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emotional balance is quite a deep subject. in fact, for years i thought using chemistry to level out the ups and downs of my emotions was achieving just that. i know today, after a minute clean and learning how to feel my emotions without having them take me to places where i need to suppress them or take them out on innocent bystanders, i can say that today, i have a semblance of emotional balance in my life. i am quite sure that i will never achieve anything close to perfection in this matter, but adequacy is certainly more than enough, in this instance.
the only problem living my life in something close to emotional balance is that i might be seen as cold, or even stoic, when i am neither. i do not mind being seen as stoic by any means, but cold, well that is another story. part of that is leftover impressions from when i came to the rooms and before i found recovery. i certainly did not want my peers to detect that i was a fraud, hanging for the moment i was set free from my sentence. maintaining distance allowed me, at least in my own mind, to be free from the entanglements of friendship, commitments and long term abstinence. that distance created a lasting impression on my peers of me being unapproachable and intimidating, that i still feel to this day, especially from the newest of the new. be that as it may, as i learned to be less concerned about how i might appear in the eyes of others, i became even more emotionally stable, and instances of envy and jealousy were reduced dramatically in my life.
all of this is more than germane as i deal with unstable people in my family. my niece is seriously on a different plane of existence, but she means well. my Mom is stuck in her bed and may never get out of it, as long as she has someone to wait on her hand and foot. in less than four days, i will be commencing my journey into radio silence and i almost have everything i need to take care of, taken care of today. i know that when i am gone, life will go on. my Mom will either be dead, back in her chair, or sliding into deaths's arms in her bed. i can accept any of those alternatives as i am walking away for a life changing experience. even if i fail to reach the top of Kilimanjaro, i have already done something that very few people ever even attempt or dream of attempting.
it is time to pack this up and head on out to the cigar store for a bit of work away from home. i have responsibilities i need to fulfill and among them is to pay my Mom's bills and make sure there is a document in place that allows my brother to take care of what needs to be cared for as i attempt to climb to the highest spot in Africa. it is a good day to be clean and a good day to allow myself to strike that elusive emotional balance.

∞ DT ∞