LOVE MONTH: DAY 30:
“Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,
“You owe me.”
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.” ― Hafiz
This quote has been on my desktop for a long time. It makes me so happy. This is the kind of love that I have longed for since I was a little girl. Free of guilt and recrimination.
I remember the constant refrain of my mother when I was a child. That if it weren’t for her children, she could be happy and free. We were adopted, she had worked really hard (1950s) to get us. And then to give us that kind of guilt and shame for a lifetime? This was only one of her more subtle forms of abuse. That she had taken on a responsibility and then wanted out of it? Like it was OUR idea? Trust me, I would have been happy to leave and go live with anyone. The life we had with her was so full of abandonment, neglect and abuse that there was little that could have been more severe. But THAT was so mean and nasty.
I always believed I had to pay my way in all areas of life. I am still pretty insistent upon this. I don’t want to “owe” anyone for anything. It is really a big part of my mentality. I am determined to never be “beholding” for what I receive.
And, here, we see the gift of the Sun to the Earth, recognizing its beauty and grace, without guilt or recrimination. THAT fills my heart and spirit with the kind of love I always wanted from life. What? You want only for me to be happy? That seems kind of unnatural to me. I understand the darker side of the hooks and manipulation of dysfunction and all that.
I was so highly suspect of what you people (AA/NA) wanted from me when I got here. One of the ways I attempted to make sure you would let me stay was to get all involved in service. My first service job was to wash ashtrays on Saturday night after a big speaker meeting in the place where I went. UGH! This meeting had about 300 people and they ALL smoked! So there were, literally, hundreds of those nasty metal ashtrays to wash…and those things stink! So I smelled like a wet metal ashtray by the time I was done, and everyone else was already at coffee at the restaurant, so I always felt like Cinderella, but I did those damned ashtrays for over a year. Hahaha…how our sponsors rope us into those jobs is brilliant!
Today I am proud of that. I am proud of fulfilling a commitment that kept me a part of the service structure of that meeting. I loved that meeting more than most because of that.
Today I understand that my success in recovery is a gift from the same Universe that gave the Sun to the Earth, and vice-versa. We are all standing in Grace. There is nothing I have to do to continue to receive that. However, I do know that it is best when I remain grateful for love and return whatever I can to that Source so that I can live with it as best I can. Otherwise, as we have all seen, I end up throwing it back and saying…”Nah! I got this!”
