My list of resentments currently contains 24 names. Jeepers. I am wandering the world carrying ongoing anger at 24 human beings?! I had no idea. I am too nice to be that angry, after all. (Ahem.)
The most challenging discovery of the weekend, though, is that of all the people who've harmed me in ways real or perceived, the greatest offender is me.
Say what?
Yeah. It's me. Nobody else on the list has put me through even a tiny fraction of what I've inflicted on myself through my own choices and actions and inaction. I report this not by way of being harsh with myself. I get where I've been coming from, believe me. But no amount of empathy can erase the painful truth that I've done far more damage to myself than even my alcoholic dad or my boundaryless mom or that asshole in New York or that other asshole in New York.
I'm not particularly interested in berating myself at length over this realization. I'm sad about it, and I've been letting that feeling run its course. I'm angry at myself as well. But I'm mainly interested in changing.
It seems to me that something significant within me has shifted already, a process that began when I decided to choose sobriety over a slow-but-escapist death by alcohol. I began to feel like a friend to myself then, which sounds incredibly cheesy but is nevertheless true. I look back on choices I made many years ago, one year ago, six months ago, and I can't fathom the motivations or the reasoning behind them. They seem like the work of a different person. I guess they are.
There's plenty more to say about this, but it's past my bedtime and the brain is shutting down. More to come.
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