Blog entry for:

to live a life beyond my wildest dreams and certainly much fuller than i ever planned. before you get your hopes up, let me say, this is not going to be a incredible lightness of being sort of post. yesterday, was a day where i was not quite that beacon of hope that was spoken about. all in all, i had a pretty bad day, starting with something i said to someone i loved, very early in the morning, all the way through having to replace my car battery and ending up at a meeting i very rarely attend. the upshot of my less than stellar day, is that when i sat down to go over my day, i did not discover or uncover, any deeds or words that needed further correction. the not quite so good news? well i had to admit i was wrong more than once and left a bit of damage in my wake. as much as i like to think that i have reached some sort of“pinnacle” in recovery, the truth is that i am still quite human, still driven by the same frailties and foibles as other human beings, topped off with a huge dollop of addiction. when i sat this morning and listened to what i was feeling, i heard that a “full life” is a gift that i need to cherish, rather than complain about. yes i have people in my life on a daily basis, that i can sometimes be quiet an a$$hole to. the difference is those momentary lapses of reason do not form a chain of assholishness that last days, weeks months or even years. yes after 100K miles, a factory-installed car battery is probably ready to be replaced, nothing to to wail “oh, the humanity” at all. and yet, throughout my day yesterday i wanted to whine, moan, bitch and complain about how unfair everything is, after all, if given a few more minutes, i may have been able to dig myself out of the hole i had started and on and on.
yes, yesterday my life was full of missteps, faux pas and unmet expectations, not an ideal state for this addict to live within, and yet, i stayed clean. once upon a time, i would have asked for something to soothe my savage breast, before recovery in the form of a chemical, after recovery a quick trip to somewhere that allows me to indulge myself in behaviors that are far from healthy or even constructive. instead, i took care of what i needed to take care of and when all is said and done, what could have been a day full of destruction and mayhem, merely ended up being unpleasant.
as i sat this morning, part of what i feel may be going on, is i am attempting to revert to the belief that i have a limited capacity to have people in my life. that notion was heavy on my heart when i started the last round of steps, and seems to be returning for a bit of an encore performance, as there are certainly times when i think i feel overwhelmed by the needs of others,a victim of becoming more social, more caring and developing more connections. i have this image of St Don, being burned at the stake for lacking the social graces and savvy to manage all his feelings about everyone and everything. after chuckling at that particular piece of ironic hyperbole, i can start to understand that the part of me i call addiction, is not ready to let go and dive into this brave new world, as there just may be a dragon or two lurking in the shadows, and to risk encountering them is my greatest fear, as i still feel i have a lot to learn about the social side of being human.as silly as that may sound, the remnants of living a life in terror of what others may think, are still part of who i am and the HOPE is that over the course of some more steps, and clean time, they will be pitched into the bit bucket and i will be freed to become who i have always wanted to be: a person who is genuine, whole and self-assured.

∞ DT ∞