I Smile!

I am grateful for the life I have today. I probably shouldn't have gotten another opportunity at this life, yet I did and I couldn't be happier. In my quest to tell the story of a life in recovery, a day to day story of my life I can often lean towards stark, descriptive, heavy, no BS statements about what has happened in life and how I feel now. And overall those descriptions are accurate and I believe for this blog to fulfill it's goal, necessary.

Unfortunately another important element of TRUTH gets lost in the translation sometimes when I focus on the difficult, challenging areas of life, past, present and off into the future. That is the JOY and LOVE I experience and feel every day. I know this often doesn't come through but I have a good life, I am happy and content and truly feel the blessings my Creator has bestowed on me.

I am guilty of letting my current illness and state of mind hijack my true day to day reality. My friends here in the area recognize some of what they see in the blog and it's recent posts. Sure, they can see the illness, they know I suffer sometimes. But what is missing from the picture I have painted here on Shell Shock of late is the laughter, the goofy banter & light-hearted exchanges with friends, the smiles and hugs that are a regular part of my life today.

Thats a shame and I need to do a better job of representing the true nature of what I am experiencing without leaning too hard on the negative side. Sure it's my reality too but I live a life that even though I am sick, I hurt, I get discouraged, etc. I also at the same time have a lot of fun. I laugh a lot for I believe that laughter is a critical element in our lives. It has such a powerful, healing impact on people.

It would be sad if a new reader to Shell Shock would walk away with the impression that this is sad, all he does is hurt, feeling poorly and get down...what a miserable life. That would really be unfortunate because it is far from my true reality which is:

Though life can be difficult and challenging at times, you can still have a happy active life as you deal with the problems that arise and stay focused on the things that matter: God, honesty, service to others among other things. Staying sober and the life I have because I've made some difficult changes to how I operate, basically I do my best every day to recognize that I can't do it alone. Which is actually not a problem at all because:

I don't need to today!