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to the FREEDOM i may achieve by becoming a self-supporting member of society. which i certainly was not. i can say that, without a doubt, as independent and self-supporting as i thought i was in active addiction and early recovery, i now can see that was part of the smoke and mirrors i used to keep myself sick. life in my skin, in those days, was not easy as i lived from paycheck to paycheck and always had a debt to pay to my dealers. i begged, borrowed and yes stole what i needed to in order to feed my addiction and all the time i thought i was entitled to do so, because…
getting clean did little to dispel that denial, although i now had some money in my pocket and i no longer wondered if i was going to have to duck out of somewhere because i saw someone to whom i owed a shekel or three. that did not mean my sense of entitlement that the world “owed” me a living all of a sudden vanished. abstinence was no magic wand and part of what i see in my niece that sends me off my rocker, is that same sense of what is “owed” to her. what makes it worse, is she sits around and waits for it to come to fruition. been there, done that and got a whole bunch of T-shirts. it was not until i actually started working the first step with a sponsor from the fellowship that has given me this new manner of living, that i actually saw that i was powerless over many things: my addiction, the addiction of others and what happened in the world. i was not, however lacking in personal power and taking responsibility to become self-supporting was certainly within my grasp. that did not happen overnight, decades of doing my best to get by and over on a cruel and hostile world, created barriers that took a minute to destroy.
this morning, as i am in the throes of getting stuff done for the sale of my parent's house, i wonder where my power truly lies in this matter. i have to pay for a new lawyer because my lawyer is facing some life on its own terms stuff and cannot complete the tasks i need done right now. life in my skin is getting easier as i find the ways and means to free myself from the angst i feel about my Mom. as i get her affairs settled and get solar power on my roof, i am pretty sure that i will be okay and self-supporting still. ii can “roll with the punches” as the saying goes and come out fairly unscathed. i can say that learning how to support myself, is an ongoing lesson, as these days i have the tendency to ere on the side of being self-sufficient, a state in recovery that can only lead to a dangerous spot. i want to live my lli9fe in the FREEDOM of self-support and still depend on others to assist me with that effort. there are many shades of grey along the spectrum of being a leech and being an island, and i am doing my best to land somewhere in the center, just for today.

∞ DT ∞