hi all. please note rapid change in tone and approach that i have undertaken. so, last night i went to a meeting--feeling pretty downtrodden and sorry for myself. by the end of the mtg i had learned about a casac program that i might be eligible for and found a potential preschool for my daughter. it felt like divine intervention but really i think it is as simple as when you do the right thing and keep doing it, eventually things do get better. doors open. light comes in.
i think of how easily i could have stayed home last night and how easily i could have put my head down and bolted at the meetings end but i didnt. i did all of the things that i didnt want or feel like doing. i went to the meeting. i talked to strangers. i put myself out there. i cant underestimate how painful it can be, how against the grain putting myself out there is. it consistently feels wrong. i am starting to think that a huge part of recovery, or at least my recovery, is just doing all of the things that feel the most uncomfortable--all of the time. just learning to be uncomfortable and that be ok, until eventually you are not really uncomfortable being uncomfortable anymore. a strange idea.
so here i am. totally out on a limb in so many areas and still doing ok. i feel the way someone might feel after a good first date. cautiously optimistic and yet optimistic.
this after just yesterday someone told me they were worried about me. let me say for the record that i hate this phrase. reading from the "living sober" book at the meeting last night crystallized why i hate it. saying you are worried about someone sort of says--you have sympathy for them. the difference between sympathy and empathy is huge. i totally love and respect the person who was worrying but it made me think about how often i feel worried about other people and how that feels to them. being worried about someone sort of automatically puts us in a superior place to them. it is not really helpful for either person. we all want someone right next to us, not above, or below us.
here's to us all being next to each other, with each other. i think together we might just be able to make it...xxk
xx
Karen--I remember talking to my friend who lives near you now about writing and about how resistant I was to writing just any old thing, because I had a bad habit of writing poetry with a capital P as my teacher once said. And then we agreed that the most important thing is to make the bad sounds--every day. Just bang away and make sounds that are really random noise. Like a cat walking on the piano. I think that making the calls, doing the uncomfortable and sometimes stupid grownup stuff one doesn't want to do is akin to making the bad sounds. One has to force oneself to do it, and then it's fine. it's over, and it wasn't that hard after all. Keep up the fight kiddo. I remember when I moved from Walloomsac Rd to my current house (one mile only) I put my head out the window of the car and sobbed and felt that my soul was literally rushing out of my body and that entire summer I couldn't find it and wandered around the house as if I was a visiting ghost. Then, about 3 months after moving, my soul arrived! It was there in the house with me! And then life resumed, in a new place, but very much connected to the old life, and unbroken.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing all the work you need to do. And I'm not worried about you at all! xoxoxox