Blog entry for:

a beginning and an end, when i have difficulty accepting that end, who am i really feeling sorry for?
not quite the direction i thought i would go, nevertheless, it is where i am. i am one of those who has experienced the loss of loved ones, peers, acquaintances, very close friends and family pets, across the course of my recovery. i can tell you this, it HURTS, each and every time, and the pain never goes away, it just sort of fades into the background noise of life on life's terms. if you are reading this and hoping to find a manner of escaping that pain, tough luck, because it ain't going to happen here.
a quick peek back to the end of my using career, and i can say with great alacrity, that one of the most pleasant side-effects of getting high, was the removal of the pain of loss. i used very heavily to deal with the pain of my two grandfathers when they died and as a result i had a whole lot of unprocessed grief to deal with, when i finally got clean. the death of my two grandmothers in the first year, hammered that fact home and pounded me into the dust, and yet because of the external influences in my life, i stayed clean and learned to live with the pain of loss.
today, i have a different way at looking at myself and the world, part of that outlook is all living things die, and the pain i feel is my reaction to loss. it is a human trait and allowing myself to feel that pain, allows me to be human. the real catch is if i have been present for someone, right up to the end, if i have loved them to the best of my ability and if i let them know that i loved them, why should i feel remorseful at their death, perhaps the pain i feel, is the guilt for missed opportunities, arguments and not being there all the time. to dead people feel the pain, their dying inflicts on the living? does it really matter. the question i asked the top, was, who am i really feeling sorry for? “ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
i know today the pain i feel is not for the person who has died, it is for me. the depth of that pain, is proportional to how well i loved them and expressed that love for them. the pain i feel is the pain of regret and remorse, because as a human being, i could not give them 100% of myself, 100% of the time. it is the pain of missed of opportunities, and for someone like me, a quarter century of denying i had any emotional attachment to anyone at all. yes the pain i feel is the sum total of all of that and now that i am clean, so much more. as cynical as it may sound, all are born to die, and one starts dying the day one is born. that is the cycle of life. if it comforts one to follow a spiritual tradition that allows for spiritual life after physical death, then take comfort in that. for me, that notion is not part of my spiritual outlook, so i have to grasp as many moments with those i love and care about in the here and now. when i die, i sincerely hope that i will be remembered for the love i was capable of giving after finding recovery and not the shite of a person i was for all those years while using. even those peers who have dies in the throes of active addiction, deserve me to remember what they gave me, and not what they selfishly kept for themselves on their downward spiral in the vast void. today i will allow myself to feel, and if those feelings are “inconvenient,” i guess i will have to accept that as well. it is a good day to be clean and a better day to live the full emotional life, that recovery has given me. and yes, the pain i feel on the death of someone close, is for me, and not for them, i am just wired that way.

∞ DT ∞