PopcornJackTerry

Outside of my recent post about Facebook quizzes I haven’t been writing here very much lately. There are a couple of drafts still sitting around, one that’s a work in progress and another that needs more time to expire before I can finish it, but for the most part I’ve been held back by my own desires. As I’ve been struggling with….well, everything I’ve been struggling with, the biggest actual struggle has been finding ways to best connect and understand with the choices I’ve made, the path I’ve taken, the ways to learn from my failures (and successes) and how best to live today in a present and purposeful way to prepare me for tomorrow. Honestly, the least challenging part has been the alcohol. A bottle of absinthe, the real stuff from Switzerland, sits 6 feet from me as I write this, and the biggest problem it’s caused it that my brother was looking for something hidden behind it, but since I don’t drink, I never move the bottle and we didn’t find it until it was too late. And I don’t mean that as a boast or some demonstration of how much I am at dealing with my alcoholism than anyone else. One of the books I’ve been reading lately, “Craving: Why We Can’t Seem To Get Enough” which I will go into much greater depth in a later blog, said something that I think is very powerful. I think it is something that many alcoholics need to realize, and I think it is even more important for people who have alcoholics in their life and are trying to help and support them to understand this:

One thing is becoming clear about alcoholism: it isn’t one disorder, but a spectrum of conditions whose development is influenced in varying degrees by genetics and environment and that vary in terms of their co-occurring psychiatric illnesses, personality structures, age of onset, gender-related factors, and even prognosis.

The emotional journey has been up and down, with a Grand Canyon-sized down just about two months ago that I didn’t think would have an up, but thanks to a kick ass therapist, a challenging shrink and an expired patent (Hello $5 prescriptions for the uninsured!) I’m doing really well. I’ve had a particularly awesome week-finding a stability and a serenity, accomplishing a lot and not thinking it’s the end of the world if I’m not as productive one day as I have been the rest. It happens. What’s best is that I’ve learned to recognize some of the reasons why it happens. I understand how choices made affect me for the rest of the day and, if I am unhappy with the results, instead of getting angry I simply decide to make better decisions tomorrow. The struggle comes from finding a way to really get inside this, behind this and work through this that resonates with me. Following the path that other people have put down is certainly helpful and has many benefits, but if any of it rings hollow or doesn’t attach myself to my personality, then the odds of it having a lasting affect on me are diminished.

All of that is a big way of saying the reason I haven’t written much lately is because I’ve been expecting myself to write a superblog one of these days that documents my new way of thinking, the approach that I am taking to my changes and how from now on I’m going to burp sunshine and fart rainbows. Because that’s how I always do things.

Correction. That’s how I always used to do things.

In the old days I treated success as an equal to completion. I would look at myself and say “I am better than I was yesterday” (or more accurately, “I didn’t fuck up like I did yesterday.”) and believe myself to be cured, whatever that meant. Any progress would stop and I would rest on my poorly achieved and hardly earned laurels. Naturally I would soon not be better than I had been, which would not be something I could accept. My sense of failure would be huge-“How could this happen? I really must suck at everything!” (are you starting to get a sense as to why I went to Drama school?)-my surrender would be total and I would be worse off than I had been before.

Today things are different. Like I said I’ve been having a great week, but today, while still full of successes and accomplishments, I just felt off my game a little. The truth that I’ve learned to accept is that this happens to everybody, even me, and it isn’t worth beating myself up over. I simply switched my focus on to other things, knew that there was still plenty of time left in the day in case the mood struck, and if not, the sun was gonna rise tomorrow and I’d have another chance. I was still bothered, though, by not having anything to say. That was when I looked up from the magazine I was reading.

I have not lived here long enough, and I hope that I never do (and I mean that a couple of different ways) to be used to the sound of a horse drawn carriage going by. Ironic that it is the most natural sound that still strikes me as so unnatural to make me turn my head every time I hear it. The timing was such this early evening that the color of sunset was reaching down the street and painting the western edge of everything it touched. That particular shade of orange/red will always capture my eye and make me stop what I was doing to watch it for a little bit. Tonight was no different, and it helped to inspire me.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about golf was not to waste my time swinging my driver at the driving range. The driver is probably the least used club in the bag. (For good golfers, the least used club should be the sand wedge. I’m not that good.) Why practice the most with the club you’re going to use least? And yet that what so many people do because they think that is what’s important. Life is no different. Sure there are going to be a number of occasions that qualify as super big or larger. But the majority of life is made up in the little things, the moments that are fleeting, and it is by building on these little moments that we grow and learn.

So this is my superblog. I’ve made lots of strides and I have learned a lot. I have found a couple of resources that work very well for me, and I will share them, as well as other steps I am taking and things that I am learning. I know that a lot of people are going through some of the same things that I am and I know that I have a gift, a talent for writing and sharing, and if that can help other people with their journey, then I need and want to make that my contribution to help make this a better world. I know I don’t have all of the answers and that I never will, because that isn’t how life works, but I’m going to ask the questions anyway and see what the universe has to say.

Today’s soundtrack: I was thinking of using this song but figured I would scroll through youtube to see if anything spoke to me. Apparently somebody’s living inside my head, because this song had been recommended to me. Hope you like it.