May 27

INTEGRITY MONTH: DAY 27: “We should not allow our personal values to erode, even if others think we are peculiar.” ― James E. Faust

And how nice it is to know that I am quite happy being peculiar. Even nicer to know today what my values actually are! It was a long time that I did not know what I valued, other than more drugs and more booze. I was pretty sure I was still that hippie girl, wanting peace and love, but did not have those anywhere evident in my daily life. Now they are. Along with so many other values. For a while in early days of recovery, I was only able to articulate the principles of 12-step recovery. Now there are quite a few values I hold dear to me, and they are truly MINE. While all of the principles are things I resonate with, not all of those that others identify do. So I am happy with who I have become in this life. It is an amazing thing to be able to say that I can easily and comfortably embrace the idea of dying. It used to be a valid way of getting out of the confusion and pain of life. Today it is because I am so at peace with everything in my life. There is nothing I feel compelled to do or be or see or say or participate in. That is such a big shift from the woman who could not stand to go to sleep because I knew that I was going to miss out on something going on somewhere. And I love being peculiar. While I know that each of us is an original edition, I embrace my originality and specialness. The people I most respect and admire in this world were those who were able to sit comfortably with their unique take on life and their ability to fly in the face of popular opinion. Not solely for the sake of being different or peculiar, but for the sake of singing the song they were here to sing or dancing the dance their feet kept going to. We all have that ‘something’ in us that is here to be done or said or written or experienced. So few ever get the chance to do that. When I have worked with dying people, they have NEVER expressed the desire to have worked harder or more, made more money, done more with their careers…BUT they have ALWAYS expressed a desire to have done something they felt called to do and did not because of social or familial or financial pressures to conform. This is heartbreaking! Many of us would love to have traveled more often in our lives, that is not a calling of our souls. But those of us who have not written the book or play or poem or painted the pictures or loved the person who we walked away from for whatever reason, or never gave ourselves the chance to do or express an important thought, idea or series of the two…these are the heartbreaking situations where we were not present to our own hearts and souls. This is irreversible and should not happen, but it does. We always regret not loving enough or long enough or deeply enough, or not telling someone enough. We also regret those chances NOT taken, those opportunities we were too frightened to explore; those times when we listened to the voice of reason or someone who told us know when our hearts were singing “YES!” These things we regret…and I, for one, have no regrets. I am able to say that there are so many things I would like to do, but all the big ones are done…this is amazing! I am richly blessed and fortunate indeed. When I was young and hitchhiking around the country, I met so many people who were envious of my freedoms. They told me (often) how much they wished they had done the same thing when they were young enough to dare. I heard that and kept doing it until my hippie-gypsy soul had an urge to settle down, only that has never lasted very long for me. I feel called to go somewhere else, then somewhere else. This is why I have lived in 77 homes and had 90 jobs in quite a few different states and cities. This really looks bad on resumes or any other time folks want to judge me, based on the idea of permanence or stability…hahaha!