Memories Are A Funny Thing #204

Each dreaded “f” moment has a life of it’s own and the experience of feeling our way through their darkness seems impossible not just because of those messy episodes but also from our stories becoming something other than what we thought would be. Our imagination will twist and turn through each event as it envisions what should have been while our hearts will feel any resulting doubt, pain and fear as a confirmation of our failure or someone else’s for that matter. One of the particulars that kept me repeating cycles with Ryan were my recollections of who he had been as well as who I envisioned he would be. There was real truth in those thoughts but they were also a limited field of view made up of my facts and opinions that left out not just some of the details that he held but also the consideration of their impact within him. Those types of perceptions provide us with a desired comfortableness as well as a some sense of security but when things don’t go as planned, because that’s life, those ideas keep us walking in circles. In other words, it is far easier for us to continually look back at what we wanted then it is to adjust and look both ways in order to find the possibilities of today that are hidden in what has now become a part of the journey. As Ryan and I passed that way again and again during his years of substance use, I repeated the same exact limiting thought with every step, that this time he would perceive of what I saw and do as I say, despite “the again” actually being the illumination of what still needed to be seen and heard. Obviously my reminiscing of him was the hope that my view would remind him of who I believed he was but in a different truth it wasn’t the acceptance of the all of him that was before me and being in that safe place of mine was helping to prevent us from finding the uncomfortable position of understanding where change actually begins. Memories are a funny thing because they can require boxes of tissues as they make us laugh until our stomachs hurt but they also have the strength to immobilize us by limiting our view or by creating doubt about ourselves and others or anything that we thought we had safely perceived of. After all, trust, fondness, kindness and showing up are easy to believe in when looking at flowers but in the darkness their actual strengths and possibilities can only be found in the place that no one aspires to be in; also known as the weeds. This is me and I am a “f” moment maker. My memories are a funny thing because there are times when I thought I was being fabulous but the opinion or perhaps even the fact was that I was bringing hell but if I look both ways, I am also a sometime warrior who just happens to fall down along the way. When that happens I have learned to sit with myself and to lean in to hear and feel what needs to be so that I can eventually get up. It’s good to be home in the place that needs me most because the particulars of safety and love begin with my showing up for and accepting all of me especially in my dreaded “f” moments. Can you imagine, then, how Ryan’s substance use helped me to see that I needed that for myself? Or how the memory of my trying to hand Ryan his value when my own wasn’t clear has the ability to make me laugh today even though it held grief in the yesterdays? Oh hell, it’s easy to think that addiction is about just one thing or even just the addict when it is really defined by so many details that are often unseen like memories and those personal emotional definitions as well as fear and pain illuminated in different types of “flipping out” or even by what we believe safety and love mean. So when thinking of you, are your memories a funny thing too? Is it possible for you to laugh, at least every so often, at what use to hurt because you are all right with all of you? Have the best day possible for you and as you pass this way again, do so with the knowledge that falls are the place that superpowers are illuminated and you have to look both ways to see them but if today just isn’t the day, then perhaps you can safely view them in the next go round. Love Always, Heavell