"Being Two"

A quick note about what I wrote on yesterday: everything's alright. As expected, my fears were just running rampant. Uncle Steve had the damn tv up so loud I couldn't hear myself think.

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I'm here at the evil workplace again, and while I do have some writing to do on that, I have something else on my mind. On Friday, I went to two birthday meetings. The first was my AA homegroup. I claimed my two years, got my chip, and was a little overwhelmed by it. Not so much to tears, but I definitely regressed to a bit of a childlike state as I declared in a little kid voice, "it says two!" When I'm done being embarrassed, I'll laugh at myself for that. It didn't last long, though, and for my brief share I talked about being a link in a chain now, how I can't do life without the help of the group, and how amazing it was to not be alone anymore. Talking to an old-timer afterwards, I mentioned how at some point I'll just accept that I'm sober now, but there's still a lot of shell-shocked happening inside. Still a lot of fear. These things pass in time.

I went to my Marijuana Anonymous meeting after and we had an incredible birthday night. Lots of people took chips. I got to stand by one of my sponsees as he got his one-year. I almost cried, giving it to him. I know that not every meeting does that, where the sponsor gives the chip, but I like that we do. I'm proud of him, and was proud to tell everyone so. For mine, I talked about never being cured and about how as time I get time, it feels less an less like something I did and more and more like something I allowed to happen.

I work a program of total sobriety. I don't have seperate dates for alcohol or pot (or shrooms or crystal meth). To me, any chip I get represents my time free of all substances, but I like having the two chips. The MA one is plastic and comes on a keychain. The AA chip is brass. Over the weekend, I drilled a hole in the top so I could put a chain through it and attach it to my keys, too.

They're sitting on my desk right now, facing me. The "II" of the AA and the "2 Years" of my MA and I feel like... I'm not sure. A sense of accomplishment, for sure. Some pride. A lot of gratitude. A slight sense of having 'made it'. The second year was tough. In some ways, much harder than the first. I feel like I learned more this past year, but the amount I've learned both years is so great, it's really tough to tell.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine around the time he turned three. We joked about how after the first year the old-timers told us that 'now it gets hard'. And he commented about how the third year was harder than the second. He laughed, saying that every time you pass a milestone, it gets even harder and wondered about when it actually got easier. I guessed that it isn't that it stops getting harder, you just get better at handling the fact that it does keep getting harder.

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Two is a big deal for me. Two is the age that I point to as an age that I stopped developing. It's the age that I locked in the idea that I had to be what someone else wanted me to be in order to be loved. It's the age that I bought in to the idea that I wasn't enough, just as I am. It's the age where I learned that I had to be a 'good little boy', that I had to be 'perfect'. Recovery has been a process of unlearning these things, among others.

I write in this blog about Lil' Joshua--my inner child--who is two. For me to be two now in my sobriety, I find myself with a sense of finally being able to move forward. To grow and develop as I should have been allowed to but wasn't. I know I've made great strides already, and this talk of being two is in some ways more metaphor than anything else, but in some ways it's not. Events in my personal life have shown me recently that the two-year-old inside is still two. I can still throw a tantrum, stomp my feet, and shout 'no' when I don't get my way.

There's still so much to learn. There's still bumps and kinks to be worked through and ironed out. There's still work to do, and there always will be. And in the meantime, life keeps happenning.

I don't know where the attitude of mine comes from, that life is a life-long process of learning. It doesn't really matter. I'm glad for the opportunity to keep learning. I've done some thinking here and there about what the meaning of it all is, about my purpose in life. I've prayed and asked God what my mission here on this Earth is, and the guidance I've received has been to be who I really am as I've been created. At least part of that is someone who wants to learn: about myself, about others, about the world around us.

Maybe there's a natural curiosity that goes with being two, and maybe its brightness will fade in time. I hope not. In the meantime, it's keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep doing the right thing. Let myself be guided. Be true to who I am, and serve God by honoring him as best I can each moment. And when Lil' Joshua shows up and tries to run things, don't beat him down, but let him know that he is loved.