i feel different today. i don't know what precipitated this, but it is not a problem. I got up and said my prayer. i moved slow, but i had a decent breakfast, two fried eggs and toast, and coffee. sugar was better, so i'm going to keep working with splitting my long acting insulin into two doses, but a dose of fifteen and then ten is what i'm trying today, not a problem. i went to take the civil service test, and then i went to Niles to pick up coffee, as both my brother and myself are pretty much out. before i left home i put money on Syd's phone so she won't be out of time come the 2nd, and as i was on my way back to Youngstown i began thinking about the things i've been learning lately. like scripture and philosophy, things don't mean much if they are not applicable to one's daily life. if i don't see where what i'm learning should affect change in my life, then it's just self-flagellation. if, however, i can make some changes and see what the results are, then it is merely discovery that adds import, gravity and weight, to the sacrifice. in essence, what i believe now, and this is subject to change, is that as well as remembering that you have to readdress how the adult regards the inner child, it has to be ascertained whether the adult has become an abusive parent to themselves, because that is one of the things that keeps the inner child alive, it is the point of focus for many adults who find themselves unable to emotionally and mentally grow past a certain age. they were abused, and they stopped growing because to survive they had to hide the child within them, which created a flawed adult far too soon, and one who would remain flawed and defective even once they reached actual chronological adulthood. it's not gospel yet, but it is a working hypothesis. for example:
i have been in communication with an old friend, B.C, over the past year or so. spoke to him at him reaching out to me, asking for my information so he could come and visit. he was one of my friends as a young man, one of the odder friendships i had. he was a magnet for attention, was on the football team, was one of the cooler people in our school. i was a misfit (to my recollection), and i was definitely a strange dude in high school (no argument from anyone there). i'm not sure how we first became friends, though its likely it was on the basis of both of us smoking weed. but we also found we each had a love of music that went far beyond the boundaries of Funkadelic, which was the music of our overlapping tribe. we became friends. he got to know my family and i got to know his grandmother, whom he was staying with. i started drifting off into cocaine smoking, and he was retailing it. i didn't know he was developing his own habit at that time. when i went on a self-imposed wagon and 'just smoked weed and drank beer', i sort of moved to some different circles, as i was trying to cultivate a reputation of being cool myself at that time. but when i fell off that wagon, he was the person i approached for some dope. he made me see what the cocaine was doing to me, as i was begging him to front me some. he told me to listen to myself, and i did and i was horrified, but only enough to stop being around him and my family. cocaine has a mind of its own and is a consumer of the minds it encounters. i didn't have a will, but he was able to set me on the track toward my recovery, though it was some months and many details before i finally arrived at that point.
i had tried to help him as well, when i found he needed a program of recovery, but he didn't choose to stay in the program. i never really felt the disdain toward him as i did toward so many others who relapsed in my early sobriety. i moved to columbus with Syd's mom as my hostage and a bunch of burning bridges behind me and i lost track of him at that point. when i came back from Columbus, i learned that BC was in a federal lock, and i located him on the computer but never went to see him. finally, i heard from him, he was out, and that's the backstory and the update.
so, i did see him, and i did him a cd as he asked me to. but then we never encountered again, except once when i saw him at a restaurant with his child. i had thought i'd lost his number, to be honest. but i heard from him a few days ago, a piece of music he suggested that i listen to. which was extraordinary, by the way. i started thinking about some of my old friends, people whom i've re-met on facebook, people whom i may never see again. in light of what i learned about myself talking to Lonnie the other day, i began to think, "what the fuck is wrong with me?" it's not always easy to look at yourself. sometimes its the hardest thing in the world to do. because you see you reflected in someone else. you who you thought you'd be, you who you are, who failed and allowed you to continue on. it is a form of abuse, because i am what i am, and who i'm going to be depends completely on who i am today. so i can't shortcut my way through this process. i have to take the bull by the horns and just ride it out. however, what i was getting at is the quality of parenting i've been doing. not just with my inner child, but also with Syd and Deja.
thing about this line of reasoning, without proper follow-through it is extremely dangerous. in the Big Book of AA is says that we 'must be careful not to drift into worry or morbid recollection', which is sort of paraphrasing. meaning, it's easy, when you start to walk your own backtrail, to get lost in details you can't change. you can only change in one direction, and that's going forward. but most of us go back into the swamps and deserts of our past lives (all yesterdays constitute past lives, remember that) and we get stuck in the same mire that we were stuck in when the traumas initially took place. my only solution, therefore, is to glance back and keep moving forward, and that's what this orbit is really about. (it takes shape as i gain clarity. next week it may be about something completely different.)
i didn't see my friend BC today, didn't see R and haven't spoken to her either. I'm wrapping this up and doing some more work on Mechanical Jesus before i go to bed. I'm going to the kingdom hall in the morning with my mom and then i'm going to my meeting after that. tomorrow is daylights saving time. i still find no point to that, other than to see just how many people can be confused by a flex of some power broker's metaphoric muscles. imagine a world without time, without the boundaries of minutes and weeks and years, without months or decades. if you just did what you could do and traded what you did for what you need from those who needed what you did. if all your goods were just a means to take care of you and yours rather than to stave off the inevitability of your mortality, because without time you would not have more time than anyone else, nor less. time was made into a commodity so it could be charged for. remove time and most of the playing field gets instantly leveled. like, kids go to school when the sun is up and they go home when it's just past the highest point in the sky. then, you wouldn't have to have your life chiseled into granite by the inflexibility of your schedule, but you'd be governed, rather, by the rise of the sun and the moon. and wouldn't that be a great thing? maybe i'm just tired and rambling, i don't know.
had baked salmon, zucchini and sauteed potatoes and peppers for dinner. had a small bag of chips and an apple for a snack. i am yawning big, i'm weary from more things than i really want to think about, and i have to get a strong start to the day tomorrow. so this is it for now. more tomorrow, in the saving of the daylight...jesus...thank you, Father, for a beautiful day.
No comments:
Post a Comment