Some memes

to shape my life is limited more by my willingness, or lack thereof, than by anything outside me. this certainly could start down memory lane with a reflection of how i was when i cam to recovery. that can be quite a rabbit hole but there is a single fact that bears repeating in this exercise today. NOTHING was ever my fault. i was a victim of culture, upbringing, genetics, society, the law, bad luck and lack of recognition of who i was and what i could offer. i was seemingly in the wrong place at the wrong time and never quite figured out how i got there. arriving at the doors of the rooms felt like that shit one more time, i found myself somewhere that i never intended on being, sent there by a rat in friend's clothing and not having a clue of how the fuck i was going to get out of this mess. poor, poor pitiful me! 😭😭😭

today as i consider that for all my life, my greatest obstacle was myself, i am not a whole lot more comfortable living in that realization. the fact that even in recovery i can choose a familiar sense of misery and pain, rather than developing the courage to show a bit of gumption and willingness speaks to the person i no longer care to be. i am, however, at times, lazy. it is easier to bear the barely unbearable than to face the unknown shape of change. as much as i hate to admit it FEAR still motivates me more than pain does and one might think that i have learned nothing across the course of my recovery journey. that would be less than a complete assessment of me and as i often sell myself short, it is one that i arrive at with little or no effort. the whole thrust of my current step work is to change how i view myself. i may accept who i am, warts and all, but i do not value myself unless i am performing with strictly perfect adherence to my own impossible standards. the truth is, i do not have the ability to ever do so and i am setting myself up for failure by believing on any level that perhaps one day i will be able to do so.

one thing has changed over the weekend, my desire to complete a project that i had left half finished. i realized like one of the fictional characters i may create, i get bored and impatient when the work seems to be going on longer than a minute. even though the creative impetus was once upon me, it is easier to walk away, than to go back and tighten things up. that is a very familiar behavior that i have exercised for a very long time. now that i am not working, it has come back to haunt me. at work, i had to complete projects on time and without bugs. at home there is no one to say that this needs to be complete before the next sprint and it is up to me to motivate myself past my impatience and boredom. it certainly is making me wonder what it will take to finish all of those languishing projects, as well as move ahead in my recovery journey, just for today.

∞ DT ∞