Born To...Be GRATEFUL

I feel so incredibly grateful at this moment for the people I have been privileged to know and have relationships with in my life today. I never knew the value of relationships: Friendship, Family, Partner (girlfriend/boyfriend, spouse), Co-Worker, Therapists/Professional, my Recovery Friends....and it goes on and on. 


I pushed people away from me in years past and I did this for a variety of reasons...I didn't want to be accountable or have to explain myself, I was far too embarrassed to be myself and have people discover who I really was. I felt like Sham, a phony and if I got close to people they could see that as well as my SHAME....it was like they would know I was raped and I would be labeled undesirable. I was so sure of this because I had ALREADY thought of MYSELF as undesirable...it was so incredibly SAD how much I disliked me! 


I felt like trash, dirty and I was equally convinced I was a (BORN) loser as well. Yet deep down I cared so much about people, I valued them, pulled for them...I really did and it made the SELFISH choices I made about my life so difficult because selfish WAS NOT who I really was supposed to be.


So I avoided people...I drank mostly alone for the last several years of my drinking because I drank to oblivion each and every night and that was too embarrassing to have to hold back or explain. 


I love my friends...the people who accept me as I am. It starts with K-Sue but hardly ends there. I just started realizing this morning HOW much those people truly mean to me!


Pic: Kathy Tomson