No Victims

Sometimes I like to read over my old journal entries. They always bring me some sort of perspective on my life - usually, I feel somewhat silly or embarrassed. But I've learned to be more compassionate with myself - that's how I felt then and it was real.

The hard part is that reading those entries shows me how crazy I've been - and some of it wasn't even that long ago that I was crazy. The truth is, I sometimes still feel crazy now. I'm getting better at keeping my crazy at bay, but I'm just barely able to do it. I attribute my ability to do it at all to my sobriety. Thank GOD I'm sober!

I often feel so badly that I'm so alone, without a lover and I've been without much close companionship at all for the past bunch of years. But now I see that I've needed to take some distance - from myself and others - in order to really grow up. I'm still growing up, too. I've had to do it for myself because I didn't get the right tools when I was younger, for whatever reasons. It doesn't matter now.

Growing up doesn't mean not having fun or being silly or giddy like a child. It means behaving the way you intend to behave - which is to be the best you that you can be. The other half of it is to acknowledge when you are not able to be that way, when you have failed or screwed up, apologizing and learning from your mistakes. Lastly, as I see it, growing up means being able to sit in your pain without trying to escape it - which is where addictions come from (the attempt to escape the pain). This ability takes faith that the pain will pass and that you will make it through to the other side.

Anyway, I accept that I chose to be alone in order to get healthy. It's been lonely, yes. But I believe I will make it to the other side where the loneliness will diminish, subside, and where I'll have the opportunity to find a loving partner with whom I may enjoy the remainder of my life. There will be times of more and less loneliness, but I believe it will diminish overall.

I do not have to be a celibate monk if I do not want to be one. I can find love. I will when it's right for me, when the universe conspires to make it so. I'm not a victim of the will of the universe - I am part of it. It is my will.