I had something happen the other night, a part of my old life came crashing through into my current life. That is the thing about the past, it doesn’t fucking stay there. A situation where I did not behave well was brought into the foreground of my current life where I feel like I am doing a lot better than I did back then.
As it was unfolding, my anxiety was off the fucking charts. I literally walked toward a potential shitshow and did my best to keep it together on the outside. Internally I wanted to run, cry and/or hide. Maybe do all three at the same time.
I dug in and just walked through it. It was awkward, anxiety provoking and very uncomfortable. I could have lied. I could have not said anything at all. I could have just let it all pass me by...except that wouldn’t have been the truth. And I have to tell the truth, even when it makes me look bad and when I do not want to tell it. I do not get to withhold and manipulate someone else into believing I am someone that I am not, even if the past is not completely representative of who and what I am today.
I told the truth and the other person involved seems to accept it, without a lot of judgment or issue. I did not feel good about the whole situation but I didn’t trip. I just accepted that this was mine to own and the other players involved would just do what was best for them. And if maligning me or coming after me was what they felt they needed to do, well, I guess that was just what was supposed to happen.
Pretty simple really. However, it did not feel great and I have felt pretty vulnerable and frightened since that incident. I mean, I didn’t kill anyone or anything, but my behavior was selfish and indiscriminate. Basically, my behavior was below my own standards and I was forced to own it, or lie. And truth is what I picked...but fuck if it wasn’t difficult and hard.
I am privy to people’s most basic and fucked up stuff. Like a therapist, I hear it all. All the toxic shit we all do because of wounds that have long been ignored or misaddressed, repeatedly. I know very few bad people, but I know a lot of good people who have done some fucked up shit! Myself, included.
I really wish I was the kind of person who just walked the straight and narrow. But I am not. Never have been. I have always been drawn to the self destructive, the toxic and the rocky shores upon which I dash myself to bits. I have improved. I have worked on a lot of shit. And I know it seems that I should be further along, but I am feeling right now like I am pretty much where I am supposed to be.
And if I reflect on my past, on where I came from, I should be far worse off than I am. The fate of women with my past and history is bad. Really bad. And most do not recover. Most end up in horrible relationships that are very abusive, drunk, addicted and selling themselves to the lowest bidder. I am not there. And I am grateful. That is not to say that I haven’t done some fucked up shit along the way.
I have learned my lessons though. And once I hit a bottom, I really do do the work to not hit that particular bottom again. For the most part, I make forward progress. I move on and I grow and make amends for the wrongs I committed along the way. I will still say I don’t like it, but I know that if I engage in shitty behavior, I have to do what I can to clean it up AND heal the parts of me that were the catalyst for me to behave in a shitty manner to begin with...
So as uncomfortable as the other night was, I believe I did my best to not cause additional harm, I owned my part and I told the truth which was all I could really do. I couldn’t magically change the past. I couldn’t get a do over. And I couldn’t erase the fucked up shit I engaged in.
It is hard to own your past. It is hard to not regret it. It is hard to reconcile who you were then with who you are now. And I guess the only way it works for me is to believe that we are deserving of second chances. Even if we have had many, many second chances. Most of us don’t do wrong because we want to, we do it because all the unhealed parts of ourselves clamor for attention and often those parts give no fucks about how they get that attention.
While I am not so proud of my past behavior, I am proud of the way I handled it the other night. I believe I was graceful. I believe I behaved with some dignity in owning that which was not all that dignified. I told the truth which was huge for me. When I am scared, lying is the first place I go. And while it was the first thing I thought about, it was not what I went with, not even really anything but a fleeting thought before the firm commitment to tell the truth, the whole truth.
And while it seems wrong to claim progress, I will anyway. I did things differently and I was accountable to my past. I am not the person I was then. I am different but all the changes I have made since then do not give me a pass for being accountable to who I was back then and the wreckage I created in that formerly unhealed state.
The demons live on but they are more cowed, tamed and less likely to burn my life to the ground. I just have to give them their due, to represent and show up and own them as my demons. I do not like it but I would like it a lot less if I was trying to deny their existence or refuse to own conduct that was just mine to own.
And in the end, this whole collision of Erin past and Erin today gave me an opportunity to be compassionate with myself, and the others involved. No one is a bad person. No one was out to hurt anyone, it just happened. And I have done my part to amend my behavior by moving forward in a manner that does not allow for me to behave like that again. So far so good...
I know the anxiety will pass. My worry there will be future problems or issues from this collision will be remedied with the passage of time. And my best and most humble task is to show up in the skin I am in, owning that which is mine to own and moving forward with as much grace as I can...forgiving myself, as well as the others involved, so that we all might live a little more free and little less damaged today.
I am far from perfect. And this collision of past and present happened for whatever reason...and my only job is to accept, while I do not currently know the reason, perhaps someday I will. And I can look back at how I handled this and wince only at the pain I caused in the past, not the present...
In the end I have to trust God is giving me everything I need to move forward and I am not really in control of any of it. Ever. My only real job is to show up and own that which is mine.
Again...still.
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