Today's Thought
MONDAY , JULY 25, 2005
You are reading from the book Touchstones with modifications.
Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again. But this having been once, although only once, to have been of the earth, seems irrevocable.--Rainer Maria Rilke
In the hopelessness of addiction and codependency, and as children of addicts, some of us have considered suicide, and some of us have actually tried to physically kill ourselves. We have maintained the option as an escape in case life got too difficult. Others have left our real life by creating imaginary lives in the games and spending all of our time there. We say that is our "real" life now. We are gamers. Yet if the server is down or the internet is down, do we have a life left? Do we have a physical life we are a part of? Now, in recovery, we have chosen to spend time in and to cultivate our real life, so we have something we can physically see and touch. We've stopped killing ourselves in the slow ways of our old behaviors, yet some of us hold on to our ace in the hole. Either consciously or unconsciously, we haven't made that unconditional commitment to our real life.
It may be one firmer step into recovery - a vote for the life we have been given - to say, "I will never choose suicide - be it physically or mentally. Whatever comes my way, it is not an option for me." When we give up that final controlling maneuver, we may find ourselves freer to live in this one irretrievable life we've been given.
In choosing to be totally on the side of my real life, I step further into the care of God. Whatever I must meet, God is with me.
Liz Woolley