Me Own Skin...

In a post written yesterday, I mention in the second to last paragraph that I am just now getting used  to being part of a "team", a partnership with K my significant other.  For the last 6 years I have gotten used to just being myself, learning to be me. To a certain extant, to survive as a "functional alcoholic", you become an actor of sorts...living out this lie that you have everything under control. When the reality is, you do not...everything is absolutely spinning out of control!


So after finding recovery, getting clean, changing many if not all of the major aspects of my behavior and lifestyle...I had to face the strange reality that I didn't truly have a clue who I really was. So I needed every  bit of that time before I committed to a relationship last May to learn to live on my own, get used to living in my own skin, to just be me, no pretending, acting or lying...just be real and be myself. And along the way I made a remarkable discovery: I actually got to find out who I truly was...for the very first time in my life. 


And I am learning this remarkable lesson, of who and what I really am...for the first time in my life...at nearly 50 YEARS OF AGE! Talk about feeling like a fish out of water sometimes! And I will be the first to admit...to borrow a line from the Grateful Dead Song "Truckin'": 'What a long strange trip it's been". To put it mildly!


But that is what is beautiful about this whole surrendering my life, admitting defeat and starting over by following a spiritual way of living: I am experiencing a complete re-birth in all aspects of my being: Physical, Emotional, Psychological and finally...ultimately Spiritual.  


Sure, there have been and will continue to be growing pains but frankly they don't really trouble me much...I've truly come to embrace living a new way. It's an over-simplification but what it really comes down to basically is living a life based on the positive over the negative...yes, in a way it's really Good verses Evil. 


And now, because I have slowly but surely embraced a whole new way of living, one that is NOT based entirely on SELF...I am in a position where I can share my life with another human being. I am ready (ready as I'll ever be, I suppose) to commit to a relationship fully. And though I was extremely nervous about that prospect at first (just ask Kim, she thought I'd never be ready to be in a relationship other then friends!) I have come to truly embrace it, to nurture, accept and grow with it.


And that has resulted in a changed life, a change so drastic and amazing that I never could have even imagined back in the dark days of just trying to hold life together while everything was in reality, falling completely apart. 


I know this is the part that makes a lot of folks cringe...and it made me cringe as well but it is my relationship with GOD that makes it all possible. My spiritual life, my connection to GOD is the glue that literally holds my life, all of it, every single aspect of it together. It is the only thing that completes me...it was the missing link in my life all along. 


And it is hard to explain exactly why that is but you just know it in your heart...and I did too. I knew it right away, from the moment I accepted the Lord as my Savior, committing my life to HIM and HIS Spirit filled me. Only then was I able to truly renounce the life lived "ONLY FOR SELF" that I had been living all those years. And that has made everything else going on with me today...including my relationship with Kim...possible. 


It's funny but my personal spirituality is still a difficult subject for me to discuss...even today. My fear, resentment, prejudice and yes, even hatred of Christianity was so deep seated, so ingrained in me that it literally took the prospect of DEATH to get me to give it a chance. Yep, it almost came down to the fact that I was willing to die rather then accept Christ...that is how sick I truly was.


But once the choice was made...my life got a whole lot simpler...NOT easier mind you but a lot less complex. I just followed God and the rest of the stuff has eventually worked itself out through persistence and living this brand new life of mine based on OTHERS and not SELF. I know... wouldn't have...I didn't, believe it myself....but the proof is in the puddin', as they say. For the first time EVER, I am comfortable living in "me own skin" as they say...and I really like being me...just ME.