Sunday, March 20, 2016

We Really ARE Interesting People

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
We've all felt this. We're different, we parents of children who have succumbed to the disease of addiction. We have a different perspective on life, on living, on making that commitment each day to crawl out of bed and show up for life.

Some things are more important to us than they seem to other people, some less so. We've learned to ignore A LOT that might lead us on meaningless diversions away from our recovery pathways. We're focused on living. We no longer obsess over the argument, the negative, the sad, the pathetic. We have begun to pull away from the black-hole vortex of our children's addiction.

In the midst of it all we have come to appreciate our new and elevated role in the world, in the universe. We have lives to lead, passions to nourish and new friends to embrace. We do this even as our babies struggle.

We do all this because we feel we must. We feel compelled to strive, to seek out our individualities, our greatnesses.
Live or die. To be or not to be in its fullest sense, becomes the question.
And one day as we became more self aware we began to separate our children from The Addiction that had taken them from us. We chose a life separate from the controlling, fixing and curing parents we had become. In the process we began to discover our uniqueness stepping outside of what had been ourselves to discover who we really are, not what society had pigeonholed us into.

As this transition occurs we begin to feel, strange. It's OK. Different can feel strange at first. Our family, friends, coworkers and even our children who brought us to our journeys  - alright, especially these children - see the change in us and perceive the change as strange, foreign and threatening. We are shattering the status quo, the expected, the safe, the known.

Strange is not really the word, We can refer to our new outlook on life, our prospects and future as ... Interesting.
Interesting | adj. | attracting your attention and making you want to learn more about something or to be involved in something; not dull or boring
- Merriam-Webster On-Line Dictionary

We are definitely not dull or boring. Human beings who have suffered, then prevailed as thrivers from our children's dive into addiction are never boring. We've emerged. No longer hiding we're striving, seeking and seeing our possibilities.

Interesting people are attractive in a true, real sense, an attraction not based on physicality but on that something difficult to define. We are deeply involved with life, and with our lives, yet we are not self absorbed.

There is something then, different about us. In transcending our struggles and recent battles which have moved us along our recovery pathways we are a force to be noticed. Those who know of our struggles may see these changes as odd, selfish or inspiring. Those we meet, unaware of our history, may be attracted to our nuanced differentness. Our families watch, learn (hopefully - this is up to them), and find comfort in our changed demeanor, outlook on life and lust for life's experiences. We are becoming who we are meant to be.

Imagine that.

NO, REALLY! Imagine that, and it might just come true.

Our children who brought us to this journey, our Great Creator's great gift, see us too, changed, metamorphosed, alive.

Oh they'll be pissed at first to be sure as they witness their former rag-doll parents embracing a fulfilled existence. The anger we sense is The Addiction's rebellion, negativity and bitterness spewed through our children's mind, body and spirit. The Addiction will fight this, our truth, our REAL.

This can be exhausting for us and our children. One day they may see the folly of the vortex into which they have plunged. One day, as we once declared, they may say, "Enough!"
"I can't live like this anymore!"
Or perhaps they won't. We must remember it is their journey.

Through it all what we CAN do is remain steadfast. Through it all we must trust the pathway we have chosen and the spectacular journey we have been blessed with.

Through it all we must love our children as we follow the many possibilities the Universe has laid out for us.  All we need do is simply allow ourselves the courage to reach out and embrace the moments.

And, through it all, we must always remain ... interesting.

"Alas for those who never sing, But die with all their music in them," ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Everyone has a secret achievement inside. Happy are those who have the audacity to pull it off. " ~ Patrick Benjamin 

 ... keep coming back