Blog entry for:

frees me to recover.
before i move to far down into this little bit of random brainwave, i have to say that cash register honesty, was the ONLY the start of the honesty i had to grow. i was honest with the world around me, long before i was honest with m,y peers in recovery, my addiction counselors , my probation officers and my family. if i had not stumbled due to my arrogance and ego, chances are i would have never gotten honest at all, with the world around me and in the cash register sense. since i can play JEDI mind tricks with language and became a master of editing the truth to make it come out the way i wanted it to, i truly believed i was totally honest all the time. not telling lies about myself does not mean that i am being honest and only after a bit of time in the program, actually just about the time i became a member i realized that in my case honesty would require more than just not lying. so my battle between honesty and creative editing of the truth still rages on, even though it is more of a “cold” war now. i still want to look better than i am feeling, especially in the eyes of my peers and friends. coming up on a clean date anniversary does not make this an]y less pressing. in fact, it seems to put more pressure on me to look that much mo' better.
honestly, how am i doing today? i am feeling the gratitude and the hope today. we close on our re-fi tonight, so the mortgage bankers will stop snooping around. i have an in-person interview next week with a possible new employer, so the process of finding a new opportunity is moving along. the weather in my eclipse watching location looks less cloudy. i feel better about looking where i am powerless and i can see that auto-magically doing stuff, even if those activities are not a hindrance to me, is not the same thing as living a spiritual program.
nothing has really changed, but i can semantically describe myself as relieved, hopeful and grateful, at least in the realm of the examples above. will i make it to the eclipse without North Korean missiles raining down around me? will the country devolve into open warfare between the neo-cons, racists, altfa, and the rest of the us? this morning, i can HONESTLY say that i have little or no power over those events, there is no point living my in FEAR of them coming to pass. for me, the message i am getting is that if i want to be part of the solution, than i need to live the solution. i have to admit that i do have bias and prejudice and that i cast lasting judgements based on physical appearance. sometimes, well honestly more times than not, those judgements, right or wrong, color my interactions with others. does that make me a racist, or an elitist? probably if i were to go by a straight dictionary definition. it also means that having that knowledge, coupled with my experience in the white male privileged world, i have to take steps to listen to the conversation and allow those biases and prejudices to be dispelled and eliminated, bit by bit. i will not pretend i understand what it means to not be a white male in America, i simply do not. i also do not take the blame for the accident of my birth, that placed me into this slice of history. i will honestly strive to be the best person i may be, and when i feel threatened about losing that privilege, i will remember that it is up to me, to look for and exercise the options to be more of the person i have always wanted to be.
so off to work, to give them their pound of flesh today and to honor myself by being honest with how i feel and still do what is required of me, just for today

∞ DT ∞