Blog entry for:

for love, or how i learned to love the bomb of my character defects the myriad of ways and means they express themselves as my shortcomings. as flip and irreverent as that may sound, especially when i am writing about something as lofty as love, it reflects the nature of my journey through recovery and my seemingly ever-changing understanding of what love is, how to give and receive love from others and for me anyhow, how to love myself exactly as i am, in this slice of time i call the present.
today, it is not hard for to admit, that when i came into recovery, i viewed love as transactional and certainly a zero-sum game of which i always found myself losing. i believed love was like money and i was a miser, working hard to get it from everyone in the world around me and clinging tight and doling it out milliliter by milliliter as needed to insure the flow in my direction. i wanted love but i did not want intimacy and more than one relationship was based on something other than any sort of love.
i have learned that as i give, so i shall receive, especially when it comes to love. it really does not matter if the love i get is equal to the love i give these days, as my “love abacus” has been pitched into the bit bucket. for me, anyhow, it is as important to show others that i love them at least as much as i love myself. i may not take myself out for dinner or buy myself cologne and diamonds, but i do show my appreciation for who i am, by stopping the self-flagellation before it really gets rolling. the result of that is i am better able to deal with the quirks and shortcoming of those around me, in a loving and accepting manner, most of the time. one person in particular comes to mind, as i sit here and he just has his head so far up his ass, he is unable and certainly unwilling to consider that i do not sit around wondering what i can do to make his life more comfortable on a minute by minute basis. i did get all bent out of shape when he wanted me to take care of his needs at nine pm last nights, when he had all day to make the call and get what he wanted. this morning, i know that he really is clueless and to prevent my internal strife, i will not take any calls after six-thirty pm, over the course of the next few days. do i love him any less for being a dickhead asshole? no, i do not, it simply is reality and i have to bend to that mighty wind. it is time to go get back into the groove of things, before the rain rolls in. i am clean today and my heart has the capacity to give and receive love, beyond any limits i once believed that it had. for the first time in my recovery and my life, i feel as if i am not only worthy or getting love form myself and others, i am also worthy of giving it out as well. part of that is taking care of my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs by making the amends to myself that were long overdue. just for today, i may not “know” what love is, but i do know that it is essential to my recovery process.

∞ DT ∞