Messy

This article said alot to me. It presents the thought "If a single person cleans out a closet and no one's around to woohoo it, does the accomplishment really count?" I have tried several times in the past month to get ahead of the curve on the cleaning. But alas I'm not making the headway I hoped for.

I was able to do my taxes, only because I need the money...but I don't clean "just for myself", I only clean because I dread what others think when they see me sitting amidst my pile of sheight. Then again its a strong metaphor for how I feel in dealing with my internal stuff too.

And I think the embarassment (read: shame & guilt) of inviting others to sit with me in my stinking pile of sheight, the whole rotting, putrid mess of it...it's too much. But if I don't...I'll die, alone, covered in sheight.

I'm left wondering, am I willing to to do the tough work of recovery just for me? Even if there is no future promise of someone walking into my apartment/life and tellign me what a great job I did.

If no one were to notice my recovery, would I still do it, just for myself?

Happy freakin New Year...

Well it's 2008, and so far it's looking alot like 2007. I'm still doing the things I know I shouldn't, stuck in the fear of change and unable to surrender the very thing that is pulling me under.

A great deal of our lives – the people we want to become, the impact we want to make – is tied not simply to desire, but whether we will exercise disciplined ambition. Desire is simply longing, or wishing. Ambition has to do with such desire becoming focused on an objective, and thus resulting in someone driven toward a particular goal. Discipline has to do with a management of life which results in self-control, orderliness and efficiency. [source]

So, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions! It's not hard to see that I lack discipline, but even tho I cannot go out and buy a couple gallons of discipline. I'm not without hope. I need to take small, actionable, steps towards these goals, ideals, and good habits that I need in order to live a recovered life.

So with that in mind, I found a one-year bible-reading plan that I want to use in my morning quiet time, so that i don't have any excuses that I "didn't know what to read" nor am I just trying to find something that "speaks to me". Rather I follow the predetermined readings and let the Holy Spirit work thru that. (The online reading are in the NLT, of which I am not a big fan, so I just use the references and read in the NIV)

I have alot more action steps I need to take, but this one is pretty low-cost and ultimately can affect the foundations of my very life. So come rain, sleet, snow, hail, flood, famine, war, and or pestilence I pledge to read everyday....

Ok, ok pestilence was a little over the top ;) But you know what I mean.

Breakfast at Tiffany's...or just City Market

So I did breakfast today with the old roomates from about 5 years ago.

It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. I had some anxiety as to how it might all be.

Yes, everyone else is married, yes they all have kids, a kid on the way, or are in the process of adopting. Yes they all live in houses that they bought. They all are successfull at their jobs working firms, or large companies. So, I feel a little under-performing there. But none of them hold that against me, why do I feel the need to hold it against myself?

We mostly talked about what the others were up to, no one even asked me where I work, or if I was dating, or if I was still in ministry anywhere. (Which is prolly cause the world isn't all about me, I just forget that). We had some fun memories of stuff at the house, so all in all, it was good.

So I'm thankful for that, I really feel like I'd like to just forget the past. I can't, my past is what it is....and I cannot change it. What I have is today.

And thank God I'm still here for it!

# days sober = 5

Take heart

I feel like my struggle lies under the surface, where too few know about it, and even fewer seem to be willing to stand knee-deep in the muck with me as I stumble thru this process...but to those trusted few, and fellow strugglers everywhere; take heart.

I found this quote by C.S Lewis:

But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom he blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrapheap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all—not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last.)

# days sober = 2

There's a skeleton in my closet!!!!!

So I have had my 4th painful opportunity to drag the ugliest skeletons of my past out of the closet (that I never admitted existed) and show them off to a small group of people.

Not fun.

But completely necesary. There's an excerpt from the White Book that talks about "clear away the wreckage of your past, and join us", I knew it would come to this eventually. But I was really hoping to avoid it.

Ok. So it's out there. Now what? Good question. I think the next real step is to forgive myself. I've thrown this out there and felt the acceptance of others, God has made it clear that He loves me - just as I am, all that is left is to forgive myself. I have no idea why that is so hard...it just is right now. I know some people with pretty rough histories, and I think they are great people - I do not think about them with the same sort of judgemental intolerance that I seem to apply to myself.

# of days sober = 8

Whats wrong with the World...

Right now I'm feeling pretty frustrated at work. Just regular situations that get me riled up, things that aren't handled the way that I think they should be. And I was thinking in my head, the program tells me "that whenever there is resentment or anger; it means that there is something wrong in me." Huh???? You mean when everyone around me is a bloomin' idiot...there is something wrong in me? When other peoples lack of planning constitutes an emergency on my part....there is something wrong with me?? When I get cut-off, crapped on, and jacked up....there is something wrong with me?????

That is a big pill to swallow. But they are right.

There have been stupid people for as long the caribou have roamed the tundra. And bad things will continue to happen, to good people...and me. The situations I will never have control over, but the one thing I am asked, by God, to do is "be self-controlled and alert". This is so hard, I don't want to believe that I am fundamentally (tho not permanently) flawed in the way that I respond to the world.

But I am. There is something wrong with me.

God, grant me the willingness to submit to Your care and healing in this and all areas of my life. Help me to act of love instead of react defensively. Show me how to give the same kind of grace to those around me that I expect to receive for myself. Help me to be humble in my failings, but not beaten down. Teach me to run to You when it hurts, instead of run away.

# days sober = 10

Desperately waiting for Connection

So here I am trying to connect and feeling like I am missing it entirely. I make phone calls, go to peoples house to have dinners, have lunch meetings with people, and today I had lunch with a friend; even during that I wasn't sure that I was connecting.

I don't know how....but I feel like I am entirely missing the boat here. What am I missing? What am I doing wrong?

# of days sober = 8