Blog entry for:

more than a few things running through my head, first and foremost is my blog about my friend Odin is complete. i woke up this morning with a feeling that should stay the way it is written and i NEEDED to move on. none of this Odin would have wanted it this way kind of stuff, just a feeling that i wrote what i need to write and now it is time to move forward.
that being said, i will continue to chronicle about what is going on inside me as i continue this process. so a fair warning is there may be sprinkles of my raw uncensored feelings in these blogs as i move forward through my grieving process. they like the pain and loss i feel, will more than likely fade with time.
i seem be stuck playing a movie of that last day over and over again in my head. yesterday the scene that kept replaying was the anti-climatic finale. his breath against my cheek, the look in his eyes and the voice of my niece saying he is gone. that image, even as write this morning, is making cry once more. that was yesterday, and when that image came to my mind yesterday, i flat-out bawled. the image i woke with this morning happened about an hour before my niece arrived. i had finally become stoic about what was going to happen, Odin and i went out for a real dawg style walk to get the mail, where he got to do all those activities that dogs find necessary to do to be a dawg. i was laying down on the floor with him, and my eyes started to leak. he looked up and licked the tears from my cheek with such tenderness and concern, that i had to smile then and there, and i am smiling as well as crying as i recall that particular scene. so i guess i am starting to move from the darkness into some sort of acceptance. the house just feels so empty and i want to fill it with something. my solution today is to fill it with as much love and concern as i can and see what happens.
before i get on to the topic of living what i say. i need to acknowledge that love i have been shown by those who cared for me. the cynic within, wants to dismiss this outpouring of support and concern as social niceties. while that may be true, the direction i am leaning this morning, is that every call. every post on FACEBOOK, every text message and every prayer every single person in my life has given me, is genuine human emotion and the best they can do, to do the impossible: take my pain away. they are walking their talk, and at times it feels overwhelming to me, as i still have more than a few social issues to resolve, i know that i NEED each hug, each tear and each prayer, so that i can heal. i may not have said it often enough over the past 48 hours and i am certain to say less often in the days that have yet to come, but i am grateful for all of the LOVE you have shown me, and rest assured each act does help heal me that much more. because of each and every one of you, i feel that much more whole today. i feel that much more ready to accept life as it happens, and i feel like i can finally start to face the rest of the world today. it is true that i may go do another pounding run this morning, even though this should be a day off, but of ALL the means i have at my disposal to alter the way i feel, a tour through the streets of east longmont at 6 to 7 miles per hour, seems to me to be the least destructive.
so how do i think i am living up to the impossible standard of practicing these principles in “ALL OF MY AFFAIRS?” it feels that taking of public inventory of my actions to date is some how cheapening my whole recovery experience. i can say that i am way more open about what is going on inside of me. honestly when i was using, the events of the past few days would have been medicated away, IF i even acknowledged them. when the time to make the decision came, i would have left that in the hands of the vet, paid her for her services and went about my life, ignoring any inconvenient feelings of pain, loss or remorse. how do i know this? when my grandfather died, that was how i acted. his funeral was just an excuse to get loaded with my cousins in Chicago, and that is just what i did. my inability to go to class, or participate in my education in any manner was rationalized away with a flick of the wrist, with my saying,“i just do not feel like it.” that may be true, and today i know that was grief. and the drugs and the alcohol could not bring me out of my grieving process soon enough to save that semester of school. i did not shed a single tear. i told no one how i felt, and as stoic as i looked only i knew that my emotional landscape inside was bleak and barren. i reached out to no one, let no one in and in time i came back to the real world sort of. in the brief moments that the pain and loss did manage to break through and touch me, i vowed I WOULD NEVER ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN AGAIN.
that was more than likely the turning point in my active addiction, that was a decision that allowed me the freedom to use for the next two decades or so.
even though i lost my two grandmothers in the first seven months of my recovery, i was not quite capable of being open about what i was feeling, sure i cried in public, shared with my sponsor and closed-mouth friends but i still kept that part of me, that really felt the pain and loss out of sight and under the cover of stoic acceptance after i felt the proper time to show emotion had passed.
one more morbid example and i swear i will be done, trust me!
when my friend Jim dies, and i got to be a part of him passing, helping him on his way, my pain was public and i allowed myself to be a part of the process at least among my friends, peers and loved ones. not quite as quickly as the time before i moved into stoic acceptance even though i was not through dealing with the loss.
so this morning, i am going to allow myself to feel what i feel, let go and not direct my feelings to where i think they need to be, and when i am done crying, i will be done crying. yes he was just a dawg, BUT he was my dawg, and he was my faithful companion and yes i loved him as much as the people with whom i share my life, so for something different i am going to allow myself to feel what i need to feel for as long as i need to feel it. this time when i move into stoic acceptance it will be because i honestly have come to accept the loss and the pain has truly faded into the background noise of my emotional state.
that is putting the principle of honesty into action, that is walking my talk. and for right now that is a wrap, yes i do think a run is the next thing i need to do, so scold me if you will, i need a bit of a vacation from my feelings and an hour is not that much to ask for today.

∞ DT ∞