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what a wonderful world i live in. i am encourage by culture to never show my feelings on my face, never air my dirty laundry in public, and by all means, show no weakness, admit no faults and always be a stoic emotional rock. let me tell you this morning, for me, it was difficult to live up to that standard, and i was very grateful that i had more than a little sumthin', sumthin' to take the edge off. it is tough to be a rock and an island was the only way i could even come close to living that way. i had to keep all the world at bay, while i pretended to have it all well in hand.
recovery? well talk about confusing. everything i thought i knew about being a man, a person and living in the post-modern world had to be tossed out the window and then there were no sound rules or guidelines about who i was to become. as the reading says, “be myself,” but i had no clue who that was.what the other 85% achieve as they grow up, an identity, i suddenly had to uncover at the age of 40, and once embarked upon that voyage of uncovery, i was not always sure that was where i wanted to go. each set of steps, has furthered that journey and the “terra incognito” that was me, is becoming mapped and finally explored. i may not hold all the clues to who i i am today, but i certainly have a much larger set of them.
what a long way around to being who i am. the point being, that how does one display on their outside, who they are on their insides, if one is clueless about it? in early recovery, for me anyhow, it was crass consumerism, but always on the down low.i bought nice things but never flashy ones, and each time i showed up, i took a thrill when someone noticed. in my next phase, as i grew a better understanding of who i was, it was service maven. i was all about serving the fellowship that gave me this new life, regardless of the personal cost to me. the more time i could spend serving, the less time i had to see who i was becoming, and being suitably distracted, i missed all sorts of the growing events i was experiencing. these days, as i finish yet another round of steps, i am becoming more aware of that even though i am approaching 60, i still feel like a 30 year old and i am not quite yet sure about how that plays out in my real life. what i do know, is that i am becoming a person that others can trust. i know that i want to be free from the constraints that were imposed upon me by mu culture and by myself. i do know that just for today, i want to be genuine and yes a whole person, not just pieces and personae that are displayed as needed to fit a social role.
what do i walk away with from this, this morning? a sense of security that i can be myself, and yes even though in the real world, i need to hold back expressing who i am, depending upon the social situation, i do so by choice and not as a default, fallback position. i have slept enough of my life away, and if that was not HELL, it certainly was PURGATORY, and today i have been “saved and redeemed” to be something more than i was when i embarked on this recovery journey.

∞ DT ∞