Working on Personal inventory

Last couple days I have been making a fearless and moral inventory and nothing I have put down has really affected me, I mean I lived through I can certainly re-visit it. But I am sort of off my game this morning. I just feel dulled and sort of sleepy and sort of sad. I've done this twice before so I don't have AS much to mention this go around but it seems I have saved the stuff that has affected me the longest for this time. I don't have that much to go, I am at the point where I put it away and something else pops up. I am aware that it is time to move forward and get along with getting to livin'.

FROM A DISTANCE [CHRISTMAS VERSION]

What can happen when you aren't looking

I really got a full realization that my outlook has been changed. I was reading this depressed persons blog and I could completely understand her fascination with darkness, and pain, and going to the place you hurt the most and dare anyone to get near. I understand it but I no longer live in that space and I am not really sure when I left it. I still have the urge to "pick at scabs" but I don't wake up in dread. I expect wonderful exciting things instead waiting for "the other shoe to drop".
The walk across the street to the mail box doesn't make me anxious that there is gonna be dreadful news in the box. I seriously have walked around in a certain positive mind frame since I was in the hospital in Shreveport.

I have been depressed since early child hood and to learn how to set myself up for feeling good has been a big ole life changing phenomenon. When I was leave the store at dusk there were the scary looking clouds and I just stopped, lit a smoke and leaned back and enjoyed the awesome cloud show. It was a powerful moment that i would never be able to accurately describe, but I connected to the universe and I could so easily see the curve of the earth and how we cling to it.

I don't believe the universe is knows you are here on the planet until you get grateful. The moment you get grateful, the universe will step up and give you more more more stuff to be grateful for.

I hear a man of spirit say that there are two different kinds of gratitude. The first he called "COMPARISON GRATITUDE". When a person tries to feel gratitude by looking at someone less fortunate. He said it would work until you got to the second kind. The second kind of gratitude is one that permeates the brain, and spirit and head to toe. It emanates from you in a way that is palpable. Today I absolutely have been lit from with in.

Attention Universal Flow of life

I'm ready to be an independent 43 year old male again. I really want to be well enough to get off of disability and get a sense of self that isn't currently available. My mother made some mother comment to me today and it showed me one more time that she speaks to me like I was still a child, without any regard that I was grown and had an opinion of my own. I'm tired of my life being so monitored. It was very helpful for a while, it may have saved my life but I am pushing against the starting gates with anticipation of getting on "with the business of living".

I have to make sure I can get my mental health meds and at least afford a pdoc visit every six months. I need my car repaired and the guy who has looked at it twice can't find out why it dies and chokes with no rhyme or reason to it. Or I need a place to live in longview for the bus route. I don't have any preconcieved ideas about trying it out on my own but it is the next logical step.

I've had 2 low blood sugar spells today. I put some brown sugar on my oatmeal for breakfast and I am wondering if that sent me into a tailspin. I will call and tell the doctor to go ahead and schedule the glucose tolerance test which is long and boring but evidently necessary. Also my mouth dries out completely every few minutes. I don't know if the mouth thing is a side effect of my testosterone injections or not.

A melon grows in asphalt

A Narcotics Anonymous Watermelon grows in asphalt. I see such a great story of persistence , luck and determination in this melon. I know from growing melons as a kid, you can't just plant a seed and expect melons. The soil needs to be good and the right nutrients need to be present or added as it grown.
This volunteer melon came up from a melon that was cut on the back area of the Hall early this summer. So the seed had to dry itself, implant itself, germinate and find enough nutrients to form 4 melons. 2 didn't get the right amount of feed and the plant focused on it's best two shots to procreate. Unless things are just right, plants either won't make a fruit or can't make it grow. It's such a great example of how the universe is set up. Because of the late growing start the melons won't mature enough to eat, but the seeds might have been mature enough to fullfill the purpose of the plant in the first place- to survive on this planet by making seeds to reproduce.

Every time I looked at the two melons side by side which looked like a slightly uneven pair of tear drop shaped boobs, I felt like I was on in the story. Me being clean is just as unlikely as a seed from a melon falling to the ground and making a home for itself, then producing fruit. It was a lesson in spirituality and purpose every time I saw them. Someone trashed the biggest one and the other will only be there for a few days until someone drop kicks it and that is fine. For as long as I am clean I'll remember those watermelons, that defied on conventional farming logic and grew in asphalt, concrete, sand and rocks. The willingness to do will find the ability to do.

Weds.

Good morning everyone. I am sort of filled with the possibilities and promise for a brand new day. Sometimes its just very hard for me to remember that I am the author of my own fate. Not a victim. I forget what a powerful spiritual being I am when I get bogged down in diseased up thinking. This is a pep talk to myself and anyone who needs it I guess. If the worse thing anyone can say about me is I am overweight then that is pretty good. My weight issue is one tiny portion of my life and it is not the sole definition of who I am. The disease of addiction makes the addict take everything, good or bad to extremes. Attempting to live your whole life in extremes is brutal. It is rough on your psyche and your heart and your spirit. It also is really rough on the people that love you. Yesterday is over and all we have is the moment we are living in right now. We can't even count on having a "this afternoon". The things I choice to give energy and thought to in this moment are important because as I said, this is all we have. I would hate to know I spent my last moments on earth berating my self and calling myself mean names because I ate too many Hot Tamale Candies. To a large degree I think the seemingly random chit chat in my head dictates the experience I am having. I am very lucky that I have put in enough work and effort to be able to monitor my thoughts as they happen, and that makes yanking the sick ones out before my attitude is affected and my resolve is history. I'm going to have a good day today. I get to be with some people I love and who love me without condition. I'm going to try to eat right and not entertain every negative thought that floats through my grey matter. I feel for myself, that living thoughtfully and actively is more rewarding than when I go through my life as a detached, passive observer.Today I am present, fully clothed and in my right mind. That's pretty good you know.

It's a good night

I have a huge sense of peace at this moment. I reached out to people and made a real connection. I chaired a meeting and I extended a kindness. I am at the point where I know it is ok to follow my instinct and if it seems at the time I am giving away something I might need, I know that more and better will come if my intention in right.

For all these people who looked at me , the people I had exhausted and who never thought that I would quit fighting long enough to find some happiness can rest easy. I have peace at this moment and that is something I always craved and never thought I would have. Now if I can relax and feel people loving me I will be the most successful man on the planet.

I know that something powerful has transformed me because I an change my mind today. I watched President Bush on Oprah and I was struck by his sincerity and he's truthfulness about his alcoholism and decisions he made that turned out not to be good ones. The measure of a person's integrity to me is when he speaks honestly and without "spin" on the subject of his life. I wouldn't vote for him at this point , but I am not eaten up with judgement for him anymore.

The fact that I can have a change of heart lets me know I am going in the right direction.

Responding To an Old Love

Someone I loved and hurt a long time ago was honest about his feeling this morning. I honor his right to feel however he needs to feel. This is my response and it was written with love and respond for an old love.

Clinton Rolen Gandy November 9 at 9:59am

It was a seriously fucked up time for sure. Damaged people damage other people whether they intend to do so or not. I'm not convinced I will ever be able to let someone really love me or really know me. I hope I don't leave the planet without experiencing that. I barely remember singing that song your talking about. I've had so many intrusive thoughts that have lived in my head since then. I absolutely handled everything wrong between you and I. The fact is I didn't have anything substantial to offer you. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you as a real live grownup since you have been in White Settlement. You can say anything to me if it pertains to you and your well being. I hope you have gotten to the place where you can forgive my thoughtlessness from 15 years ago. I think I am to the place where I have forgiven myself , mostly, on a good day, after a meeting, after I meal, I feel ok. lol I hope you will find the love of your life and I hope for your sake he isn't 22 years old. lol I have 4 friends who were all knocked on their asses by falling for young hotties with problems and I know I will use your collective experiences to turn away from the pretty troubled ones if they ever show up and if ever I think one of them is "special"

I think the singing is gone for good. I sang at an NA function when they had Karaoke. It just doesn't make the feel good hormones kick off anymore. I have other creative things that are far more fulfilling. But I am open to it, I am a work in progress and I have no idea what I will think is important tomorrow or next week or next year.

The drag thing was merely a costume that let a part of me act silly and be apart of the things I love with all my heart. Sequins, rhinestones, high hair and cute shoes. I was completely grossed out by the guy who wanted to have sex with me in drag. It wasn't about that for me at all. I thought it was just fun but I learned to be ok with several things about myself because of it. I never liked being tall, and If I had the choice I would be much smaller because that is what i think is sexy. But with tall hair, heels and my height I was 7 foot tall and a circus side show. It was fun because I not only was in on the joke, I instigated. it. Those days are gone for keeps too, although I did keep a pair of shoes as a memento.

In my grown up life I hope to be more fearless in explorer things that interest me, whether family and friends like it or not. I'm sure my mother will dislike what ever it is I try next.

I have a list, just for me of what did not work. I can't be so afraid to try something and fail because the failed attempts are just as important as the successful ones.

I'm in a place I never thought I would be. I have lot more contemplative thoughts that whims of fantasy. I'm closer now to being an interesting evolving human that I ever dreamed I could be. It's find to like someone and tell them they mean something to you. It's find to not like something someone said and let them know you have another opinion.

The best thing about being 43 is not being 23. I love becoming more myself and finding my own unique place in humanity.

I love you and I'm so sorry I hurt you. I wouldn't do that again today. I'd love to see someone love you like you want to be loved. I know that is important to you so its important to me. Your doing so well, I still can't believe how you got it all together from the time you were in the "House". I draw courage from that.

I do not know what the magic is in working some sort of program, but I know things happen for good when I am in a program. There is a life for me here on the planet that surpasses all my expectations and the only way I can get their is though NA. It is my own little passage to "india". I'm not question it, just trying to make it happen in all aspects of my life.

I love that you can be honest in these messages on the Facebook. I'll always want to know what you have going on in your head. I'm not afraid to stand here and love you. (or sit here as the case may be)

Frog stuff.

When i was in high school in Biology, they gave us silver tools that looked sort of like a pecan picker. We were instruct to push it into the base of the frogs neck and move it around, destroying its brain function while still allowing us to dissect it while it's heart and organs are function.

That is kind of like why I did downers and drank. There was some part of me that didn't mind getting involved with the world and activities , if I could allow my body and my business self to function and medicate the part that that gets bored, panics and gets overwhelmed.

I've heard people for years say I wish I had a twin that could go work for me, go to the dentist...etc. Any unpleasant or tedious activity would utilized the "double". I would take pills or get a buzz in order to show up to even pleasant functions. I have this over whelming desire to be present but not be "present" . It is indeed a fracture of spirit and psyche. I think I could be on to something because I have never figured that out before. I like to catch a buzz to enjoy things.Emotions and feelings no longer comes naturally for me, feeling them that is. All that stuff is still locked up inside me. Years and years ago I would to the theatre and watch Beaches and get wasted in the theatre. It felt so good to sob during that movie. It was a way to relieve some of the pressure. Any occasion like proms or other function I drank so I could feel like I was really there in High School. Sometimes I used not to feel, still other times it allowed me to get feelings out and be apart of them. They were altered feelings but getting them out helped .

I am very aware there is part of me that wouldn't mind scrambling the part of my brain that lets me feel pain and I would be like that frog from class. I would be breathing and my heart would beat but I couldn't feel that pain as a nervous 17 year old kid makes a hesitant incision. Me and the frog gloriously oblivious and death inches closer while we are on our backs and completely exposed tot the world.

The process of sticking that pin thing into the base of the frogs neck is called "Pithing" or to "pith". Funny how stuff sticks with you until you find a way to put it in the "act". Mr. Wilson's Bio class.