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is no longer my default manner in which to make decisions. perhaps i might need to rework that little bit to state that i no longer have to make decisions based on my denial of the possible outcomes: good, bad or indifferent. i am not a stupid or ignorant person, even when i was using and acting on impulse, i knew that there might be unpleasant consequences as a result of what i was choosing to do. denial protected me from considering them, as i lived in a fantasy world of being untouchable, invulnerable, eternal and capable of deflecting any consequences off to the first person i could find. experience taught me how to do that and finely honed my ability to choose to ignore any price i might end up paying. that mode of living worked for twenty-five years and came to a screeching halt due to outside influences. the shock to my system that i could not get away with anything at all, was almost too much to handle and if i had been a depressive person, rather than an anxious one, it might have written my final chapter.
sitting here, decades after that event and all of its consequences, i see that ignorance is ignorance, even if it is cloaked in the fog of denial or hidden under a mountain of spiritual camouflage. i can live in a world where i attempt to deny that i am totally free of any consequences, no matter how heinous i behave, not unlike some very prominent politicians, or i can do my best to live up to my values and see the various outcomes and CHOOSE which path i want to go down. i know i could not shoot someone on 5th Ave in New York City and walk away without paying a price, just as i know that whether or not i am suffering from COVID-19 fatigue, i need to do my best to keep the virus out of my household and that of my aging parents. that may not keep them virus free, but i can say that i made choices to lessen the chance of that consequence, i pay the price up-front, so they do not have to suffer the consequences of my bad behavior.
i know i have choices today and one of those choices is to take a rational and realistic look at what i choose to do, out and about in the real world. i can rail about how wearing a mask in public “infringes” on my rights, or i can accept that is the “new” normal and if i have the desire to ever h=get the “old” normal back, i have to do my part today. as i prepare to post this to the inter-webs and sign-on to my home group, i m quite certain that each and every choice i make today, will be a considered one, thanks to having to think about the consequences of my impulsive life, before and after i got clean.

∞ DT ∞