Some memes

with a catch, more on that in a minute. i think i have just found my favorite reading in the literature of the fellowship that has given me this new manner in which to live. more than once across the course of my recovery, a sponsee or three has asked me the difference between hope and wishes, and i have always had to stammer my way through an explanation that really was not what i believed. in my head, i have, for the longest time, equated hope with wishing and to differentiate between the two, seemed like picking at nits. today, have found what has eluded me for the first ten thousand days of my recovery: “…realizing our hopes involves going through change…”
i can wish all i want to. i wish i could win millions of dollars in the lottery, BUT, i have no HOPE of doing so, unless i buy an entry. as facile as that example may seem, it is not all that out of line, with how i lived in active addiction, mere abstinence and my early recovery. i has all sorts of wishes and some of them i actually realized. the vast majority of them, however, were just pipe dreams, destined to fall into the dustbin of yet another disappointment for myself. these days i am educated, have a career, live in my own house, have a spouse, whom i love and who loves me and the ability to walk with my head high, into any room. i have more days clean that i ever thought was possible, i have self-respect, self-esteem and see myself worth doing whatever i need to, to stay clean and become better adapted to live in this post-modern world. all of those were once wishes and none of them would have come true, had i not embraced this program of recovery and uncovered who i really am and who i want to be, by applying the steps to my daily life. i embraced the work and the change the work brought and lo and behold, here i am, still clean, still working a program and still looking to be a little bit better than i was yesterday.
anyhow, it is time to get on down the pike to the cigar store for an afternoon of football. the walks are shoveled, the dawg has been walked, my laundry is done, i did the suggested workout and now i have written this little ditty. my day gets easier from here, but i had HOPED when i got up this morning, that i would get everything done and still make the cigar store before the first game gets started. i guess doing the footwork and allowing myself to change my “rigid” schedule, paid off, just for today.

∞ DT ∞