Blog entry for:

the more i interact with people, the more often i will find someone stepping on my toes. so it goes, i come out of the bathroom, where i was using by myself for quite some time, get clean and enter a world of unmet expectations and people who have their own agendas and self-interest, i mean WTF is someone like me supposed to do? certainly an interesting spot to find myself in, and the ONLY reason i even care, is because i am clean and <GASP> working a program of recovery, otherwise it would be tit-for-tat, always escalating, until i had the last word. that is who i am and to deny that part of my nature is to walk away from the spiritual path i have found myself on, these days. the good news here, and there is plenty to spread around, warning a may just fart a daisy or two, is that i need not deny who i am, but i also need not crater under to that side of me either. it seems that retaliation may not be my first though any longer, and for that i am grateful, but it certainly is there and although it is not part of my current set of behaviors, it does not mean it is that far away from becoming one again. smell the fVcking flowers!
do i therefore, instantly, forgive all those who i believe have done me harm, no matter how slight? the party line answer is of course i do, and we walk hand in hand off into the sunset, singing Kumbayah! the real answer is it depends, but hardly ever do i do instant forgiveness, no i am one that needs to stew a bit, perhaps a bit longer most, but i do need a stewing period, and it is generally in my daily inventory i decide whether or not this is something i need to hold on to, or something i can let go of and move on. honestly i wish i could say that 100% of the time, i decide to let go, forgive and move on, that would not be an honest answer. what i do find is that my willingness to forgive, let go and move is directly related to how bruised my ego got. no matter how ridiculous that sounds, it is the truth, physical injury and material injury i seem to shake off as the cost of doing the bidness of walking on this side of the grass. embarrassment and humiliation, well that seems to be a whole different story for me. why how i look is more important to me than my physical or material well-being, is something i have been exploring for quite some time and the answer still eludes me. in fact it is just one of those i have come to accept about myself.
it is a very good thing that i do have a TENTH STEP, that i work on a daily basis, as it leads me to add yet another series of questions to the hopper: “what reward do i get out of turning this injury into a resentment? is it really worth the spiritual baggage i will need to carry? can i let go of it and walk away?”
and on that note, i do believe me and the pup will do our weekly exercise kind of thing. it is a good day to be clean and GO BRONCOS!

∞ DT ∞