Decluttered, but not declawed.

"People asking questions, lost in confusion
Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry
I'm just sitting here doing time"

Been a long time since my last entry.  At that time I mostly reviewed what had changed in 6 months of making a commitment to personal growth, although the word recovery would be interchangeable I reckon.  Hey, let's talk about that for a second.

Recovery....hmm what am I recovering from?
I am recovering from all the damage that had been done from being unwilling to accept and move through painful situations, from being unable to accept reality when the facts were not beneficial to me, from trying to control things situations and people I had no control over when I could not accept the reality.

Emptying the Box
The thing is, you can't really escape pain whether you're willing to accept it or not.  You can try, but it only makes it worse.  And what's more, when you begin to avoid (which is what eventually happens when you refuse to accept it for long enough), there's fear that develops which magnifies the problem, makes it seem bigger than it really is.

I had all this stuff I was avoiding and rather than look at the individual things, I was just shoving it all into a box called "try not to think about it".  And since I had been working diligently at forgetting what was in the box, I started to fear it, that at some point it would come open and spill out, destroying my life.

The box is mostly empty now.  Once I opened the box and realized it wasn't as bad as I thought.  I set about clearing all the crap out and it kind of developed a momentum of it's own.  It was quite a lot of work, going through a lifetime's worth of accumulated possessions and beliefs, taking stock, dumping it all out in front of me, deciding what to keep, what to sell, what to donate, what to discard.  Then taking what was left, reorganizing, rebooting daily life in a new configuration.

I've gotten rid of most of my possessions.  I'm renting a room now, don't even have my own place.  Sounds weird, but the math said it was the smart thing to do for at least a year.  One thing that's nice about it is I don't really have the ability to accumulate things as I would have no place to put them.  Hopefully I can maintain that when I go back to having my own place.  I don't want to collect a bunch of useless shit again, pain in the ass having a lot of possessions to worry about.

Retracing steps
After all of that craziness I needed a break.  I went Costa Rica for a week, a place I thought I would never visit again.  I wanted to retrace my steps from an earlier time, compare and contrast how the world and I have changed in the last 8 years.  I'm really glad I did.  Met some great people and left with a few things to think about.

The next big step is Indonesia   Once I've been back to indo, I think the retracing of steps will be complete and I'll have a more solid sense of direction.

Embracing life
I'd heard it all before, that the only moment that truly exists is now.  Yesterday and tomorrow are constructs of the mind and if you lose yourself in them, you find yourself missing out on life.  I used to think those were concepts best suited to those who don't have to work for a living and have a lot time to just sit around.  I see now there is a practical application in daily life, no mystery to it really.   The more mindful and present one is, the more life you can have, and that's something that is very energizing to me, so I will continue the follow the path of embracing life, in whatever form that takes.  Sounds like a bunch of hippy shit or something don't it.  Beats waking up with a hangover and wondering if I have any smokes left.