Blog entry for:

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all. may you find much in your life to be grateful for, on the cusp of this holiday season. i mean that sincerely even though what i think about the upcoming holiday season is far from merry and bright.
i find it very ironic to start off the most crassly commercial and secular holiday season, with a day of celebrating what i already have been given. i certainly relish the deliciousness of that irony when the vocal religious minority scream that their “holiday” is under attack, when they surrendered it to our corporate overlords decades ago. their so-call “holiday” is now a celebration of crass commercialism, lacking any spiritual connection, with uncertain roots in the pagan holiday pantheon. the shrillness continues over the choice of a certain retailer to come out with under-adorned beverage containers, illustrates how delusional and out of touch with reality that this vocal minority really is. what they she should be attacking is the corporate hijacking of the holiday, many see as the core of their FAITH. money talks, and bulls!t, well you know the truism… to my friends who are of that FAITH but not of that persuasion, shrilly parroting whatever FOX news tells them to say, i apologize for my cynicism, and i truly hope that your holiday season is blessed and that there is much for you to be grateful for.
as for me? well today i get to let go of most of my responsibilities and relax. no work, no side work, no running all over the countryside to show up for various friends, relatives, peers and acquaintances. not that i am REQUIRED to do that, i choose to do so, and most of the time, i am grateful for all those responsibilities i need to meet today. over time, responsibilities that i choose to accept, do from time to time get overwhelming. just as the reading seems to suggest, there are moments, hours, heck even days, when i i want to pitch that whole shebang and run away. that is a set of behaviors that i polished to a fine finish in active recovery, and the result of not accepting my responsibilities was that choices were made for me, and more often than not, i did not find the outcomes to my liking. that result is what keeps me most of the time, grudgingly accepting that which i chose to be responsible for, and moving forward. i have top reiterate here, having to trudge and slog through my day, saddled with responsibilities, is not how i feel most of of the time. most of the time, i see the responsibilities i have taken on, as a good thing. i see them as evidence that i am on the road to becoming something i never dreamed was possible. i see them as part of a life after i destroyed my life. i see them as evidence that this recovery gig is STILL working for me. most importantly, i see those responsibilities as part of a life in the present tense. living in the here and now, requires a certain level of responsibility and that cascades into all the areas of my life, as choices that i GET to make on a daily basis. there is no law saying that i HAVE TO work, work steps, go to meetings, pay my bills, be present for my friends. peers or family, those are some of the choices i make as part of being a practitioner of an active program of recovery. i choose that because i choose to be more than just another addict, slogging my way through life, from fix to fix, whatever that may be. which two seconds ago, was what i could find on Amazon in their Black Friday sales sections. yes, it is quite true, i am far from immune to that crass commercialism and materialism that epitomizes this season of corporate blackmail and shame. yes, shame on me for not spending a penny on a shopping site after all. here i sit, surrounded by this wonderfully material world and yet, in this minute i said no. the trick will be, to see if i make it through to the end of the season, resisting my desire to be a part of the corporate sham that has hijacked a season of gratitude and giving and replaced it with spending until you have nothing left to spend, or else.

∞ DT ∞