And in another year
The pain will disappear and I
Will look back on this life as if it were a scene
And in a little while
I'll see that distant smile returning
Just like back in the days
When we were so naive

It's Sunday night. I have a bottle of Goats Do Roam (I love that name). I've dug out my old Tom Cochrane Ragged Ass Road cd and I'm feeling introspective.

Has it been 10 years already? Double digits. Let's see... I was on the road back from New Brunswick on this day 10 years ago. I had fled there because of a kiss. Sounds crazy, huh?

I want you when you're bad
I want you when you're good
I want you when you won't
And when you think you should
I want you when you're angry
And when you come back down
I'll hold you above water
When you think that you might drown

Drown. That's exactly what I was doing. The stress of my father's illness and death had rechannelled itself into a high-flying, drug-like madness. I never slept. I drank in the mornings, and drove all night. My friends thought I was coked out of my head. I wasn't. Though I might as well have been, for all the money I was spending. And all the running I was doing.

I'm so tired of all this crap
That falls from you like rain
Do you think I'm that naive
Or have you gone insane
You can fly 6000 miles
And think it's no big deal
And turn and come back in
Anytime you feel

It was just a kiss. I guess it was around 5 in the morning on August 5th. We had been out partying the night before with a group of friends. We were on my couch, rehashing the night's events and drinking coffee with brandy. As soon as he left I packed my bag and took off. I couldn't deal with that. Not then. I was too damn scared. Being orphaned before you're twenty gives you somewhat of an abandonment complex. It hardens your heart. And a kiss can scare the living shit out of you.

She's got a place where she likes to hide from this
Where someday somewhere somehow
She's gonna take a ride from this
Running from a holy host of dark angels
Out from her beaten past

It was my first step toward my true rock bottom. The rock bottom that artists, addicts and madmen all have to hit before they can find redemption. Before they recognize the angel sent by God.

And so I was on the road back. I had hidden in a hotel in the woods near the Baie de Chaleur for a few days, watching the sun rise and set. I had gone to the cemetery where all my kin are buried. Imagine a whole churchyard where all the stones bear the same name. Overwhelming. I had had my portrait drawn by a stranger in a breakfast shop that swore he knew me and disturbingly had the same name as the one I ran from. And then the road home. I had decided not to fight it. I was growing too tired to fight. I was becoming weak and pliable. Soon I would be putty in the hands of the Divine.

And I would choose to live.

Just a song before I leave
A few words to believe in
A touch we'll both remember in time
Like a warm fire in December