There are times when I hear someone speak at NA or AA that says something that alters my paradigm forever. Saturday morning a man was talking about how in recovery he revisited a lot of painful things in order to forgive the players that caused him pain. He had a bad relationship with his father and he said he would get so hurt every year when July 4th came and he begged his dad to take him to the Fireworks Display in town.

Every year he would beg and beg but his father would never take him. He was hurt and angry and it followed him into adulthood. When his dad died , he was in recovery and able to speak about the pains he carried with him he was talking to his aunt - (his dad's sister) about how it hurt him every year his dad wouldn't take him to the fire works.
His aunt listened and began to speak. "When your dad came home for World War II we went to a huge victory celebration. We ate, danced, laughed. Dark came and they had a huge firework show. I turned to your father to comment on them and he wasn't there. We started to look for him and we could find him no where. Finally of a friend told us we needed to go to help your father in the restroom. There we found him curled up in a ball in the corner next to the toilet. He was shaking and crying and out of his mind. He was Shell-Shocked and no one knew it." It's the term they used before PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

It's what I say alot, "you just don't know what monsters are 2 inches away from the people you come in contact with, we don't know what horror is chasing
the folks we meet"

All those years of resentment, were instantly re-framed and forgiven for the guy at AA and it was replaced with understanding, forgiveness and compassion. If you have never had the experience where resentment is removed and forgiveness happens, when the river of life and love flows into the compartment that had been filled with pain and hurt, I urge you to think about letting a resentment go and experiencing it. We don't set the people that hurt us free, we set ourselves free.

Yesterday I went to a noon NA meeting and a fellow came in that has popped in and out with his girlfriend for a few years. He is not tall and has longish Meatloaf like hair, she comes in an array of costumes but always some variation of white gogo boots, fishnets and hot pants. They looked like to me, a couple of characters Carol Burnett's crew would have dreamed up. Her hair, I think was always died a black that surpasses any descriptive words I can muster. Girl, it was BLACK. She was never unpleasant and I was always aware when I saw them I was seeing something that was too cartoonish to be real but there they were. When I saw them I always felt like I had spotted a unicorn or something mystical and mythical. They would pick up a white key tag or a few times they celebrated 30 days but would always drift away like one fancy white cloud on an otherwise cloudless day when the wind blew. I can't think of anything they ever said or did that was repugnant in the least. So the male part of the couple came into the meeting yesterday and shared that he was struggling. He had five days clean and he was having a hard time. 
I wondered where his girlfriend and cohort was. I had never seen one without the other, sort of like Laverne and Shirley or Lenny and Squiggy. I leaned over to my friend next to me and asked "I wonder where Elizabeth is", (not her real name out of respect for anonymity"). I figured she was sitting out some time in County. My friend Jamie said, "Do you remember the lady that was tossed out dead on the road a few months ago, that was her". 
My blood ran cold. I read the story of the body they found in/near Longview on the highway. I even read the headline a month later that they identified the woman's body. I did not however read the article. For over 24 hours now this has been eating at me. Even before drug addiction, I suspect she clearly did not have the faculties, most of us have. She had things stacked against her from the beginning, she had less to work with than most of my friends here on Facebook, yet she managed to find a way to survive until someone finally put an end to her. She even had long term companionship which most of my friends of FB will nod in agreement is no easy feat. What upsets me about this story, actually it's two things. First, someone thought she was disposable. Insignificant. Like a hostess twinkie wrapper tossed from a vheicle and left roadside, someone made the decision that her life mattered not. Maybe because she was an addict, maybe because she was so quirky or maybe she just trusted the wrong person for the wrong reason, this harmless cartoon of a woman was murdered and left on the road by someone who didn't know she had value simply because she was here. She existed and that gave her value.
The second thing that upsets me is that I read that article, heard it mentioned on the news and not one time did I STOP and think, that lady they found on the highway had someone somewhere that loved them. They mattered to someone somewhere. I was caught off guard by my own callousness. I'm shocked that it wasn't until I found out I knew the woman did the story have heft to me.
Some people are seen as disposable. It's why so many prostitutes and drug addicts are murdered and the police/communities don't blink. "Let them kill themselves out" is a term I actually heard with my own ears before.
The God of my understanding sees value, purpose and love in every living creature. I'm disappointed in myself on this one because I forgot that the stories I see and hear in and on news sources are based on real people, who are loved by real people and that pain is pain and pain demands respect. I love outcasts and I am at my best with misfits. I'm so sad that one of the misfits I've enjoyed from a far was snuffed out in such brutal form. She reminds me in death and in memory to notice people, to attend people, to value people simply because they exist. I hope to do better. I hope my ears don't get so used to hearing the stories I forget the stories are about human lives, real humans. I barely knew her but I'm sure someone loved her and I"m sorry for their loss. I'm sorry the world is unkind to people who don't fit the mold. I'm sorry some people fall through the cracks. I'm sorry I walk past of field of purple and forget to notice it sometimes, but I will try to do better and not for anyone's sake but my own. I don't want to exist in human form and not realize that every human has worth and we all deserve a certain amount of respect for just getting to the age that we are whatever that is. Today I will respect life and remember behind each tragedy they trot out and across the new screen, someone's mother weeps and someone's mother cries "Why?".

Unless you are a highly enlightened human, it is very hard not to assume whatever it is that is going on in your life , bad or good isnt going to stick around. . Something inside me tries to convince me that whatever it is is going to last forever. If its heartache, then the human part of me is certain in will never end. If it's lovely and fun I just don't think about the good time stopping, but it does. My mother has a tendancy to tell me "YOU NEVER" and "YOU ALWAYS".........blah blah blah.  Never and Always imply that something is constant and  unending.

 I was touchingly reminded this weekend that everything I know will end one day. It doesn't matter if something has been a certain way for 78 years or 78 minutes. The way of our world is constant change. Life, this thing that is fluttering strings of experiences strung together strictly by heartbeats moves closer to it's finality with every breath I take.

  I watched a tiny box roll right past me over the weekend that contained a small remnant of a hammering hurricane of a woman that once embodied a will and a determination that defied the size of it's container, a category 5 or F5 tornado of will.. Part amusement and  part consternation was experienced by everyone that knew her and loved her.. Honest to goodness as the shiny pretty box rolled by I thought to myself, "Our stories end" and it wasn't just a thought, it encompassed my whole gray headed being.

The point was hammered home to me, and more so than just a nebulous cautioning from a book that my time here , on this plane with these people all is subject to end without notices and BOOM!. Everything I know , everything I am familiar will is upended.

Instead of being a buzzard on my bed post , warning me of impending doom, I have noticed that presence of mind, awareness of the precarious state of being a temporary human just afforded me a clarity to feel more as it unfolds, to absorb everything about the present moment and savor it's flavor. To remember for myself and to gently remind others that "This too....shall pass". This isn't the place to sink roots into because our stories are told in forward motion so we must keep moving and not lose our momentum. This isn't the end of your story.

In my middle aged life I have seen so many things come and go. The Berlin Wall, the fall of Communism in Russia, Eastman Kodak the creator of modern photography fold it's company up. After 33 years of having a set of parents I have had a step mother for 16 years now, Blockbuster Video the BIGGEST video rental business there was for years is no more. Things end. So many endings.

Things end, seasons of productivity pass like the remnants of a summer garden in the deep winter. The trick for me is to absorb my life and all the bit players , enjoy it but not hold to tightly. One chapter will end and another will begin and one day the entire tale will be told. Our stories do and will end.

If you have a faith that has you preparing only for the afterlife, I ask you to stop and enjoy the life that God has given you here today. "Your' Soaking in It'. as a matter a fact. I love a country song by Trace Atkins

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this


God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the different.

When I was a wooden puppet......

There is a childrens story about a wooden puppet that longed to be a real boy. If you were to boil my life down to a bite size capsule, it has been my long held desired to be a real boy too. The strings that held me weren't made of cotton, they were fear, anger, confusion, resentment, depression and substance abuse just to name a few of them. They so thoroughly convinced me that the human experience was not one I was going to have in this lifetime, I retreated without questioning. I watched people have lives and experience emotions that I couldn't conjure up on my own. In fact, the last time I was at Psych. Hospital that also treated addicted people they had us write a list of things we had not yet experienced but would like to.

 The first thing on my list was I wanted to burst into tears over pure joy. I'd seen it on TV and in Movies and more than anything I wanted to know just once what that felt like.I even asked the counselor if it was a real thing or not.  The second was I wanted to be able to regularly have emotional responses to sadness or beauty. Everyone else was listing things like trips to Europe and getting married. My whole list mostly was filled with this list of things of feelings and emotions and reactions that humans had that I had only witnessed.

I had a stash of VHS tapes then DVDs of moments other people had where they were moved or became over come with emotions. Award winners, Athletes in the Olympics who had their gold medal moments. I was unable for decades to produce any good feelings of my own so I bootlegged and hijacked the emotions of others. Just like Pinochio, I was not able to produce human emotion, the only difference was I was flesh and blood, and the ties that bound me couldn't simply be snipped.

A lot of things happened in the last four years (3.75). The universe was kind enough to intervene on my behalf once more. This last time when my head rose again above the water, instead of looking for the next wave, I took a deep breath and started moving. Something remarkable has happened to me specifically in the last few months, I have begun producing my own gold medal moments. Simple words can move me to tears, music can be so touching it sucks the air from my lungs. I've told people I have known a lifetime that I love them and not sound like a bad actor with a terrible script. I have been vulnerable to the point where words temporarily weren't available in public and I have spent hours with people and showed up as myself.

 I left know trail of bread crumbs so I can't be sure exactly how I got here, but that's fine, I don't need to know my way back there. I have laughed so hard the noise escaping from my mouth made me jump. After decades and decades of life behind the great divide, this life , these people, the love and joy are every bit as delicious as I knew somewhere deep in me they would be. I knew there was more but I couldn't find my way out of the dark.

 I spent the day with a friend on an important day in her life and I showed up. I showed up feeling and loving and fully present in my real boy body. I am grateful. I'm grateful most all of the time but I was especially grateful today for myself. People matter to me, peoples plights matters to me today. I am moved by a stranger with everything they own in sacks walking down Highway 80 because I know what it feels like to be walking and have no where to walk to. I know the steps I took to reclaim my spirit but I have know idea how I got from there to here. It's better than I ever knew it would be but every bit as good as I dared to dream it would be.  Movies and TV probably saved my life at some point and in movies because they offered escape. Somewhere in the hour our 90 minutes  the main character gets the resolution he sought, the credits roll, yet I find myself cry out for MORE. Please hold the credits.The story is JUST NOW getting good.

I realized something tonight while quick texting a friend. I am a survivor. I have the tale to tell of someone who found a way out of hell on earth. I have stood knee deep in rubble on the bombed out burnt up battle field of my life and somehow found how found a the strength to crawl out. When there was no color and no visible sign of life, I stumbled forward.

And do you know what that experience has provided me with? It's given my first hand experience to tell someone when they are standing knee deep in rubble of a bombed out burnt up battle field of THEIR life and tell them with absolute certainty that "this too shall pass". This isn't the end of your story. I am a survivor, SA-VIV-er. It's the thing you become when you get past the thing you thought would take you out for good. I have more than a theory from a book or some nebulous hypothesis. It will hurt a while, it will suck a while and you may bleed for a minute. You may take to your sick bed and curse the heavens above. Life is life and we are all dealt terrible blows, some seemingly more than others.

I'm surrounded by teenagers 40 hours a week and I feel so sorry for them sometimes, because all they know is all they know. They haven't had the benefit of existing long enough to see that most everything passes. I tell them all the time the 3 months your here in the terrible place won't even seem like a speed bump to you in the history of you life in a year. In 3 years this will be nothing but a bad summer camp you had to go to as a kid. Battle scars are badges of honor, scar tissue is the single stronges piece of flesh you have and it says I was here, I took that hit and I'm still standing.

I have a lot of faith in my ability to withstand the glancing blows of life today. I have steps to take to save my ass regardless of the mess that's on my face. All my life I thought I wanted to be blond with blue eyes and the star of the football team. HOnest to God truth, if I could excise all the painful event's of growing up and the pain of being 20 and trying to convince everyone I knew what I was doing, all the best qualities of me would be erased. I got character through all the events and circumstanced I would have deleted at one point if given a magic wish.

Antiques have value because they have withstood the test of time. Repaint a 100 year old table or polish the patina off a 200 year old statue and you have rendered it valueless. The shit storms of life and our first hand eye witness report on how we got through it is so much more valuable to man kind than an unproven idea from someone in a think tank or a book author. You get colon cancer, you find a colon cancer survivor, if you are a drug addict, you find someone who is an addict and recovered. Our individual experiences here on the planet is what makes us valuable, not where we got a degree from or what church we belong to. Our experience makes us invaluable.

We attain wisdom through poor decision making and living through hardships. So, I am a survivor. I may or may not have claimed that moniker before but tonight, as my perspective shifted suddenly I realized that I had done the unthinkable. I made it through to tell my story of treachery, despair, redemption and survival. Face the fear, the confusion, the anger and the depression. Your story does not end here and it's a story that needs to be told and told. "I found myself knew deep in rubble, in the bombed out burnt of field that was my life". I made my way out of the darkness and you can too.

Our lives don't merely reflect our beliefs, it becomes what we believe it to be. If you believe the world has more than enough for you, you will experience a life free of fear of having to go without. If you live your life from a place of fear and greed, that is what you will see in the world and you forever will fill like there isn't going to be enough for you so you refuse to share and have a death grip on on all you view as important. I know a lady who would appear very generous by her actions but on the inside she resents you taking what she gives you and sees your successes at anything or good luck as a direct strike to her storehouse of having enough for her. You can't have good fortune because it means there is less for her to have. It's prison and it's taken a toll on her and especially with relationships. I would rather quit life now than spend even a year unable to be happy for someone else's success or good fortune. The core of 12 steps is we share freely and copiously our experience , strength and hope and each time we do, it is returned to us. This is the spiritual law of RECIPROCITY. Quid Pro Quo. To quote Dr. Dyer's book title , "Change your thoughts, change your life". My actions need to match my intention. Give without expectation. Serve without conditions. The break I give you today when you have botched something up, is the one that will be available to me, the next time I botch something. Ask yourself this question. Is there enough love for me in the world or is there a lack of it. You will find your life reflects your answer.

I was at Family Dollar earlier. Just in front of me at the checkout counter was this handsome cowboy, his pretty wife and their two kids. The daughter around 7 or 8 had wrapped herself around the dad's long long and was doing ballet moves while holding on to him to keep steady. He dials his phone and I listen. His voice, as manly as his countenance , he seemed to be looking for way to end the phone call as soon as it started. Something in the tone of his voice reminded me of the phone calls to my dad. Stilted and halting, "Well, ....I..Just wanted to wish you a ....happy birthday before they day got away". "Well, I'll try to get by next weekend but I can't say for sure. "Okay", "Well, you know..we love you". He hit the end button and looked his wife. Wife "how was he". Husband, "couldn't wait to tell me his OTHER two sons both got big deers this week". Wife rolled eyes, husband shrugged. Clinton's heart broke a little. He scooped his kids up like a grizzly bear and they disappeared while my Alka Seltzer was rung up. I have made hundreds of calls like that. I felt lonely in the middle of those "How is the weather calls" and depressed when they were over. It was a tiny slice of "REALITY THEATER" happening 2 feet from me and it drives the point home once more, we are all more alike than we are different. Phone calls to my dad are better these days. I don't feel depressed when I phone him or see him, but it's no fantasy ending either. I let him be who he is, which is a man who doesn't navigate emotion well and feels more at ease with horses and cows and I show up as myself, a much less desperate angry truer version of myself. Sometimes we talk about the weather. He's a farmer and the weather is a big deal to them but when it happens it doesn't hurt. Lower realistic expectations have given me a real freedom from the crazy fantasy in my head of what our relationship was suppose to be like. It's a freedom I take, these days I am ALL ABOUT collecting the freedoms, Bitches!

Just so we are all on the same page, you do realize we are born with expiration dates right? I'm unclear how people can be shocked by someone's death. I pretty much treat everyone I come in contact , as maybe the last time I see them. I was only caught off guard one time and after that, I realized that "The last time I saw you, might be the last time I see you. The earth is a classroom and students come and go everyday. If you are here, it is for certain you will leave. Living in the moment keeps me from feeling cheated when someone takes exit. I would guess to some it might seem fatalistic, but that to me implies a certain amount of gloom. That is not my case though, there is nothing gloomy about enjoying the presence of someone like it could be the last time I saw them. When my friend Lee burned out on drugs, I took the time to talk with him and tell him everything I would hate to not have said if the death he was sprinting to happened before I got to say them.
 I had a friend who came to my school back in my Jr. in high school. He was only there for a couple of six weeks before he moved back to Dallas. When I lived in Dallas there was always part of me that searched every crowd for his face. A decade later, quite by accident, a fluke, I saw his name listed among the dead from the gay plague. I realized, the last time I saw Larry would be the last time I saw Larry. It was the last death that caught me off guard. He taught me in his death that anyone can be out of here at any time.
 There are still faces, beautiful faces I look for in every crowd, but I know that the love I have for those people isn't contingent on them being in my life or even being on the planet. That love partially shapes who I am and just because a physical story ends, I believe the most interesting part begins when we take exit. The psychical presence of a person is never necessary for me to think of them and allow the part of my heart they live in to light up.
It's all temporary. There is no such thing as permanence. People will die, people will leave your life. Why is this such a surprise to so many people. The lesson is to BE with people when you are WITH THEM. The tragedy, the real tragedy when someone leaves their live is all the time we wasted not being with them when they were here. You don't get those chances back. "  "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with"

" Remember if it isn't practical, it isn't spiritual."
______
I don't know if it is human instinct or Clinton instinct to overwork, over embellish and over do most things, but recovery has taught me the beauty and value of simplicity. Even as a I type the word "Simplicity" something inside me says "BORING". When I would go to the sewing store with my mother or grandmother when I was little, there were patterns called "Simplicity", and then there were much shower or ornate patterns by VOGUE. The Vogue patterns required a skill and patience level of a master craftswomen and neither my mom or grandmother has a lick of interest in the Vogue effort level. Even a decade before the disease of Alcoholism, then drug addiction had took hold, "Simplicity" bored me to shit. On a daily basis I have to remind myself to keep it simple, that not everything needs to be over thought or overwrought. The entrance ramp to a peaceful satisfying existence is label "Simplicity". My dad has a garden every year in the backyard of his home. In an effort to grow more, grow bigger vegetables he over unknowingly over fertilized the plot to the point that a decade later the cumulative effect caught up to him. .This past summer , everything he planted burned up shortly after it was but in the ground. He over fertilized to the point that the soil is now useless because of toxic levels of nutrients that in low doses expedites growth but in massive build ups over the years has rendered the ground useless. I can love something to death. I can over fertilize, over water just about anything figuratively. I have to ask myself a dozen times a day, "Is this necessary", "Is this practical" or " Does the next thing I have to say improve the silence or pollute it"?

I'm just days away from the last week of my 45 year on the planet. It's been the best year of my life. Nearly every day I was free of fear and I have carved out my own unique and special path a higher power that gives me the sense of a connection I didn't know was possible.
I ran into a friend the other day and he rattled of all these things he was angry about, mostly the president and the Democrats. I could see his very essence getting eaten up before my by righteous indignation. His ego, in desperate attempt to stay in power, has gone on overdrive making him "right" about things the government is doing. 

In order for the ego to survive it must find things to be "right" about. The ego has to be right and it needs you to be wrong. The thing is, the ego and the spirit can't coexist. I am either being led by spirit or I am being led down the path of misery by the ego.

The single best definition of a "Spiritual Awakening" I"ve heard in 20 plus years of search is that it occurs with the spirit separates from ego. I don't go around needing, demanding to be right on a daily basis. I've had great success letting dumbasses be dumbasses without trading any of my piece with them. Peace is a choice, love is a miracle and gratitude is the fuel for a spirit based life. 

I spoke briefly to a woman who seemingly had something going on for herself. Recovered for decades, helping others and then she let loose on this survivalist, end of banking shit that made my mouth almost drop open. I'm sure if she noticed but I took at least to steps back because I don't like to get close enough to people steeping in fear.

I don't fear disaster, I don't fear catastrophe. I don't think there is a deadly Kodak moment coming for me anymore. From my earliest memories of being 4 or 5 and the phone call in the middle of the night came twice where my parents were informed family had died, I lived in fear. I was so frightened as a child that I don't know how I survived. I stayed awake at night guarding my family in my little kid world. I had not one person to crawl into the lap of and be comforted long enough the fear subsides.

There is a chemical in our bodies called Cortisol that is produced when human is in fear or anxious. The presence of this chemical actually causes the memory to basically burn in vivid detail the things that are happening when Cortisol is flowing. This is why my memories of my scary childhood are so vivid and fresh. 

I do not live steeped in fear today. The greatest thing that recoverying from drugs is that by tapping int the flow of creation I am not paralized with fear any more. The year of my 45th has found me stepping fully into the role of spirit having human experience and living. Living means I accept the fact that there will be easy fun peaceful times and some that arent. Labels are stupid. They limit us. What my ego says is bad or scary, my spirit knows how to use those things to expand, to deepen my faith and understanding..

Expansion. That is the final word I have on my 45 year. My spirit is now larger than fear, it is larger than unforgiveness. It is larger that being right or being pretty. It is larger than the idea that I need to pull of a great magic trick to get everyone to like or worship me. I am connected. My best year comes down to this recipe,,,,,, Forgiveness is for my benefit, what I say about others I say about myself. I don't write other peoples stories today and know one has permission to write mine. Love you when you fall short of the mark and love myself enough to do the same for me. I ask myself often , in a years time will this even be a speed bump, in 5 years will it barely even be a faint recollection. Free to love, free to try and free fail. That which doesn't kill is teaches us. Wisdom is garnered by making mistakes or thank god, learning from the mistakes of others.

My favorite quote is from Actress/Writer Carrie Fisher. "Losing your mind is a terrible thing but once it's gone it's fine, completely fine. There is no longer a part of you left that knows the rest of you is missing." I tried to kill or silence that tiny thread that still knew I was here for years. I'm glad it didn't happen. 

I've been thinking of my friend Rusty that killed himself a few weeks ago. He took an early exit. I'm ot sure if his pain was any greater than the rest of us' is, but I do know it was one of the worst waste of life I have ever seen. Had I had my way for DECADES, you all good have said the same thing about me. I havent had a drink or a drug,(including pot) in four and a half years, and that is remarkable, but the real miracle for me I have stopped trying to prove to myself and the world that I am worthless. I don't go out and try to prove that I am worthy either. I live a life based on integrity, which I learned at Narcotics Anonymous. I keep my word, I do my share, and I try with all my might to be a valuable member of the human race. Today I am asset, to my family, friends, work and to the planet full of people I will never meet. It's a connection I couldn't have comprehended experience.

 I don't believe despite NA/AA statements that "Everything happens for a reason". I do believe we can get what we need from every experience, but if i really believed there was no randomness in the world I would be depressed. The whole "Everyone has a purpose" feels like some ego driven B.S. to me. My purpose is to live here on the planet and not cause pain to those who try to love me, to put back more than I take and to take only what I need. I loved the quote on Facebook by Erma Bombeck that said something like when she dies and stands before her maker  she gets to say, "I used up EVERYTHING you gave me, I wasted nothing". I hope at the end of year 46 I have came closer to giving all away and using up every gift and talent the spirit put it me.

My dream is when the grim reaper comes for me, I have built such a lovely life filled with relationships and laughter that I beg for one more day. I bed for one more hour. I beg for 5 more minutes. I'm closer to that dream than I ever have been but I have to earn those things I mentioned being willing to fight for, that means stepping out of the box I create to keep me safe and taking chances with loving the people I come in contact with. I'm willing and showing up for human duty. 

Show up, do your best, tell the truth and let go of the results. This is advance I got twenty years ago and it helps me to this day. Let go of the results. Follow the voice of the spirit inside and ignore the voice of fear.