chapter saying, “Man, those were the days.”
I’m sure in just a few short years, the third-degree road rash, traumatic brain injury, and shattered collarbone I sustained as a result of jumping from my girlfriend’s Camry will be completely healed, and I’ll have added yet another spicy anecdote to my roster of hijinks
Drinking alone outside the gas station and calling my now ex-girlfriend every five minutes to leave her a litany of incriminating voicemails that could later be used against me in court might seem bleak right now, but I’m almost positive I’ll be laughing about this one day in a dimly lit church basement surrounded by peers who also have the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, the courage to change the things they can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Hell, I’m sure a few of them will have similar stories about causing an accident that resulted in a six-year-old child breaking both legs.
Naysayers like to tell me that I’m in denial, that I’m not taking my situation seriously enough, or that they’re going to sue me for the physical, emotional, and vehicular damages I caused as a result of catapulting myself from a moving car on a major roadway, but I’m sure in time these victims will also look back at this and laugh once their jaws are unwired.