This is where is starts, this is where is always starts, in my head. The doubt and the fear. I guess for someone who has changed their life throughout their life there is nothing uncommon about these feelings. Someone who moves from state-to-state or is getting different jobs and so on and so forth, this would be nothing for them. These feelings remind me of getting clean or better yet thinking about getting clean. The fear that would arise, it was heavy, almost monstrous to say the least. There was no way I was ever going to be able to get clen and stay clean, the world of normal people wouldn’t accept me and I knew not how to live in that world anyways. Even after finding recovery, it took an additional 3 years to finally stop using. I didn’t know how anyone could actually live life without getting loaded, without softening the edges, without increasing the good times and drinking away the bad ones. It’s the same with where I am at now, pausing a part of my life to live a different part of it.
I’ve been living in the same county for 24 years, doing the same work for 25 years and owning my business for the last 17 years. Talk about a difficult process of letting go and trusting an outcome. I mean really, think about it, think about the time spent, the (false sense of) security achieved, then giving up all you have worked for to try and do something different. It reminds me of getting divorced and how lost I was. We were together for almost 12 years, owned a home, raising our daughter – we basically got clean together. When we split up I had spent a quarter of my life with this woman. She was my right arm, my best friend, I knew not how I was going to live life without her.
(Always forgetting I survived both those experiences)
Ya’ know it would almost be better if I didn’t have a choice in the matter. Life is always easier when we don’t have a choice, at least for those of us who can fall into acceptance easily. Maybe that could work here too, just fall into acceptance with choosing and letting go. ‘This is how it is, there is no turning back and saving you from fear.’ We walk through fear right, that’s what NA has taught us right. You take one step into the dark, then you take another step. You move slowly, you have no expectations, you stay present in the moment and trust in something greater than yourself. You work on looking at fear as something that is made up in your head, like the boogie man or true love.
I’ve survived all I’ve gone through and the other side has been beautiful and worth the grind of getting there. So why do I not think it will work out that way with this? What is it that latches on to all the fear and says, ‘You need to go home and go back to work.’ The unknown, that’s what it is, the unknown and idea that I might lose something that I think is permanent. Maybe this has to do with a bill I had to pay and I need to be tight with my monies. Maybe this has to do with this couple on Facebook on vacation and their lives look so normal and they look so in love and part of me wants that type of life. Maybe it has to do with no direction, no security (always forgetting there never was any security). Maybe none of that matters at this exact moment in time. It’s 7:04 on a Friday morning, I’ve been up since 5:23 and I’ve yet to drink coffee. Maybe it’s the coffee that will change my perspective, I should do some investigating on this.
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