It is a process isn’t it?
First, a Mom update: She did amazing! I was so impressed with her yesterday. I don’t think that I would have come through so well if I had had that surgery. I am amazed by her, again, still. Today and tomorrow pose to be hard days but we will get through them and it is my pleasure to be of service. Thank you for all the prayers!
So while my mother recovers from her hip replacement, so I recover from myself. All my issues and coping strategies that really only likely set me back more than they helped me move on.
I was sitting in my car yesterday talking to my sponsor, waiting for my mom to get out of surgery and this issue that has plagued me for the whole of my life hit me smack upside the head. I traced it back all the way to third grade for fuck’s sake. The place where I made a decision, that until yesterday, I hadn’t seen that I continued to make over and over again. But boy did it land hard yesterday in my car.
I leaned my head onto the steering wheel, which is ironic because this particular issue involved me steering my life right into a habitual ditch for the last forty five years. I considered banging my head on the steering wheel, but opted not to because I was afraid I would set off the air bag. So I just let it rest there, defeated by myself, again.
And with acute and cutting clarity, I saw yet another thing I have done the whole of my life, that has never, ever served me, yet I continued to persist. Dumb. Stupid. FUCK!
I called my sponsor, she agreed. She has seen it for years. And was not all that shy about telling me what she saw. And I was grateful and humbled and asked what to do now?
Write. It is always about the writing. And for someone who writes every day, I sure do avoid writing about this kind of shit...
But I won’t this time because I can see the value in the writing and, believe it or not, I really want to move forward on this issue. I want to change. I see how it has warped my life repeatedly...and I am ready to be done with this. So write I will...
I will share more about the issue in good time. Right now I do not have enough perspective on it to even really tell you what the topic is. I just see it, in its most nebulous form, and know that I need to examine it from all sides and then dive in with my sponsor. I promise I will share the actual issue in good time.
For today, I am disheartened with the knowledge that I have been at this for so long and couldn’t see it. I mean now I sure as fuck do. Over and over and over again in my life. Me picking the same thing, and getting the same result and learning nothing. I mean fucking nothing. And then repeating the mistake again, and again, and again. As if, the issue could be resolved in the same manner with different people. Nope. Turns out that what you do compulsively over and over again, only brings you more of the same. And despite how much you hate the same thing you keep getting, it doesn’t stop you from doing it or even being able to see clearly what you are doing. Fuck!
But, oh, do I fucking see it now. So as my head rested on the steering wheel, mired in complete defeat, I just prayed that I be granted the courage to stay awake long enough to explore the issue and do anything differently. I do not want to be this person anymore. Really. I don’t.
So while I felt defeated and dismayed yesterday, it is always with a glimmer of hope because I know that once I see it, I can change it. And I do. I may still be fucking things up in this life, but when I see what I am doing, I really do stop it and change course and abandon those things and people who are not serving me well. It sometimes takes forty five years...but I get around to it eventually.
Today, I am grateful for the insight even though it was painful. I didn’t see this for the whole of my life, and now I do. I am not sure exactly what to do about it but I know that if I apply the steps to it, write about it and share it with my sponsor, I will begin to walk a new road of recovery. I will begin to travel a new path and leave this issue behind. It will no longer kick my ass in this way anymore and for that, even when my head is resting defeated on my steering wheel, I know that this is how change begins...being leveled again, letting that soak in and then the recovering starts.
I pray that my recovery and discovery about how fucked I have gotten all of this continues to unfold and that I remain grateful for the process. Because if I am not recovering, I am staying sick. And that is just not how I want to do this life. I would rather suffer and recover than to remain ignorantly blissful to the suffering I seem to be able to create out of thin air.
Recovering means knowing the result you will get and no longer being willing to accept that as the path. So you change, slowly, quickly, it matters not at all. It only matters that you stand still long enough for the recovery to take root and grow.
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