So three years ago I got clean. Maybe someday I’ll write about what it was like using, or more about what happened, or what getting clean was like, but for now, for today, I just want to tell about how the world said hi to me.
I was dirty before I got clean. Really, I was the type of dirty that set me apart from other people. Often I was ok with that. This is how dirty I was: If it was an early Tuesday morning, and you were feeling chipper, with a little hop in your step as you left the coffee shop, and the sun was making the air that cool light morning of a hot day way and you just know its gonna be a hum-dinger of a day and you get to leave work early….even then, you wouldn’t say “hi” to me. Trust me, you wouldn’t.
For a good period of time after I got clean I looked exactly the same as I did before I got clean. There was little in my appearance to signal that instead of headed off to partake in nefarious activities I was going to sit in a church basement to talk about spiritual principles.
Despite this, just after I got clean, the most amazing thing happened.
People started saying “hi” to me.
Not just one or two people and I don’t mean “hi” like the nods of recognition we sometimes give to people our own age or social group. I mean full out, look ya in the eye, “Hi”.
A Somali woman crossing the street in full hijab “Hi”. A young boy rides past on a skateboard “Hi”. Through the iron fence that borders the park, a man sitting on the bench on the other side of it, turns as I walk past and “Hi”. Women, men, old, young…
You know what I think? I think the world was saying “Hello, welcome back, glad ya made it.”
