Blog entry for:

image of who i am and vision of who i may become. quite honestly, the last thing i expected when i sentenced to recovery, was a new image of who i was. at that time, i was more than certain, i knew who i was and that i was destined to use to my last day of walking on green side of the lawn. i did not view that resignation as desperation, just reality of who i was and what i needed to live comfortably in the world around me. i liked getting high and the side-effect of seeing reality through the rose-coloured glasses of substances was a welcome relief. having that perspective yanked from my daily routine, was quite the shock to my system and i was certain that staying clean, was not something i would desire in the long haul. ironically here is sit today, more than a few days after the series of events that created the untenable situation in my life, still clean, and yes, more than a little bit grateful that i GET to be free from having to return to that part of me life.

Denise W
10592 days (29 years) CLEAN
Keep on coming back,
and coming back clean!
Congrats, my friend.

over the past few days, i have been more than reflective of my life, simply because the anniversary of my birth is upon me once again. i can no longer hold on to the illusion that i have most of my life ahead of me, and as that reality sets in, i can look back at the events that have created the person i am today. once upon a time, that particular day of the year was one where massive use of substances was part and parcel of my plan of the day. these days my birthday is not the drug-fueled orgy of trying to forget the passage of time, but another marker on my journey to becoming something more.
as i sat this morning, i kept coming back to something i heard at the meeting yesterday, specifically the lament of one of my peers, about how one was “trapped” in a web of relationships that are immutable and permanent, no matter how much work one did on themselves. i might have agreed with that assessment many moons ago, but it has been my experience that as i change, those relationships change as well, as what i once found acceptable, was no longer even tolerable. it is true, that other may not change, but as i grow, i remove the toxic and untenable parts from those relationships. once i became certain that i was worth something, which was not an easy jump to make, i set boundaries and learned how not to react when the buttons they all had installed at my bequest, no longer did anything. sort of like pushing the close door button on the elevator, even though i know it does nothing at all. most of that part of the journey came early in my recovery, but my last trip through the steps, hammered the message that i no longer needed to volunteer for toxicity home. i am worth more than accepting what once was, needs to be the what is, in my life and as a result, i walk with my head higher and with a confidence that is not a put-on. my eminent front has been removed and what i see is what everyone else gets, regardless of the consequences. i wonder why it took me so long to come to this place and of course the answer has to be, i was not ready to move out of my house of pain. i GOT to play the victim and GOT to believe how good i was, because look at what i had to put up with to get through my days.
i have a tendency to way overthink stuff and when i hear one of my peers, waxing philosophically about ideas that really ware not that complex, i wonder why i go down that same rabbit-hole, after all, with a bit of clean time, i SHOULD know better. when i examine my motives, it usually comes down to the fact that i am AFRAID of changing. the familiar so-called bad behaviors are comfortable and i KNOW the outcomes, most of the time. removing those behaviors opens up an uncertain world and uncertainty scare the living crap out of me. if i can use hundreds of words, posit philosophical theories, or rely on rhetorical tricks to cover up the simple truth i GET to stay right where i am, sick and toxic.
today, comfortable in the fellowship and my path of recovery i reject that sort of behavior for myself and can resolve to let go of what i think i know and see what i may be able to learn. i think i may just keep coming back, for another day of recovery and see where that leads me to. just for today.

∞ DT ∞