Just Guyton

This morning started like most mornings do.

I got up, got on my treadmill, and walked five miles.

Five whole miles and didn’t go a damn place.

There’s something kind of funny about working that hard just to end up exactly where you started.

Afterward, I went into the kitchen and made myself a latte—a caramel K-Cup with maple butterscotch creamer. No sugar. Nothing fancy. Just the way I like it.

Then I sat down with my coffee.

And I thought about how incredibly blessed I am.

Not because something spectacular happened this morning. Nothing did.

I woke up.

I walked five miles.

I made a latte.

That’s it.

But maybe that’s exactly the point.

I got to wake up.

I got to walk those five miles.

I got to stand in my kitchen and make that ridiculous little maple butterscotch latte.

And I get to be here.

I’m grateful for my sobriety. I’m grateful for a loving God. I’m grateful for the life I have today.

But lately, there’s something else I’ve found myself becoming deeply grateful for.

I’m getting older.

When I was younger, I had convinced myself that I would be a member of the 27 Club.

I genuinely didn’t imagine myself growing old.

And now, the closer I get to 50, the more grateful I am that I was wrong.

Somewhere along the way, birthdays stopped feeling like a countdown and started feeling like a privilege.

I’ve had friends who weren’t afforded the gift of growing old. People who should have had more birthdays, more mornings, more cups of coffee, more ordinary Tuesdays and lazy Sundays.

They didn’t get them.

I did.

And that changes the way you look at another year.

The longer I stick around, the more I realize how much my eyes continue to open. Things I couldn’t understand when I was younger make sense differently now. Things I once thought mattered don’t matter nearly as much. And some of the smallest things—the things I probably wouldn’t have even noticed years ago—have become the things I’m most thankful for.

Someone told me once:

Don’t leave before the miracle happens.

I’ve carried those words with me for years.

The funny thing is, we don’t always know what the miracle is supposed to look like.

Maybe we’re waiting for some enormous moment. Something that arrives with flashing lights and announces, Here it is. This is the thing you stayed for.

But maybe that’s not how miracles always happen.

Maybe the miracle is sobriety.

Maybe it’s finding faith.

Maybe it’s finally knowing peace.

Maybe it’s laughing until your stomach hurts.

Maybe it’s getting another birthday.

Maybe it’s realizing that those lines on your face aren’t something to be ashamed of. They’re proof that you’ve been here long enough to earn them.

Or maybe the miracle is an ordinary Sunday morning.

Maybe it’s walking five miles on a treadmill and going absolutely nowhere.

Maybe it’s standing in your own kitchen afterward, making yourself a maple butterscotch latte.

Maybe it’s sitting down with that warm cup in your hands and suddenly realizing something your younger self never would have believed.

You made it.

I’m still here.

I’m getting older.

And thank God for that.

Maybe all those years ago, when someone told me not to leave before the miracle happened, I was imagining the wrong kind of miracle.

Maybe the miracle is that I’m still here to see what happens next.