The Gardener of her soul prepared her to receive the garden of his presence, a Presence who is growing a new life that the butterfly of obsessive love could never give.

For many years, I lived chasing a butterfly. I believed that within it lay my breath, my meaning, and my joy. I thought that if I managed to catch it, my heart would stop feeling incomplete.

That butterfly took on different names and faces. First, it was the face of an alcoholic father. Later, it was men who seemed to promise the love my soul yearned for. Without realizing it, I turned love into a desperate search.

I came to believe that if I gave everything of myself—including lust—I would receive in exchange the love I so desired. When that butterfly drew near or looked at me, I felt euphoria; when it moved away, I experienced sadness and emptiness. I lived oscillating between illusion and despair. And while I ran after that butterfly, I was losing myself. But no butterfly can live imprisoned. And no heart can find rest in the pursuit.

Then SA arrived and welcomed me with a promise that over time has been fulfilled: “We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.” At first, those words were only hope. Today, they are becoming a testimony.

My Higher Power, whom I now call the Gardener, began to show me that happiness is not born from possessing, but from trusting. It is not a fire that consumes, but a light that accompanies.

I understood that I had been seeking in creatures what only my Higher Power could give me. I had asked people to fill a void that only God could inhabit.

Little by little, the Gardener taught me to remain. To stay still and quiet. To listen. To recognize that I was already loved, even when no one chose me.

I discovered serene happiness: the kind found in walking under the sun with my dogs, in breathing consciously in a Pilates class, in playing a tennis match without wanting to win obsessively, and in celebrating an anniversary of my SA fellows. Happiness does not depend on being chosen, but on knowing myself loved by my Higher Power.

That Higher Power was always with me, even though, because of my addiction, I would abandon His gifts for a crumb of romantic illusion. I would let go of hobbies, dreams, and inner peace out of the fear of being left alone.

Surrendering and working the Steps are changing the rhythm of my soul. When I stopped running after that butterfly, the Gardener began to work my soil. And turning the soil hurts: it confronts, it strips bare, it purifies. But it also prepares new and beautiful fruits.

Sobriety has become a fertile ground, where fruits I could never have imagined are being born: discipline to finish my master’s degree (the one I always dreamed of as a child), gratitude for everything—even for my singleness—and joy in travels now lived with full presence.

Before, my interior was an arid field where I ran after that butterfly I called love. Today, I understand that the true miracle was not that the butterfly returned, but that my heart and consciousness began to transform.

The Gardener, my Higher Power, with the help of SA, was bringing to life my inner garden, rivers of serenity, mountains of hope, and trees of firm boundaries; and although the terrain can be difficult to walk at times, I always find flowers of joy. Love is not conquered: it is cultivated, and thus a positive sobriety begins to bloom.

Now I know that I am not alone; I have SA and, above all, I am cared for by the Gardener who does not abandon His work, my Higher Power.

If one day the butterfly returns, it will be received with sobriety and as one more gift among many, not as a necessity. And if it never returns, my garden will remain cultivated and cared for by the Master Gardener, by True Love…God…who is doing for me what I could not do for myself.