How did I get here?

It’s not a memoir. It’s not a speech. It’s just me taking a deep breath and finally saying it out

loud ~ how did I get here? I say it a lot lately. Not in confusion. Not even in disbelief. But in

a kind of quiet amazement. Gratitude mixed with awe. Because I look around and realize my

life doesn’t just look different ~ it feels different. The air is lighter. The colors are brighter.

There’s peace in the same places that used to hold chaos.

Three years ago, I couldn’t have pictured this. I didn’t know this kind of life was possible ~

not for me. I wasn’t even aware I was capable of it. I didn’t think I’d get here ~ not to peace,

not to joy, not to love that feels like home. But here I am.

The pace of how this all happened still catches me off guard sometimes. Everything came at

me fast, but not in the way chaos used to. This time it was goodness that came rushing in. I

said yes to recovery, yes to rebuilding, yes to believing again ~ and somehow all the right

doors started opening. My kids, who I once thought I might never see grow up the way I

hoped they would, are all here, and they’re thriving. Jackson has a home that exists because

people refused to take no for an answer. Donna and I and Carver County literally changed a

state moratorium so that a house could exist for him ~ the Sunfish House. That’s a miracle

dressed up as a policy decision.

And Donna. What do you even say about someone who turns the lights on inside you? She

added color to what used to be black and white. My life was going to be simple, small, safe.

Then she showed up, and somehow the whole world filled in. I don’t mean that

romantically, although that’s part of it. I mean that I learned what it feels like to wake up

excited again. She’s brought happiness into my life and my kids’ lives that I can’t even

measure yet. She’s in long-term recovery too, and we share that language ~ of gratitude,

growth, and grace. Two people who said yes to healing and found each other on the other

side of it.

When I say my life feels like a Hallmark movie, I mean that ~ and it’s real. It’s fun, it’s

hopeful, it’s full. I laugh every day. I work hard. I get to do meaningful things that make a

difference.

I get to lead Recovery Unbroken, a sober peer-to-peer community that Donna and I now

run. It’s built on hope and lived experience, created to help people not just get sober, but

learn how to be sober ~ from the ground up. It’s about helping them stay that way and

actually build lives they want to live.

And I get to serve. That’s been huge for me. I’ve spoken in treatment centers and churches

and programs in New Jersey, St. Louis, Nashville, Scottsdale, and right here in Minnesota.

I’ve stood in Kensington in Philadelphia, one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the

country, handing out clothes and food and reminders that people still care. Both times I

went, I paid for the food myself. Not because I wanted credit, but because I promised God,

back in a cell, that if I got out alive, I’d spend my life giving back. And I meant it.

That’s the deal I made, and it’s one I’m proud to keep.

So yeah, sometimes I stop and look around and just think ~ how did I get here? How did

this happen so fast? I didn’t chase it. I didn’t force it. I stayed ready. I stayed sober. I kept

showing up. And life, somehow, started saying yes back.

I’m not afraid of anything anymore. Not heights, not pain, not failure, not snakes, not

needles, not death. I’ve faced worse and lived to talk about it. But I’ll admit ~ I do worry.

I’m not afraid to die, but I worry what it would do to the people who love me. To my kids. To

Donna. To my parents. That’s what gets me sometimes, that thought. Like maybe all these

blessings are being poured in so fast because my time here’s shorter than I realize. I don’t

know. None of us do. But if that’s the case, then I’ll spend whatever time I’ve got saying yes

~ again and again ~ to the life waiting on the other side of fear.

That’s what recovery gave me: permission to live unafraid. Permission to say yes to joy.

Permission to believe in possibility. The people in Recovery Unbroken didn’t think this kind

of life was possible either, but now they’re living it too. That’s the part that keeps me

humble and keeps me going ~ knowing that this isn’t just my story anymore. It’s ours.

I don’t know why I was chosen to still be here. But I am. And that’s enough. I’m not chasing

answers anymore. I’m living them.

So how did I get here?

By saying yes ~ again and again ~ to the life waiting on the other side of fear.