CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: “I know a new sense of belonging. The feeling of emptiness and lonliness will disappear…”)

Dear John C.,

We missed you on Tuesday night. When I got to the meeting, right on time at 7:30, no one was there. I thought I would have seen your new car in the parking lot. Last week you were proudly showing it off. A rolling paradise of air conditioning and lumbar support, you said it was evidence of the care you were finally able to give yourself. Even I congratulated you.

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(Photo: Sometimes you’re the boyfriend; sometimes you’re the giant, man-eating squid. Credit: Vulcania Submarine.)

Here’s a tidbit you’ll never hear on Oprah: a spiritual awakening can be the biggest pain in the ass. Especially for attention-hungry, emotionally grasping, codependently needy bloggers like me. Because when you get right down to it, enlightenment doesn’t equal recovery.

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(Photo: Talk to the hand or take the green light in the middle? No one to choose but you.)

Some people don’t like hearing about recovery–mine or anyone else’s. To others, stories of recovery are helpful tools on their own journeys to healing. I’ve heard both opinions regarding my recovery blogging here on Carless. The solution? Self select. Read or not as you are so inclined. If you find my story has meaning for your personal recovery journey, then my putting this out there is worth the discomfort of less understanding souls. I give myself permission to write my own words.

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Letting go is difficult when you don’t want to do it. It’s when you want to but can’t that you really get into trouble. Madness can set in, turn you into the emotional equivalent of a launderer obsessed with an inexplicably persistent stain. You’ll scrub until the cloth before you falls apart, yet, to your own amazement, witness the stain remain. You may, in turn, scrub away at other stains on other quickly disintegrating garments. Never able to rid yourself of the stain. Never knowing why. Never witnessing your pattern.

Such is the story of my life.

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(Photo: Memo to self, must gather nuts, must gather nuts…)

Over a plate of drunken noodles is a very strange place to have an epiphany. But yesterday was no ordinary day, so I didn’t argue. In Washington, tucked in the back of a Thai restaurant in Adams-Morgan, I called my friend, Tom. As I watched the drunken noodles slowly disappear, I confided in Tom about my past. We talked about a childhood spent on Welfare in a working-class neighborhood of Queens, raised by a single mom and warring older siblings, running on poverty, worried how long the wait would be until the next money would arrive. Or meal. Or measure of love. And terrified the wait would be lengthy.

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