Blog entry for:

to joys that might otherwise escape me or to the pain i would otherwise try and ignore. yup, there it is, i have taken a wonderfully yippy-skippy notion and added the yang to bring it a bit of balance. the fact is, living in the here and now, is not all about opening myself up for the **good** things i might miss. it is, at least for me, about being alive and not drowning myself in partisan “news” clips or diverting my attention from what is really important, to the trivial and divisive issues of the day. for one who spent most of his adult life in a drugged stupor from which it took another six or seven years to wake up from and finally smell the coffee, putting conditions on why i “should” live in the here and now, just feels limiting and wrong. quite honestly what i find is living in the here and now, allows me to see all that is occurring and not filtering out the bits and pieces, i find distasteful. for me, learning to be present, was perhaps one of the greatest skills i need to keep myself dedicated to this recovery gig and the lifestyle changes it has brought about, in my life.
my life is full of all sorts of events and processes, some bring joy, others frustration or pain or “uncomfortable” feelings. i accept that as fact and i am powerless over what life pitches my way, on most days. i am not powerless, however, over how i act in response to those discrete moments of time and space. am i enamored with the current state of politics? not by a long-shot, but, i know that this too shall pass and all i have to do is hold out for another year and things will get different. do i “love” my job? nope, but it keeps the lights on and i can accept that IF this turns out to be long-term, i can be okay. do i find my life fun-filled and joyous? well that answer takes a bit more shading than a simple yes or no answer, which speaks directly to the yin-yang issue i stated at the top of this little brain dump. being present means i get to experience what is happening, and when i stop and judge whether it is “good” or ”bad” or slip it into “positive” or “negative” buckets, i lose the immediacy of being able to respond and live in the moment. that internal judge attempts to hit the pause button to rule on the vent and all of a sudden i am now living in the past. it is not as if i can shut that judge off, after all, he got me to where i am today, even when i was the most idiotic in my active addiction, attempting top see how close i could come to dying in an attempt to bring back some light into my grey and dull existence. that judge, however, no longer serves me as well as he once did, and i am uncovering that by allowing myself the freedom to experience life in the here and now, i need not seek the means to fill my life with everything else.
just for today, i think i will do my best to stay awake and present for my life and see how much of it i can enjoy in real time, unlike the Olympics. i do not want to see an edited and scrubbed clean version of “my life,” just for today.

∞ DT ∞