๐ serenity and hope ๐
Posted: Wed, Jul 1, 2020 04:52:44 AM
an interesting event occurred yesterday, a friend and peer asked me how i came to **live** a program. it certainly got me thinking and it popped up as i sat this morning, way too early, and i realized that it was certainly a long and drawn out process and not an event. i seemed to have turned obsession with routine into the means of finding a life that i find worth living. it is not that i have squashed desire or swallowed my anxiety about the direction the world seems to be headed in, but i certainly have carved out a space for me to find two of the things that i never thought i was looking for: serenity and hope. here is where i insert of the litany of all the stuff i have received since i finally came to grips with who and what i am. generally that would be the case and just because i do not go off on that list, i am grateful that when i was ready, there was a program in place to guide me to what i found lacking in my own life.
when i was using, chaos was something i sought, to make my life “interesting.” by that i mean i was seeking relief from what i felt was lacking in my own life. by “stirring the pot” i did not need to deal with my own emptiness and the void my life had in it. never in a million years did i believe i would ever end up on the other side of my discontent with the world around me. if one had asked, i would have said that i was “entitled” to live that life, after all i really was not hurting anyone, not even myself. i truly believed i had paid my dues and was allowed to live in whatever chaos i could get to swirl around me. the quiet desperation i felt when i first was forced to get clean, was easy to deny, as early recovery was just as chaotic, with all the external consequences i was facing and the roller-coaster of emotions that were my daily life. it is no wonder that it took eighteen months for me to feel the desperation that was there from the very beginning.
as i climb to the top of Colorado, for the second time this season, i will allow myself to feel a bit of the joy and wonder that this world has to offer. i am a product of white male privilege and i realize that privilege was built on the backs of people of color. their oppression by the very society that has allowed me to prosper, is a debt i cannot ever pay back. the very fact that i can see that this morning, is the result of the simple program that has given me the desire to be more than just another over-entitled schmuck that believes i am “owed” something by the world around me. i can HOPE that what i have come to accept, gratefully, is a life where what i give is more than what i take, just for today. BTW, my choice to practice COVID-19 guidelines is based on science and facts and not some talking head on television screaming about inalienable rights.
when i was using, chaos was something i sought, to make my life “interesting.” by that i mean i was seeking relief from what i felt was lacking in my own life. by “stirring the pot” i did not need to deal with my own emptiness and the void my life had in it. never in a million years did i believe i would ever end up on the other side of my discontent with the world around me. if one had asked, i would have said that i was “entitled” to live that life, after all i really was not hurting anyone, not even myself. i truly believed i had paid my dues and was allowed to live in whatever chaos i could get to swirl around me. the quiet desperation i felt when i first was forced to get clean, was easy to deny, as early recovery was just as chaotic, with all the external consequences i was facing and the roller-coaster of emotions that were my daily life. it is no wonder that it took eighteen months for me to feel the desperation that was there from the very beginning.
as i climb to the top of Colorado, for the second time this season, i will allow myself to feel a bit of the joy and wonder that this world has to offer. i am a product of white male privilege and i realize that privilege was built on the backs of people of color. their oppression by the very society that has allowed me to prosper, is a debt i cannot ever pay back. the very fact that i can see that this morning, is the result of the simple program that has given me the desire to be more than just another over-entitled schmuck that believes i am “owed” something by the world around me. i can HOPE that what i have come to accept, gratefully, is a life where what i give is more than what i take, just for today. BTW, my choice to practice COVID-19 guidelines is based on science and facts and not some talking head on television screaming about inalienable rights.
∞ DT ∞