Catch a Glimpse – Part 1

It’s true what they say: “You don’t know what you don’t know.” For me, one of those things has been what it’s like to connect with beauty. I’d hear people remark that a sunset or flower was “beautiful,” and I’d think, “Good for you.” To be honest, there was a part of me that figured these statements were somewhat flippant and lacking in substantial meaning. I thought saying something was beautiful was about as meaningful as saying you loved something. Like, you say you love someone, but you also say you love ice cream. Tepid, hollow, trivial.

I’m going to call my pre-recovery self ‘Mark 1.0’. So, this Mark 1.0, with his unfettered patronization, boxed up ‘beauty’ and labeled it as irrelevant and petty. It seemed like beauty was something that perhaps women could appreciate, what with all their feelings and hypersensitivities. I wasn’t a sissy (and certainly didn’t want to be perceived as one), so I relinquished beauty to the ladies. I decided I was much too macho to go around pretending I saw beauty in nature or art or music. Besides, I couldn’t see how it could be of any considerable benefit to me. It was inconsequential.

I probably could have gone my entire life believing that beauty was illusory.

But then I got married.

Marriage Ruined My Life

Let me tell you, marriage ruined a lot of things for me. As the honeymoon phase wore off, I began to realize I couldn’t get away with some behaviors and beliefs that were second nature to me. I was progressively challenged on notions I held, like me being a supreme navigator who don’t need no map; like men being generally better than women, physically and mentally; and life being mostly misery with some fleeting moments of happiness sprinkled in. I was comfortable with these beliefs and felt relatively free to let them inform my behavior before I was married.

Of course, like any self-respecting man, I resisted change—especially change that confronted my pride. Some parts of me were unarguably pretentious and needed to be pruned. Other parts of me were atrophied and needed awakening.

Do You See What I See?

While I had myself encumbered against perceiving, let alone receiving, beauty, my wife had no such impediment. I distinctly remember being perplexed by this gaze and glow that would befall her as we watched a sunset over Lake Tahoe. It’s so beautiful. I was looking at the same thing, but I knew I was not experiencing what she was. The dissonance between her reaction and my lack of reaction gave me pause. I knew I was missing something. And it began to bother me.

Historically, I regularly missed out on being inspired by beauty. I was generally disconnected from feelings, not to mention receiving such a gift.

There is a particular day from my past that still grieves me. Several years back, my wife and I were laying out at the beach. I had a preference for being sedentary and hopefully getting a nap whenever we’d go; so there I was—laying there like a slug. I typically had to be roused to get up and get in the water, even if I did enjoy playing in the waves or riding boogie boards.

On this day, my wife asked if I wanted to go for a walk down the beach. I declined in deference to my somnolence. She came back some time later, excitedly reporting that she discovered just down the beach tide pools full of plants, shells, and sea creatures. Coincidentally, she had seen some giant sea slugs (my apparent spirit animal at the time). She probably assumed I would be shaken out of my despondency and be swift in joining her to revisit this marvel.

But I wasn’t. My apathy was unwavering. I didn’t know what I was missing, and I didn’t much care to find out.

I preferred to be disconnected; I wanted to remain shut down. If I stumbled upon something neat in nature, that was fine. I generally wasn’t ecstatic about pursuing beauty since it consistently felt underwhelming to me when I beheld it.

I Just Can’t Do It, Captain!

Well, this went on for years. I would be with my wife, encountering yet another “beautiful” sight in nature, and feel weird that I didn’t sense much of anything. I could appreciate the components of the vista, logically acknowledging that it had the combination of elements people might deem beautiful. But I couldn’t quite experience it myself.

I tried to see what my wife saw. The best I could do was try to glean some of the feelings just by being in proximity to her. I sensed in her an inexplicable contentment. I sensed a deep, palpable joy. It was as if time stood still as she beamed with delight, reflecting from her countenance the beauty before her.

Try as I may, I couldn’t get it. I didn’t understand how someone could seem to feel so much from seeing a sunset. Maybe I was hopelessly condemned to a life of blandness.

Then, one day, without even trying, I caught a glimpse.

Finding God at the Beach

At the end of 2020, I had finished grad school and was studying for my licensure exam. Studying is generally unpleasant, so I tried to offset that reality by taking up residence on the beach. A creature of habit, I sat in my beach chair in the same spot every day. My “studying” was actually just listening to an exam prep podcast, so I could look out at the ocean as I pleased.

It was the third or fourth consecutive day of this ritual. I gazed at the waves as they swelled, crested, and crashed into frothy foam. Again and again, consistent and reliable. I know this will sound strange, but, as I became mesmerized by this liquid cycle, I began to feel something stir in me. I felt seen. I felt known. The closest parallel is how a best friend knows you—the unspoken understanding—and how it feels to be known and loved by an other.

From the ocean, I got the image of a knowing, approving smile from someone who knew and loved me. I felt appreciated for being me. My eyes glistened as I felt a joy and peace I had never known. Could this be God?

I know this sounds hokey. It almost sounds like I entered a trance. I didn’t take any funky vitamins or miss a dosage of medication this day. Studying can make me a little loopy, but never to this extent. I can’t think of anything I did to bring on this experience, except for show up in the same place every day. And maybe that was the key. God had been there all along, waiting for me to notice his presence. It took a few days, but I eventually got it.

I had peaked behind a veil. And there was no going back.

A Window to the Soul

Coinciding with my developing ability to see beauty was a cleaning up of my life. I was not yet reliably “sober” from pornography or fully detached from inappropriate female relationships. I was making gains (or healthy “losses”), but I still had a ways to go.

A strange phenomenon that both my wife and I noticed as I chalked up the weeks and months of sobriety was an observable clarity in my eyes. We noticed it in pictures at first. Older pictures of me revealed a darkness and deadness behind the eyes. Now, color and vibrancy—elements of life—were beginning to shine through. It was like I was inhabiting my body again.

Mythbusting

Like so many other guys I’ve met in recovery, I bought into the lie that I could selectively numb pain. I thought I could cauterize specific nerves, isolated memories and low self-worth, with adrenaline and noise. Alas, this was a fallacy. Just like there’s no exercise to target body fat in a specific part of your body, there’s no method to numb pain by itself.

Myth: BUSTED

In reality, when I would turn to an unhealthy coping strategy in order to avoid pain, I was disconnecting from so much more. I inadvertently numbed my ability to feel. This included sorrow, but it also included joy. The entire library of emotions—where I am human—was getting cluttered and overrun by filth.

With inhibition of feeling came a dampening of my ability to be in awe, to experience wonder, to receive beauty.

Cutting the Losses

I look back now and can be overcome by guilt and sadness for the years lost to addiction—time I could have been more connected to truth, to beauty, to healthy and safe others. To know and be known by others.

There is a place for me to grieve my own losses. And there is a place for my wife and I to grieve together. For all the times I couldn’t show up and be present, experiencing life alongside her, we grieve.

See, numbing pain isn’t an isolated thing. It numbed all of me. And it impacted my relationships. I can’t truly connect with others if I can’t connect with myself.

Eternal Night Turns to Dawn

The good news is that I didn’t go my whole life numb and detached. I’m grateful to be able to reintegrate and reconnect as I grow and mature.

Since that day studying at the beach, I can happily report that I have had countless encounters with beauty. It’s unprecedented—I figured I didn’t have the capacity to experience such rich joy and contentment from stilling myself and receiving beauty.

I’m beginning to feel again.