Blog entry for:

are revealed, i adjust what i think i know.
first off, thanks to everyone for last night. not sure how Leonard felt about it, but for it was one of the most special evening i have ever had. the love and the attention was wonderful, but more importantly, at least to me, a person from my past reached out and let me know that he was thinking of me. i could have been butt-hurt and mean, but at the time, and still this morning, neither of those emotional reactions are occurring, and for that i am grateful. i am who i am today, BECAUSE of all of those who have nourished my growth along this journey, not despite them. not a single person who gave me a suggestion, or took me through the steps was superfluous or without merit, and when i see that in the clear light of morning, no matter what may or may not have come between us, i NEED to be grateful for what it was they gave me. it is i, that needs to yield to what was, and remember that it no longer is, not the world around me. not that some mighty wind was blowing through my life last night and this morning, but new ideas and information previously not available to me, is being presented. as i integrate what i now know, with what i once knew, the results are something mostly unexpected.
thinking about what i felt this morning as i sat, there really was not a whole lot. sure it has been fifteen years since the 9/11 event that kept me from changing my clean date from the last day i used, to the first 24 hours i was clean, and as i have to share my clean date with at least three other addicts i know, more and more, it is beginning to feel that this is the next right thing to do. more and more i see that one day, six thousand days ago, may not make any difference in the big scheme of things, and it is not the macro scale i felt needed to be looked at. it is the immediate effect of what my actions may do, the butterfly effect, what does my decision say to those who have shared my clean date for a decade, that now all of a sudden i am ready and willing to do what i have not been, why now and why at all? what exactly would be my motives and what agenda would i be implementing?
i feel that it would make it all about me, and the self-centered part of me that craves the spotlight,. feeding my self-interest, while in the moment may be rewarding, would in the long run, make me feel less than, as i would have to explain to one and all, that due to a serious rethinking i am changing my clean date. the spiritual camouflage that i would need to wrap it up in, would be quickly dismantled by the part of me that craves to become something more. oh, i could come up with a rationalization, a justification and make it sound as if it was the next right thing to do. i am not, however, willing to pay the spiritual price, and that decision all those days ago, sends a message that even a bad decision at the very beginning, need not discount all that i have becomes. once again, what was, is not. no that decision speaks to the pattern of behavior i was stuck in, back when i got clean, namely being something i was not, clean for seven days instead of eight.
as i sit here and enjoy the leftovers of my celebration cake, i realize that yes, i can have my cake and eat it too. the taste of recovery in not bitter and i need not disturb something that has come to mean a whole lot more to me, than it did, way back when. it is true there was more than one person missing from that picture of the sponsorship family i posted last night, some could not be present, others have moved on, the fact is that picture represents the idea that i have built a life based on spiritual principles and i can CHOOSE whether to not to act in self-interest or just be content knowing that there is a story with a moral about the day i chose, all those days ago.

∞ DT ∞