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even today after a few days clean i still find feelings surfacing from the past, and often at the most inopportune times. right now, i feel kind of sad after talking to a new dad. what it brings up for me is that i foresee no children ever calling me dad and some regrets that in my addiction i put-off the steps necessary to have children. i was incapable of forming long-term relationships, and their mother would have been just another hostage to the part of me i call my disease. and as i continue down that path, the fruit of my loins would also have been hostages too! i understand that intellectually, but emotionally when i see others having families, i get more than a bit jealous. the ironic part of this, is that some of the people i am closest to are envious of my lack of children, because they perceive that i have more freedom to do the things that they wish to do. so the grass is always greener on the other side!
so i am feeling regret for my past actions, envy for another recovering addict, gratitude for what i have to day, and relief that even i may have the chance to start a family some day if i stay clean.
so what does all of this have to do with facing the feeling that i have long suppressed? well. most of the reason i used for as long as i did, was that i did not want to feel emotions. emotions in my mind were messy little things that always caused a problem or three when they surfaced. not that emotions do not cause problems today! no they are still problematic, the difference is that today i have the tools available to live through my feelings and really feel them. i no longer have to deal with my feelings by finding the ways and means to change them. i can survive a feeling or two. i can appreciate and be grateful for the full range of human emotions. and when i think i cannot stand a certain feeling, i can call my sponsor or one of my peers in recovery, or a closed-mouth friend, to get their perspective on what is up with me. the tools i have been given are more than enough to allow me to be more than i ever was and allow me to face the ghosts of emotions past! unlike marley, i do not have cringe in terror anymore when those ghosts come to visit, after all this too shall pass!

∞ DT ∞