The darkness is a tricky opponent.  It can get me in the most seductive of ways…lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride.  The 7 deadly sins, Christian in their origins, but relevant even so and much bigger than religion.  They have long been the downfall of humanity, yet their power lies solely in a refusal to look at them (seems a simple fix then, no?).  My ego will have me shaking my finger at the darkness outside of me while desperately trying to look anywhere but at itself (inside of me).  Willful blindness is just the ego’s attempt at protecting itself from pain because it’s so scared, so fragile…like a little kid.  It really just needs a hug.  It would never tell you that though. 

And like a small child, the ego needs attention, love, nurturing.  What happens to an abandoned child that grows into an adult that abandons themselves in turn? What happens to an ego run amok?

The dark in me is ‘bad’ only in my denial of it.  Pain hurts for a reason.  Something needs attention.  The longer it goes unseen, the deeper the pain grows.  Like AA (and Eckhart Tolle and Betsy and others) taught me, I need only to stop fighting, stop resisting.  It initially requires inaction.  Interesting, huh?  Inaction goes against everything we’re taught.  It only feels so big and scary because we’re not used to purposefully sitting with ourselves.  We do anything to avoid that…TV, phones, drugs, alcohol, sex, food, etc.  It’s a treadmill.  You can’t run from something that IS a part of you, but we sure can try.  Many spend their entire lifetimes doing just that while shining a false light (quite possibly the most dangerous example of light). 

The true light is a wise ally.  It resonates deeply in us in the clearest ways…self-restraint, generosity, temperance, kindness, gentleness, humility, diligence…the 7 heavenly virtues.  And even when I tried to destroy myself running from the dark, the true light was there still.  The real Me, the Good in me, of course, knows that anything real is very much not fragile, but long-lasting…eternal.  It’s got nothing but time.  The light is in no rush nor is it motivated to force itself upon anyone.  It doesn’t mind if I curse it and push it away a million times.  It was there whenever I was ready and held no expiration date.  No one is special in this, and everyone is special in this.  It’s here for all.  There are billions of potentials out there!  And it’s not relatively true, but absolutely.

The light was always in and around me, there were just some things blocking it.

The world changes for the better every time someone wakes up to this.  History’s great one’s have been trying to tell us for millenniums now…

“The splendor of the sun, which dissipates the darkness of this whole world, comes from Me. And the splendor of the moon and the splendor of the fire are also from Me,” Bhagavad-Gita 15.12.

“The first and greatest victory is to conquer self,” Plato.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it,” John 1:5.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world,” Mahatma Ghandi.  

You be the change (I believe in you).

~

Addiction too is a cunning foe…

I was increasingly concerned about this man, my man at the time.  I talked to him about it numerous times with great care.  I know what happens to people like us when we get away from what we’re supposed to do.  It’s not pretty. 

He was working anywhere from 12 up to 24 hours a day sometimes.  He tried briefly to find other meetings and another sponsor to connect to, but it was ultimately to no avail.  The only person from AA that he was talking to other than me was his ‘AA’ sponsor who wasn’t even going to AA.  Of course, the ‘sponsor’ told “him” all the bullshit his ego wanted to hear because they were both doing the same thing…not holding each other accountable. Not telling each other the truth.

(I can’t stress enough how upsetting and how dangerous this is to those of us with deadly afflictions. It is a responsibility to help another.  What if Betsy would have told me, “It’s ok.  You don’t have to go to meetings anymore.  You don’t have to help people.  You’re too busy building a life that ‘looks’ good on the outside.  It’s fine.  You’re doing a great job.”  Never.  I have nothing without my sobriety, without my true path.  It has to be the most important thing in my life.  In fact, what I have heard from her that echoes in my mind and saves me to this day, “Tough shit.  Nobody ever died from lack of sleep.  Get to a meeting.”)    

There’s no nice way to explain to you the way it went bad, so I’ll just have to tell you plainly.  I guess I did anticipate that as I dedicated a whole chapter to the good things (found here), and I do believe in fairness.  This is fair.  It’s the truth.  Here are the ‘bad’ things…

It would unfold over a few months…end of spring into summer.  My favorite months tainted probably forever by the events to come that year.

I imagine the unfolding the way that a bag of popcorn pops…one kernel here, one there at first.  Then all at once for a bit until there are no more left to pop.  It’s quite violent, I imagine, from the seed’s perspective…the explosions…but without it, no popcorn. 

“A certain darkness is needed to see the stars,” Osho.

It would be really bad and then really good again, then bad then good, on and on for months…much like the roller coaster.  Much like ‘before.’

First it was the younger woman from school.  Then my daughter and I went to his house one night for dinner.  He was sitting on the couch on his phone.  I was so excited to see him after weeks of not seeing him, but he didn’t get up to let us in or greet us.  He kept looking at his phone. 

The voice in my head was getting louder…Your daughter is watching.  Your daughter is watching!  I would hope that the man she loved someday would care to make her feel loved in return. 

Next, we were hanging out at his house one day.  He was on his phone and came across something apparently quite amusing.  Mind you, I’m normally quick to laughter and not that easily offended, but what he showed me was a meme of a grown man hitting on a young girl.  Really?  After what we had just gone through?  That’s comical to you?

I remember my thought in that moment escaping my lips, “Why wouldn’t God give you a daughter?”  Of all people, in my mind, this man could’ve used one…maybe then he could see that that “joke” is a very real and very frightening depiction of life with a daughter, and therefore, not fucking funny.  Not to me anyway.

(I don’t have many fears left, but a de-sensitized human is one of them.)

Then there was the time we were on the phone, and he started laughing hysterically.  He was outside and a trash truck actually stopped and reversed back to a driveway to honk at a woman checking her mail.  Objectifying women was hilarious now too?  Got it.

I’ve met this man before.  I don’t like him…not even a little.

The way that “he” viewed women was disturbing.  Maybe if I were a woman of the Stone Ages, I would find it endearing, but I’m not.  “Me, big strong caveman. Weaker humans with vaginas must need me.”

The wounds of his childhood were back with a vengeance…later there was the younger woman from work who was very motherly and nurturing.  Oh, and the other younger one who was like a little sister (and all the one’s I didn’t find out about until the final day.) The ex would be next.  My intuition told me so.

If you’re going to be a boo’d up caveman in this day and age, you better have sharpened your tools of discernment and boundaries.  Not all weaker people with vaginas care that you’re in a relationship or care about you.

And so…I’m left with this over-exhausted shell of a man that’s not going to meetings, not looking in the mirror, aiming entirely at professional growth, AND seeking outside validation from other women?

A lost boy once again. 

Darkness seemingly won that round for each of us. The longer I stayed, the tighter the shackles.

While it is well within my purpose to love at all costs, it is not ever to go backwards…never to dim my own light beneath another’s darkness.  A person acting from a place of love, would not ask that anyway. 

I loved him from the depths, but it wouldn’t matter (life’s tragedy).  It mattered only that he chose himself in that way.

It matters always that I choose me.   

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