Seven Days .... Seven More Days & She'll be .... another year older. She left without saying good bye and when I called her on it she said that she would touch base after she got settled in. But she isn't good at intimacy. No, she is one of the last vestiges of my need to hang on, come hell or high water, to broken women. It is part of my core script dysfunction ; I couldn't stop Dick from beating up on my mom & as a result I have a bad habit of failing to protect the broken women from their own chaos. They of course are always willing to accept the assistance of a white-knight until such a time as the rescuer fails to resolve the chaos & becomes part of the problem ... And while this one was much healthier on the surface ... than the addicts, sexual abuse survivors & other hapless victims of years gone by ... she was still very broken. And the healing was something that I would never be able to give her. But in seven days it will be the anniversary of the day that she came into this world. And I never forget her birthday.
But the difference is that this year, between the last one and today, I said goodbye. That is to say that I sent an email that I do not know if she ever read or even received it, but I said goodbye. The point of that email was for me .... I Said Goodbye. I told her that I was no longer willing to abuse myself waiting for her to treat me with the dignity & respect that I deserve from my friends. I release her into the care of the universe - not that she ever really needed my care. But she would have benefited from my experience in moving past whatever it was that taught a person to build walls. In her world that was far too risky ... no intimacy was too threatening. Sex without love and the pursuit of the trappings of material success would keep those pesky feelings at bay. Except for those moments of weakness when they would bleed through - and I did catch glimpses of those moments from time to time over the years ... Her emotional rivers were intense when they managed to escape their prison; her rage, her love .... oh and the intensity of her remorse ... so wonderful and honest, albeit short-lived. She always kept them on a short leash.
So this year I needed to do something different. This year I decided to begin a different tradition and sent a card to a friend that does participate in my world on a regular basis. You see, I remember your birthday even if I do not sen you a greeting. Because the day that you were born was the culmination of a series of miraculous coincidences "a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection" that ultimately resulted in creating the beginning of you. All the circumstances and random decisions along the way also contributed to making you the you that I met and befriended. Think of the millions or perhaps even hundreds of billions of possible alternate outcomes that may have been .... but yet there were you & there was I and we connected. And what is important is what WE DO to make our connection meaningful.
She decided to walk away without saying goodbye. This year, I choose to let her go. A parting blessing from the television show The 100 says it best,
"In peace may you leave the shore.
In love may you find the next.
Safe passage on your travels until our final journey on the ground...
May we meet again".
Allons Y ...
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Not for anything good, but to be unforgettable all the same. Too many people have died already and it just keeps coming. I grow weary of this crap.
I miss having a choice of whether I want to associate with people or not. I miss being able to go out and sit and watch the world go by ... without having to watch people all consumed with fear for their lives. And I absolutely loath the morons who minimize the danger because they cannot conceive of how they might cause someone else to die. In their mortal shells they do not remember how that kind of behaviour will affect their soul going forward.
I think of the Marley character in the book "The Christmas Carol" .... dragging his chains .... and I look around me and I watch as all the little people go about their shallow lives forging their own chains. And I ponder how heavy mins is already and how much more it will weigh on the day I take it up to carry through eternity.
I am tired.
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Okay, well ... 230.0 Lbs this morning. I don't recall getting to 225, so if it happened it didn't last for three days. That is the arbitrary line where I consider having reached a weight. So my pattern of bad eating is still a challenge. Count One Blessing.
Of course there is still a pandemic and COVID-19 continues to be the main news each day. I am so tired of it but the numbers in the last week have been concerning enough that I now double-mask on the public transit - and in the company of friends. It isn't looking like people understand how this works and any excuse to convince themselves that the suggestions for avoiding and minimizing exposure are no longer necessary seem to be good enough for the majority. After all ... We have vaccines. I mean not enough for everyone, and the vaccine isn't foolproof but it seems people want to believe it is the cure. I DO NOT WANT TO GAZE BEYOND THE VEIL ... because knowing the who and the when and the why makes me so sad. But each to their own - right? Count One Blessing; mankind was Gifted with Freedom Of Choice.
My yesterday my today and my tomorrow are overlapping in a way that is not common. It is bad enough when it is just inside my head, but no my physical reality is doing it too. I wonder where this leads? Onward & Upwards ...
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I chose June 22, 1989 - I may have mentioned this before, but I actually have no idea what was my first day without. All I know is that as I approached the anniversary of my first year of recovery I was asked to record my Clean-Date. I have never been a fan of the "linear-time" concept; I see time as overlapping circles, or as whirlpool like funnels. I understand that in this reality most people mark time as a unidirectional linear process, but "is/was/were/will be" is more complicated than that.
I had no idea, but I mark time seasonally - the wheel turns - the sun crosses a line - a season comes & goes. I knew for a fact that on Summer Solstice in 1989 I had already begun the Road of Recovery. I thought nothing of stating that the day after the longest day of the year (I live north of the equator) I was certain that I had quit; It was symbolic as much as it was factual. And I did not have to tell anyone that "I did not know". If you know me well, you would know that I was always afraid that if I were to admit that "I did not know" it would confirm what my family had tormented me with all those years - it would prove that I was the RETARD that my family had called me for the better part of my childhood. If that word offends you, please know that IT IS JUST A WORD; it has a meaning and I am not afraid to use or even own it. I am retarded while I am trapped in this mortal shell. I am stardust and the stuff that GOD IS wrapped in dust and water with a current running through it. But I digress. There may be a day when I write more about that but this is about the anniversary of June 22, 1989.
Today marks the thirty-third anniversary of that date; I have not hit a meeting in ages. I do not have a sponsor; I have no sponsees - I do not know that anyone who attends what was my last Homegorup would recognize me, but I am still walking the Road of Recovery. I owe a debt of Gratitude to Jimmy K and others who had the courage to meet (unlawfully) in California all those years ago to start what would become Narcotics Anonymous. A.A., while I respect and appreciate it today, would not have worked for me because I had no respect for what my father called his sobriety. I know now that not everyone in in a fellowship looking for the same thing. Hence the saying "some are sicker than others"; Indeed, even my own journey would not have worked for many. But today I am clean & sober for 33 plus years of Just For Todays. And AS I read the words that I remember oh so well tears still come to the corners of my eyes. I found HOPE - I found purpose & a reason to live; I found that in N.A.
We Do Recover When at the end of the road we find that we can no longer function as a human being, either with or without drugs, we all face the same dilemma. What is there left to do? There seems to be this alternative: either go on as best we can to the bitter ends—jails, institutions or death—or find a new way to live. In years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice. Those who are addicted today are more fortunate. For the first time in man’s entire history, a simple way has been proving itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is a simple spiritual—not religious—program, known as Narcotics Anonymous. © 1986 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, CA 91409 |
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So I was not intending to make another entry until after the change of the month, but Life is what happens when you make other plans. Last night I got news that a former neighbour had passed away. She was a fine and true friend ... She was a mother, a Ti-Cats fan, a Grandmother, a sister, an aunt, a wife & a widow. She was my friend and she was from Newfoundland ....
Rest In Peace Pat. I will miss your smile, your company and your friendship.
"In peace may you leave the shore.
In love may you find the next.
Safe passage on your travels until our final journey on the ground...
May we meet again".
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"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" ... I had meant to get back here a long while back but you know how time can slip away. There have been more names in the obits... there has been a couple of major storms; one of which hit Texas - where one of my absent-friends has moved .... I can only hope that she is well, because I decided to let her be. I took a trip to Cape Cod for a brief vacation and so it goes.
The thing is, time keeps going ... I do not like linear time. it is a human construct that only truly applies to our physical corporeal existence - an illusion. But as long as we are in the physical it applies. I know that there are ways to step outside of this restriction, but some might say that what I believe is just a delusion. Still, what we believe is our personal reality.
But I digress; make time to do what it is that you know in your heart to be important. The other things will expand to fill in as much of your life as you allow them to monopolize. Be well, Be kind & try to help those along the path .... If you have not been told lately, You Are Loved !
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