You have a really good instinct for rhythm & rhyme - you have a whimsical playfulness in what you see and what you say. (In your posts above, too - you saw the chair in the mud and thought of a king, puzzling, out of place. You create playful incongruities naturally, smoothly, organically. Few people can do this. This is a strength for you: it helps other people to see the world in new ways, and to think and feel in new ways. It’s also fun - it’s a gift. You are like Louise Bourgeois.) When I read this I laughed with pleasure, with the pleasure of hearing song, and music - the music of words. It is a really good rhyme, but also poignant: I can see you, 6 years old, wishing you were something other than what you saw.
Wanting to not be what we are, is heartbreaking. So many of us in addiction wrestle with exactly this. We want to not be here, not feel what we feel, not sense what we sense, not be where we are.
I wonder if the sand ever aches to not be sand: “I’m too grainy.” Or if a iris is ashamed of its bloom: “I’m gangly, I’m floppy.” Or if a cat ever says, “My fur is ugly.”
I guess I’ll never know; I’ve tried to talk to my mother’s cats and all they do is cuddle up in my lap and purr. I could probably learn some lessons from them: they look so comfortable.
Earlier this month a group of us here on Talking Sober were reading a book together called Opening the Doors of Your Heart (by Ajahn Brahm). There were 8 or 9 of us who read it, and there were many stories in the book, and we had limited time to talk and had to choose just a few to discuss in our group. Nearly all of us in the group chose the first story: “Two bad bricks”. If you have a minute, read it yourself (at the link above): the story is the first in the book; it’s in the first chapter [Perfection and Guilt], on page 5. I think you’ll like it.
We are amazing creatures. We grow: it’s in our nature. We grow, like flowers, like trees, like grass, like animals. Growth is a process; learning is a process; it’s an ever-advancing process. We’re always becoming something. We’re amazing.
We are so many things. We are certainly imperfect. But it’s from that imperfection - that playful, creative incompleteness; that incongruity - that we create. And that is the most fully human thing of all.
You have a remarkable creative, visionary power Kubozoa. You see the potential in things; you create, you generate new truths, you take the mundane and make it marvellous:
Who you are, in mind and in body, is enough, right now. You are good enough. You are welcome, and appreciated, and treasured - always, no matter what. And more important than that: you are enough for yourself. You belong, exactly as you are, no fixing required. You’re allowed to feel uncertain, you’re allowed to feel incomplete. It’s ok. The feeling comes sometimes, and it will pass.
You are a good person, and you belong. You deserve a safe, sober life where you can be your full self.
So what’s on the agenda today?