From the Archive: The Humbling Act of Revisiting
Fighting the urge to run and never look back
Every Sunday creativity hits me. Most Sunday’s I find myself opening up Substack and writing. All of those Sunday’s I start a draft, write a bit of something, get hungry, eat, and loose my inspiration or get distracted or balance my checkbook or any of the million things that need to get done on Sundays that make the rest of the week more managable.
I’ve known that a time will come where I will want to finish all the drafts that I have started. I knew a future version of me would want to tie up loose ends, to stop creating new ones. I didn’t know when I would do it, but I guess the time is now. So in comes a series where at the top I will write what is applicable in the present day and send or finish my previously unfinished work.
I’m not committing to a schedule of posting, that’s lame, inhumane, and utterly uncool. And since I’m the coolest(hahah), I am committing to whatever schedule maintains my sense of self. Taming creativity in a regimented way like that feels grossly American to me at this point. My creativity is not a commodity, it is a living, breathing organism that gets to express itself however it wants. I don’t plan to pretend to know how it works or force it to work, that’s on God.
This was one of the first drafts on my list, and it feels fitting. All I had was the title and the subtext, no body. So I think this will be an interesting idea to play with, in this context.
4/19/2023
The Humbling Act of Revisiting: Fighting the urge to run and never look back
12/1/2024
Looking back? Who wants that? Especially if you’re someone, like me, who took a period of time to process old shit. What’s the use of re-remembering things I worked through?
I just spent years, dude, YEARS. Processing all my bullshit. All the partners, personalities, jobs, compulsive behaviors, family shit, sexual trauma, and all the gaslighting I used on myself that convinced me that I was okay. Until I really wasn’t. I wouldn’t say that I even had a particularly bad time of it. In fact, I do feel lucky that things didn’t get REALLY BAD because I know they could have. I’m thankful every day that all I have to bear are emotional scars, financial ruin, a few std’s, and an isolative nature. I’m grateful I didn’t hurt anyone really badly because of my disfunction. It’s unfortunate that I mostly hurt myself and that is a lifelong habit that must be retrained.
I’ve deconstructed all of these things, used a fine toothed comb and you mean to tell me that I have to continually sweep this shit up!? It’s annoying and tedious. I don’t want to do it, I did the bulk of the work…can’t that be enough?
This is the stage in recovery, the 10th step if you’re familiar, where I struggle most. I’m good at unearthing, I’m good at disregulation(I lived there for 30 years I better be good at it), I’m good at bringing myself back to center. But here. This is where the triggers loose their charge. In a daily practice of holding myself accountable to myself. As my living amends to me.
Even if you’re not in recovery most people know about the amends step. In tv and movies, it’s the one that is most publicized. Because it’s the only step that is public facing. All the other steps are anonymous, internal. The living amends is what we do daily to keep ourselves good with ourselves and our higher power, and by extension others.
I meet myself here. I want to process, move on, never look back. What a beautiful intention. It’s not realistic. I am going to get triggered. I am going to need to revisit books I once closed because I forgot the plot.
I got triggered in a big way a few weeks ago. Something that would have taken me out for weeks, took one day of feeling and one day of building a game plan. The benefit of healing and looking at your shit is you can tell the future. I lived a whole life of being triggered so I know what I do when it happens. I can see the future through those behaviors, I don’t want to have to deal with the same fucking shame spiral of binge eating for a week because an unexpected life occurrenc
e. I want to live my life.
And that’s what living life looks like. Being the ball of the pendulum, steady and present no matter what direction it’s headed. In fact wanting to run away from my past will probably cause a whole slew of other shit to pop off for me. Because if I’m running, I’ll certainly be blind to when the pendulum swings the other way. And that’s how shit stacks up.
So yes it bothers me that I have to be reminded of my shortcomings regularly, but I’ve realized it’s how I receive the information that is most important to me. I’m assuming back in April of ‘23 I didn’t know how to receive myself. I didn’t know how to let myself be revealed. I was so hurt by how I treated myself as a result of the processing that I didn’t want to turn back, ever.
No body talks about that by the way! The hardest part of looking at oneself honestly is what we do to ourselves as a result of seeing this new information. Me, I used to say the most vile things to myself. Things I wouldn’t say about anyone else. That’s how I knew I had low self esteem. I had suicidal ideation because I wasn’t able to hold the weight of seeing myself honestly. Processing is a bitch, the situation that happened is literally the smallest part of it. The domino effect of behaviors in the wake of the situation are the largest part.
Now, I try to receive myself with grace. Some might use the term re-parenting here. Whatever you want to call it, I’m here to say we deserve honor, respect, and love. In all relationships, most importantly the one with ourselves. We deserve to not be scared of what we’ve done, who we are, or how we express ourselves.
We deserve to be reminded of our past, so we know how far we’ve come. There’s big big beauty in that. If you choose, you can be reminded of your past in a way that is supportive to you rather than destructive. It takes a lot of change, and things you never thought were possible for yourself. I know you can do it, because I did.
Thank you, you mean more to me than you know -
Alex