Some memes

been humbled by the kindness of my peers who have supported me when i was the most vulnerable. being vulnerable was certainly not something i had any desire to be, before walking into the rooms. i was brought up in the man-o-sphere of the nineteen sixties and was taught that real men never air their dirty laundry in public, keep their cards close to their chest and never show any emotion, specifically the so-called “negative ones.” being stoic and fulfilling certain gender based roles was the expectation: get married, have kids and work my fingers to the bone to enable crass materialism, after all it was all about accumulating toys and status. letting anyone in, not only went against the lie i was living but was reinforced by the culture in which i grew up. yes, one might say i was a pretty sick pup when i finally got clean.
it was not as if a switch was flipped and i became all emotional and my life an open book. nope that certainly took a very long minute, as i dripped out details of who i was with an eyedropper, always waiting for the next shoe to drop. i was certain that my betrayal and humiliation was always around the next corner. i was more than mildly surprised when that did not come about and i got to live another day, to add just the next tiny bit to the picture of who i am, or at least who i was back in those earlier days of my recovery. after my last FIFTH STEP everything changed.
when the lie i was living was revealed to me and the reason i chose to create that lie and live under its aegis for so long, i was revealing the shame i lived with for over five decades and how i “volunteered” to keep it under lock and key. no one forced me to do that and even though the event that precipitated living in that manner was inflicted upon me, it was me who chose to swallow the shame of that humiliation and decide that it was my fault that it happened. that FIFTH STEP was the first time i told anyone about that event, even though my Mom decided that is was funny enough to repeat more than once. each time she shared it, i felt that shame and humiliation all over again, but being a 𔃈man” i had to roll with the punches and laugh at my shame and humiliation with the rest of the crowd. never again will i allow myself to live in the shame of my past and as i am making my resentment list, i am going to be thorough and thoughtful to include everyone that i am still resentful about, no matter how old that resentment may be.
today, as i get ready to take the dawg in for her pre-op labs, i am certain that i have more than a little more vulnerability to share with my peers and my sponsor. i am certainly feeling the burn of some of those ancient resentments that have been holding me back. it is more than ironic that being myself and true to that self is fostering a sense of getting to a place where i can treat myself with kindness, even when i cannot find any reason to be kind to myself. whatever this step brings to the table, i am ready to look at it and share with my sponsor, even if i think i am being petty, overreacting or just crazy. i know that none of that is probably true and it is the ways and means to lie to myself and keep some shit still rolling around inside of me, just to prove how “sick” i may still be.

∞ DT ∞