 |
| Image credit: Photo by monsieurlam on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here. Why, oh why didn't I take the blue pill?
~Cypher, in The Matrix
I feel good about my recovery work and good about the way my life is. I've come to accept that life doesn't work the way I thought it did and that my marriage wasn't what I thought it was. I've come to understand that happiness comes from my own mind, not from working endlessly (and without error) to ensure that everything in my life remains in a constant state of perfection. And that's so freeing. I've found a relationship to my Higher Power, that (when I can tap into it) brings me a peace and serenity and freedom from fear like nothing I've ever known.
But sometimes, I still miss the life I never had. I think of that scene in The Matrix where Cypher is so sick of eating real life gruel that he'll turn in his friends for a chance to eat imaginary steak again. I know the steak I miss doesn't really exist, and yet sometimes I long for it anyway.
Sometimes I want to fix other people's problems by bossing them. I want to live in that belief that I'm smarter and better than they are because I have their lives all figured out for them, and I would be able to follow through where they can't.
Sometimes I want to slide into that land where everyone who loves me acts in my self-interest to the detriment of their own, because that's what love is: everyone else putting me first.
Sometimes I want a lie detecting superpower that would let me know in absolute terms who I could trust and who I couldn't.
Sometimes I want to dive into that lottery fantasy where I own my own island and swim in pools of hundred dollar bills and all that wealth insulates me from every having to deal with anyone or anything disagreeable anymore, so my life is perfect.
Sometimes I want to work hard enough and do well enough that I can quit, retire, stop having to be in recovery and just be a shining angel of white light.
And sometimes all I need to do is admit all that and know that I would choose, still do choose, to be where I am today, in the real world.
This post was originally published at The Second Road.
2 comments: