Do you know? Cause I don't know, you know?

“As for me, all that I know is that I know nothing.”

Socrates

I start with that today because I do not write these blogs to pretend I know anything at all. I am well aware of exactly how little I know most moments of any given day. I write these blogs to help me live in the truth of that statement a bit easier and in the hopes that someone will read them and say “me too”. There is no other reason than that, but that is reason enough today.

I have been waiting all week for an issue to be resolved with a man I have been seeing. Last night resolution came, although it was not the answer I hoped for or the way I hoped to get it, resolution was obtained.

The most amazing thing I learned this week was that after a year being sober I was able to let someone be who they are and show them love, even when I was not getting what I wanted. That is a gift of sobriety.  It is just too bad that someone wasn’t me.

All week long was full of thoughts that the way I was feeling was just wrong. I was shoulding all over myself. “I shouldn’t be sad, I should be grateful. I shouldn’t be so attached.  I shouldn’t want what I want” All of that shoulding just served to make me feel even worse. Not once did my berating help me in the situation, for the same reason it does not help if I do it to another person. People have no control over how they feel. Telling them they are wrong for having their feelings is like telling a person what they feel does not matter. Unfortunately (or fortunately. Depending how you look at it), those “people” include me, even with all my best efforts to the contrary. Walking around telling myself that I was wrong all week was like me telling myself I don’t matter. No wonder I was so uncomfortable.  I was hanging out with a jerk all week. (I say jerk in the most loving way possible. By jerk I mean very scared and misinformed ego. I will do a 4^th step and get an amends in ASAP! I promise)

 “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today……” I read that line often and give my best effort to apply it to others. I learned this week none of that matters if I don’t give it to myself. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I don’t know that to be fact, but I have faith that it is true. If I could choose to move “somewhere” further along in this process I would, but I can’t. So I must be where I am supposed to be.

Now being accepting of others is not all bad and is still a completely new idea to me. An extremely long emotional email was typed and nearly sent last night. However, faith won out over self-will and it was read to a friend and put in my journal instead. It was the kind of email that was full of all the feelings that pull at a man’s heart strings and make them think twice about what they are doing. Everything in it was 100% true and I feel every word of it. Everything in it was also 100% selfish, manipulative and completely self-serving. I would have been telling that beautiful soul of a man the way he felt was wrong, that his feelings did not matter, just as I had done to myself all week.  That  is not acceptable to do today.

So here I sit in my bed, typing away on my laptop, trusty cat at my side and my phone beeping every few moments with messages of love from the women in my life. My life is how it should be today and I am how I should be today. Today what that means is that I am a bit sad about what almost was and grateful for what is. I have a heart that is open enough to hold on and a mind that is open enough to learn to let go.

I mean I think that is where I am, but as I said before…. I really don’t know.