March 4, 2023
11:00am
It occurs to me that recovery is something like having a job in which you have to give a lot of public speaking presentations, at least for me. At first, each public presentation is excruciating and nerve-wracking, and you have to prepare extensively for each one. Awkwardness, anguish, anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of self-confidence are the normal and dominant experiences. Then, with time and practice, you begin to build your repertoire, which in turn builds your confidence and makes you more of an engaging, natural speaker. You learn more and more tricks, like how to read the room, how to identify and deliver key messages, and how to keep a good tempo. Your presentation content is more and more firmly embedded in your memory, and you can add new content without straining yourself. Many years later (and for me, 100+ presentations under my belt), you can be called upon suddenly to speak on almost anything in public, and you can rise to the occasion with grace and confidence, winning people over and getting the message across.
In terms of recovery, I’m still at the excruciatingly awkward and nerve-wracking stage. I have to put effort into each day to make sure I don’t crash and burn again. But I’m getting better at it with each day, with each awkward emotional episode, with each journal entry. Eventually I will be doing it more and more effortlessly, until finally I only really think about it now and then…that day is a ways off though.
10:27am
I just looked at my aura in the mirror. It’s still bright white with the tiniest hint of pale green. It feels like I’ve changed too much to continue to have a white aura, but maybe the core of me hasn’t really changed. That thought is comforting, because I hope it’s the same as before. The very innermost part of me is someone I really like.
9:14am
My mother loved to play the victim. Her dramas unfolded, sometimes lasting months or years, never really resolving. The drama that ultimately took her life was very real, but most of her other melodramas were of her own creation. She claimed she hated drama and that these were just “God’s mysterious plans”, but I knew better. Deep down she didn’t really want the problem to go away, she wanted people to pity her as the victim of cruel circumstance or cruel people. I’m like her in a lot of ways, but that is not one of them. I have problems (well let’s be real, a problem), and I do enjoy a sympathetic word, look, or hug, but I am willing to put my head down and do the work to STFP (Solve The Fucking Problem). My mother never once did a thing to STFP…they were her problems to complain about, and everyone else’s to fix or deal with. I am related to my mother…I am not my mother. I STFP.
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