Outstretched on my bed, I surrendered completely.  I gave up.  I gave in.  I gave everything.  In the days that followed I would be ripped apart, tearing myself open time and again.  A rock rolling across the earth only to smash itself against its own reflection.  I longed for roots.  I longed to stay, but part of me would always go and take the rest of me with it.  I did not really know who I gave myself to.  I gave myself away too easily time and again.  I tried to be the first to yield.  I tried to be obedient.  I tried to give away my pride.  For three years, I was destroying myself.  It was a spiritual disease, and I was a divided kingdom, torn between heaven and hell, between God and Satan, fighting for the possession of my soul and the soul of the world, if not the universe.  It was a lot of pressure, and I was lost.

    Feeling of helplessness.  Check.  Belief in a higher power.  Check.  Surrender completely.  Check.  Well, I had the first three steps down and what a journey would ensue.  Now, I was in for no 12-step program but a fundamental disintegration of the ego and a rebuilding towards a completely different conception of what it is I am in this world, this school called earth.  All the suffering had to be for a reason, but what?  Why did I have to be afflicted with this illness, this giant God-hole that nothing could fill?