Thirty Three Years of Freedom (and some change)

I started writing this one quite awhile back and then I forgot about it.  I don't know if I ever published it or not.  So here it is.  Or here it is again.  If it is a repeat, mea culpa y soy listo.

It was the summer. I was on the beach in Lavallette reading the book "Go Ask Alice" written by "Anonymous." It was an anti-get high book. [My mother took this book away from me!!! She forbid me to read it.  I managed to finish reading it anyway.] This was in my pre-druggie era -- the time when I was waiting to get high and the local head shop-- The Last Straw-- was one of my fave hang-outs. Hippies were in.

Fast-forward: It is several decades later. Day after Thanksgiving 2005. I'm bemoaning the facts that not enough provocative material, comments on the news, or recovery stuff is in my blog. I drift around the internet, finally landing at http://www.snopes.com. Drifting through the categories, I discover the truth about "Go Ask Alice" under language sub literary. Oh woe is me.

It wasn't written by a teenager at all.

Worse than that, the book featured characters from divorced families who dropped out and turned on to street drugs. An anti-divorce diatribe. Something I missed in my initial reading of the book. Oh me. Oh my.
***


I have to forgive myself. I was a child after all. A precocious child but a child nonetheless. A child being brought up in a household not famed for its' knowledge of the difference between the truth and a lie.

I don't blame my mother and step-father today. They had their own sicknesses to deal with.
My parents divorced when I was very young.
***


Those days were the days when drug addiction was equated with divorce. Can I gain comfort in seeing "Go Ask Alice" as a product of its' times?
***


Are we a product of our times? The old nature versus nurture trap. Maybe, just maybe, things are not as clear-cut as they seem. What to do?
***


One of my ex-helping professionals said to me once, "But don't you think everyone is in recovery from something?"

This was after I had categorically rejected the idea of 'teaching [her] how to work the twelve steps'.

Short answer: NO. to both.
***


Now I am grown. Scarred people exist. I used to be one of those people scarred by years of addiction. I hope I never forget that scars can B L O O M. Something twisted and binding has become the touchstone of healing, strength, and freedom in my life.


~sapphoq

There Are Some People

There are some people that I will "never be good enough for."  I am too political or not political enough.  Obsessed with recovery or working a lousy program.  Over-involved or distant.  Co-dependent or too independent.  Intense or dull.  A bitter atheist or not enough of an atheist.  A dam liar or too honest.  And so on, ad nauseum.  Oh well.

Not everyone wishes me well.  Not everyone has to.  I don't wish everyone well and I don't have to.  Nathaniel Branden  taught me this:  
        " 'Loving everyone' sounds suspiciously like spiritual
           promiscuity--the abandonment of all standards."

Some years ago, a call went out for volunteers in my hometown to sign up to answer calls for a get help phone line.  I signed up.  The woman with the clipboard made a remark to some people next to her something to the effect that I was too whacked out to do this.  Consequently, I never did get any calls from that particular phone line.  Oh well.  Two similar phone lines in two other counties did add my number to their answering service.  To this day, once in awhile I still get calls for help from them.  I've learned to go where I am wanted.  

Not everyone wants or needs my help today.  Ninety nine percent of people don't and they are doing just fine without my ideas and opinions.  I don't want everyone's help either.  I like pears and I want to have pear trees.  Most of the folks up here have apple orchards.  Even if they mutter about how pears suck, I don't have to bad-mouth apples.  Because I want to grow pears and not apples, I will get with successful growers of pears.  If I want what they got, I will do what they do.  I want pears so I will seek out people who know about growing pear trees, not people who know about growing apple trees.  

Self-esteem is about self and steam.  Self-esteem is not based upon some deity's esteem for me.  Nor is it based upon the esteem of others for me.  Rock stars can have bunches of cheerleaders yet some of them still self-destruct.  It's nice to have the approval of one's deity, if that is what one wants.  It's nice to have fans gathering around cheering one on.  But those things are not enough.  If they were enough, there would be no need for personal growth.  We would never have to grow up.

There are some people that I will "never be good enough for."  I have to be good enough for my self.

sapphoq on life