Blog entry for:

of living.
new day, same old sh!t? well not anymore, ironically at the meeting i attended yesterday afternoon, i heard one of the most interesting shares i have ever heard and perhaps it sums everything up very succinctly. what they said is that they do not want what any of us have, all they want is to be “sober.” they want on to talk about money, cars and material things, that they though we possessed, and seemed to not see the gifts that i am the most grateful for, which got me to thinking, that when i am in that environment, am i coming off that my new life and pattern of living is all about “things?”
as i reconsider what i did share, i realize that my comment about being able to afford to go to a friend's wedding over the weekend, certainly could be construed as a material gift, as it is. what i was intending to say and forgot to, was that in the pattern of my life, before i got clean, not only could i not afford to go, i would have no desire to go, because it would re-purpose resources i needed to get high. even more importantly, i would not have even been invited, as i did not have a whole lot of people in my life that would want me to “celebrate” their wedding with them.
back in those days, all my resources, material, emotional and spiritual were devoted to getting high and whatever dribs and drabs i had left over, were sparingly doled out to those people i HAD to keep in my life, my family and using buddies. my pattern of living today is so much different, that i often forget that the material gains i have made, are certainly the most obvious, but hardly the most important.
which brings me to a minute to ponder where i am gong today. do i really want others to see how well off i am doing materially before i can demonstrate the abundance that the POWER that fuels my recovery, provides for me daily? once upon a time, that sort of notion would have disgusted as well as thrilled me. i was all about anti-materialism, but still was a closet materialist. i wanted things, i liked things and i did my best to treat my things well, all the while trying convince everyone else, that my things were just things , that i would gladly give away to anyone who asked. THANK GAWD, nobody ever asked and held me to that, as to save face, i would do something i once loathed to do, give away something i owned. today as much as i like my things, i am often embarrassed by my conscious display of class and status, even though i am still secretly thrilled. yes the dichotomy of growing up in a liberal society that was smeared on top of a consumer driven materialistic culture.
anyhow, today, as i grow into something more than i have ever been, i can allow myself to see the absurdity of fighting that and allow the program and m y active participation in that program, to morph that into what it will be, a part of this new pattern of living and one that i need not worry about, after all, to date, i have not been displeased by the direction my spiritual and emotional growth has gone. oh yeah, it is nice to be able to go places and have a few things, as well.

∞ DT ∞