"You Sure About That, Bud?"

"You Sure About That, Bud?"

I played a round last Friday that humbled me in ways I wasn't expecting.

When I told the guy in the pro shop I was going to walk, he looked at me and said, "You sure about that, bud?" And my ego, being the faithful companion that it is, said "Oh, I got it."

I did not got it.

Look, I work out daily. I use a push cart. Yes, I said push cart. Don't judge. I should be able to handle this. But somewhere around the middle of the round, walking up what felt like my fourteenth consecutive hill, I audibly said out loud to absolutely no one, "Holy, this is rough."

The thing is, I was playing really well. Beautiful day. Good golf. But the physical grind of walking that course was a beast. At the end of the round I told my best friend Neal, "Well I guess walking the course can be done. Advised? Hard no. But I did it." Neal's response? "Yeah. You did something."

Here's the thing. Those rounds, those challenging moments, they're a lot like my recovery. Day in, day out, there are moments where I think I got it. I'm good. I'm strong. I work out. I go to meetings. I've done the hard stuff. And then golly, it turns out to be harder than I expected. Whether it's my emotions, my relationships, or getting simply annoyed that people don't celebrate my journey the way I think they should (yes, I can be that petty), I still get through it. I stay sober through it. But it doesn't mean it isn't rough.

I forget sometimes that rough days don't mean I'm failing. They mean I'm walking the course. And some courses are just harder than others.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is give yourself the grace to just take the cart.

Not perfect, but good.

One Story. One Swing. One Gathering at a Time.