Lately, I’ve not completely felt myself – and that’s a strange thing to say, because not even two years ago I never felt myself at all. Back then, I ran from myself, drinking to escape the very person I now strive to understand and care for. Yet recently, I could sense the old shadows creeping back in – subtle, but familiar. Restlessness, disconnection, and that quiet ache of spiritual drift. So, I made a decision – a simple but powerful one – to return to the practices that keep me grounded. Back to my morning routine, back to the Sunrise Step 11 meeting, and most importantly, back to opening my mouth and sharing. When I share honestly, something shifts inside me; it’s as though a small window opens, and light begins to find its way through again.

Yesterday, after one of those shares, something happened that I can’t explain – but I no longer feel the need to. As I sat on my dads two-seater couch, the moment my share ended, I felt warmth beside me, like someone had just sat down. You know that unmistakable feeling when you can sense another person’s presence – their body heat, their energy – even with your eyes closed. This warmth slowly moved over me, enveloping me in what felt like an invisible hug. Strangely, my iPad camera began to pan out on its own, as if detecting another face in view. It was as if a presence – gentle, familiar, and full of love – had joined me.

Afterwards, I was filled with an overwhelming urge to reach for one of my mum’s journals. In the first one I opened, I found her handwriting – a few short paragraphs about resistance. She had written that when we resist what is, we step out of the flow of the present moment and start living on our own terms, according to our plan. And that plan, she warned, can so easily lead us back into discontent, fear, and restlessness. Her words felt like they had been written for me – not just as a message, but as a divine reminder. This wasn’t just a gentle “God wink”; it was more like a loving slap around the face, a call to wake up and return to the path that had kept me safe and sane.

Later that day, my daughter came and sat next to me. “I’m bored,” she said. “Can we go roller skating?” My first reaction was resistance – of course it was. The weather was grim, I felt too old, too tired, and too broke. But I paused, remembered my mum’s words, and chose to do the opposite. Together, we searched online and found a roller disco open that afternoon. To my surprise, it was the very same place I had skated as a boy, thirty-seven years ago, playing roller hockey and dreaming big. Life, it seems, has a way of circling back – inviting us to rejoin the dance we once loved but forgot how to move to.

At first, I told my daughter I’d just sit, have a coffee, and watch. But after five minutes of seeing her and her friend laughing, something stirred inside me. “Why not?” I thought. I laced up my old hockey skates and stepped onto the rink. Within moments, muscle memory took over – I was gliding, spinning, even pulling off a few tricks I hadn’t tried in decades. I was no longer the tired, middle-aged man resisting life; I was the kid who loved to skate because it made him feel free. My mum once said I probably loved skating so much because it was the only time my body could keep up with my mind. I used to laugh at that – but now I think she was right.

A memory of my mum buying me new roller hockey boots surfaced as I skated – how I refused to take them off, even sleeping in them. “Now you’re skating in your dreams,” she’d said, smiling. Yesterday, that memory came alive again – a bridge between past and present, between my mother’s love and my own rediscovery of joy. If I hadn’t been sober, hadn’t been practising awareness, I might have missed all of it – the warmth on the couch, the words in her journal, the laughter of my daughter, and the feeling of wheels beneath my feet again. Sobriety has given me the ability to notice, to feel, and to respond rather than resist.

So, from now on, whenever I feel that familiar resistance rising in me – that impulse to say “no”, to retreat, to close down – I’m going to pause, remember, and let go. Because life isn’t asking me to control it; it’s asking me to experience it. The warmth on that couch, my mum’s words, and that unexpected roller disco adventure all reminded me that when I surrender to the moment, I meet God exactly where they are – in the laughter of my child, the rhythm of my skates, and the quiet whisper of love that says, “You’re not alone. Just do it.”

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Wheels Of None Resistance

Lately,
I have not completely felt myself,
and that is a strange confession,
for once I had no self to feel at all.

Back then I ran,
chased by my own shadow,
drinking to dissolve the very one,
I now seek to understand,
to hold,
to forgive.

But lately, the old ghosts stir.
They whisper in restlessness,
wrap themselves in quiet disconnection,
and drift like mist,
between me and the morning light.

So I returned,
not with grand plans,
but with small, sacred habits:
the still cup of dawn,
the meeting where I listen and speak,
and the simple act,
of opening my mouth,
so my heart can breathe.

When truth escapes my lips,
a window opens.
Light remembers me.

Yesterday,
after one such sharing,
something unseen sat beside me.
A warmth pressed close,
soft as breath,
real as love.
The air shifted,
and though my eyes were closed,
I felt the presence of another,
who needed no body,
to be known.

Later,
a journal fell into my hands.
My mother’s handwriting - steady,
clear as a bell through time,
spoke of resistance.
“When you fight what is,” she wrote,
“you leave the river of the moment,
and build a dam of your own design.
Soon, the water grows stale,
and the heart forgets how to flow.”

Her words were not a whisper.
They were a call,
a loving slap,
to wake the soul from sleep.

Then my daughter,
bright and bored with the weightless day,
asked, “Can we go roller skating?”

My first answer was no,
too tired,
too grey,
too grown.
But I heard the echo of my mother’s pen,
and chose yes.

At the old rink,
the circle of years closed.
The same walls,
the same song of wheels,
the same feeling in my heart.
I tied my skates,
and memory guided my feet.

Soon I was flying,
laughing,
turning in the music of motion.
The tired man disappeared,
and the boy,
the dreamer, 
whose body once matched his mind,
took his place.

As I spun,
a picture returned:
my mother,
handing me new skates.
“You’ll sleep in these,” she’d said.
“And when you do,
you’ll skate in your dreams.”

Yesterday,
I did.

Now I see,
sobriety is not about standing still,
but about seeing clearly enough,
to move with the world again.
To notice warmth where others see air,
to hear love in silence,
to feel God,
in the rhythm of a child’s laughter,
and the hum of old wheels reborn.

So when resistance comes,
and it will,
I will bow to it,
smile,
and let go.

For life does not ask me to rule it.
It asks me,
to dance.
And in the stillness between each glide,
I meet the Divine,
whispering:
You are not alone.
Just do it.