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a responsible, productive member of society was never something i envisioned having the desire to achieve. i **believed** that life on the outside and margins of society was the bomb and where i was quite happy spending the few remaining years i had left to me. i fatalistically believed that i would never see my fiftieth birthday, much less my sixty-fifth, so why give one whit about what society thought about how i lived. after all, in the long run i was not going to leave any sort of “mark” on the world. and so the story goes, active addiction and living a lie was not kind on this addict and the defenses that i had to build to protect myself from reality, are still being dismantled to this day.
as i prepare for my weekly 10K rehearsal, i am reminded that i no longer need to dwell in that house of pain. taking responsibility for my life, my fitness, my mental state and my financial condition, are gifts that spring from my recovery program. the ONLY thing i was promised, back in the day, was freedom from active addiction, and i am grateful that allowed me to get a whole lot more. the fact that i can tell someone that if they want others to be kind to them, they need to be kind to others, as well as being kind to themselves, is certainly a paradigm shift from when i was getting whatever i could for the lowest cost possible, from everyone i was interacting with, back in the day. sometimes, being kind to myself, means that i overextend myself, physically or emotionally. sure there may be a bit of pain afterwards, but the payoff in growth is ample reward for moving beyond the limits i set for myself. it simple stupefies me, that not everyone in my life feels the same way and that doing the bare minimum is how they choose to live. been there, done that, and certainly got more than one of the T-shirts.
the morning is slipping past me and i have stuff left to do, before i can chill at Havana Manor, this afternoon. one consequence of being a responsible member of society is that i am expected to meet the commitments i have agreed to. it also means that i can choose to wear clean clothes, which means i either have to buy new clothes every week, or do my laundry. as i have yet top reach a financial position where a weekly new wardrobe can be a part of my life, that means i CHOOSE the latter. lots more to do in that same vein, so instead of writing about what i need to do, i might as well post this and get that stuff done, just for today.

∞ DT ∞