When Overly Frank adopted olderly Ryza from PAWS Chicago earlier this month, the cuddly interaction between Oklahoma expat and 11-year-old feline made me realize how much I’d been taking my own lifelong companion for granted. His life, that is.
I sat there and felt like I was a cartoon character and he was an unhappy artist with a big, fat eraser, just rubbing me out, swipe by swipe. It’s one thing to think you’re only up against up against your own demons. It’s something else entirely to be told by the guy you loved that he’s made a decision to be alone for good.
One step, two step, 12-step. I can grouse and complain, but denial will get me nowhere, especially when the river I’m walking across is in Chicago. Over the Wabash Bridge I go to my coffee-office this morning, mulling what room I’ll be sitting in later this afternoon, and why.
Ever feel like life is walking you around in circles? Yeah, me too, especially lately. Then again, maybe it’s just me who keeps walking around in circles. Here’s a video demonstration of exactly what I mean…
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.
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. But I give myself permission to write my own words.
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. Such is the story of my life–the life of a codependent.
Sometimes a bad day is not always a bad day. Now in the homestretch of my Hogtown life, today I started applying a new perspective to my life here, and to my future life in New York City. It was a day balanced on the funny line between joyously happy and absolutely not.
I get by with a little help from my friends. Wednesday night, sitting with my fellow GLYNY alums, Peter and Barbara, at the bar at Philip Marie in the West Village, I felt the truth of that. The restaurant is catering our GLYNY 20-year reunion event in November. We had come to check out the rumored-legendary fried green tomatoes. It was the first meal I enjoyed from beginning to end since the breakup.
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, D.C., tucked in the back of a Thai restaurant in Adams-Morgan, I called my friend, Tom. As we talked through my noodles, I realized how much I’ve never gotten over my pretty turbulent childhood. Oh, hell.