I’m clean once again. I count the days one at a time as they pass. The sun does its dance around us until the music stops and everyone goes home. I spend hours thinking about the days that follow and I blame it on my “anxiety”. Truthfully, I’m waiting for happiness to fall from the sky like a parachute. That’s a problem, because happiness doesn’t fall from the sky. It comes from the ground. It’s a brilliant seed sleeping softly in the soil. It’s full of dreams and ideas that call for rain. These tiny dreams and ideas drink the water and they grow up into beautiful existence. Taking up space like big, thick green. A bright color that spreads for miles and runs as far as my eyes can see. There are no blind spots in love, and happiness. Nothing hides from it. No one runs from it. That’s what brings us together. It’s enough to keep me waiting. It’s enough to keep us counting.

If it were possible to know how many days your life will last, would you want to know or not? I’ve lost count by now. The only thing I’m sure of is the number of my age, and sometimes that even seems to be untrue. There are days when I feel three times my age, and days when I feel like I’m blowing out candles covered in icing. I’ve died so many times, in different ways, that sometimes I feel like I haven’t truly lived or that I don’t feel alive anymore. Almost convinced that this is some big dream, and when I die, then I’ll wake up and then counting will feel good again. These numbers just keep going, turning into shapes and then small specs on the map like grains of sand from my sock. I can just stop counting, close my eyes and sleep. But even my sleep has a number and now I wonder how many hours I’ve spent in my life sleeping. I’m a counter. I’m a sleeper. I’m a dreamer. I’m just glad that there’s something to count. That’s proof I’m alive. I’m glad there are still things to dream. No one has it all but I’ve said all the words there are to say. So, I think I’ll start over. It feels good to start over. Maybe that’s why I’ve given up on myself so many times because of the feeling I get after I quit and start again. It feels like I’m in control of my life when I make these kinds of decisions. This tells me that deep down I know that I’m out of control. I’ve been lost and walking with my hands tied behind my back for far too long now. I’ve held myself captive. I did things I never dreamed I’d do, good and bad. So, I think of happiness as something that grows. It grows as long as I’m watering it properly, feeding it truth, and singing to it a lovely little song. My new seed is sixty days old. I want this seed to grow big and strong. The sun will dance around it and then I’ll sleep in it. I’ll dream of things that I’ll forget the first fifteen minutes I’m awake. On my way I might see the pictures from my dreams in the clouds. Pictures of the things we talked about and then I’ll remember your face. I’ll try to remember the love in my heart and the songs we sang. We’ll all go home when the music stops and the numbers will fade into shapes and the ideas will find their place in the miles of green to rest their heads. They’ll call for rain. They always do.