It’s hard watching my landlord/roommate implode. Sometimes I feel it’s as if I’m watching myself during all those years where I was so misguided that I tried to find happiness in all the wrong places.
Somehow I already felt the other day that something was off with my roommate when I looked down at my phone and saw he was calling. I was on my long drive back from my partner’s home to my own place of residence in the Boston area when his call came in. While I wasn’t able to answer it seeing that I was already on the phone with someone else, my intuition was confirmed when I listened to the message he left me. In it, he indicated that his cleaning up process was still underway and not to be overwhelmed when I got home. I knew upon hearing this, that it wasn’t a good sign. I decided to meet with my sponsee after that long drive back instead of going home first for several reasons, one of which was based upon my roommate and his message. The main one though was that after several weeks of being away, I didn’t want to put the step work off anymore for someone who desperately needed it. But I have to admit that I also hoped it would give my roommate some more time to finish whatever cleaning up process he was attempting to do.
A few hours later when I finally pulled into the driveway, my intuition and some of my fears were confirmed. One look said it all. The grass was close to two feet high. The garden he had spoke of creating was still in the exact same state as it was when I left. There was a large wheelbarrow directly in the center of where I normally parked that was filled with dirt, weeds, and rainwater and appeared to have been there for quite some time. And unplanted flowers lay on the driveway dying.
As I walked into my residence, I half expected there to be dishes piled up everywhere and the place looking disheveled. Thankfully that extra time I had given my roommate seemed to have mostly done the trick as it appeared he had just finished getting things back in order. I did end up having to dispose of a plant that had died from not being watered and tossing some items in the fridge that were way beyond their expiration date. And other than needing to empty the recyclables bin which was overflowing, I was grateful to see things were mostly in order, at least in the common areas that is. I couldn’t say the same for his room though as I passed by it and noticed it was once again ransacked. Piles of clothes were everywhere. Bags of things were spread out. And the blinds were pulled down and completely shut making his room feel very dark and uninviting. Upon discussion with him later, he indicated his depression and anxiety had been much higher while I was away and that things had fallen to the wayside as a result. Sadly, this has been true with just about every time I have returned home.
I always say that how one lives is usually a good representation of how things might be within oneself. If things are cluttered and messy on the outside for someone, then there’s a good chance that the same is true on their inside. In the illustration with my roommate, this has often been the case. While I’m not currently a therapist nor do I have any aspiring desire to be one, I have lived with him for awhile now to understand that many, if not most of the causes of his clutter, inside and out, as well as his anxiety and depression, can be traced back to the way he’s living his life. With his avoidance of working through and releasing some of his inner demons that I’ve been able to see, and with him not believing that any Power greater than himself has ever existed, he does his best day to day to function by living with two main drives in life; make more money, and have good sex with a bunch of people until the perfect partner comes along. What’s sad is that this is a spitting image of how I once lived my life for close to two decades and why my life was usually a mess filled with misery and suffering.
The sad reality is that much of the suffering any of us experience in life can often be traced back to our own actions. In my case, on all those past days when my life got cluttered and I found myself complaining about my depression or anxiety, it was because I was trying to figure out life completely on my own. During those years God held little to no place within it or me. Because of that, I brought toxic people in my life and did toxic behaviors daily that did nothing but make me more toxic and miserable.
This isn’t so true for me anymore as the only sadness that remains within me today is directly based upon the physical pains in my body which come from how I once was living my life. In time, with God at my helm now, I know that they too will even dissipate. Knowing all this though doesn’t make it any easier to watch someone else like my roommate, make the same mistakes that I did. It’s unfortunate, but at the present time, he’s unable to grasp and apply any of what happened to me to his own life and instead tells me to leave the counseling to his therapist. I have to respect his wishes and do what I can now for him through prayer.
I hope one day soon he will wake up and see that most of the cause of his own misery and suffering is not based upon a chemical imbalance in his body and it’s not something a medication will ever permanently fix. It’s not something more money will make go away and it’s not anything a partner or sex can make feel better forever. For me it took hard work, spending time alone, getting to love myself much better, and a good leader who I found in God. I hope he finds that to be true for him as well someday too. I really do. Until then, I will continue to pray.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
