For the longest time I did my best to avoid spending time with the one person I had to be with every day. Seeing myself in the mirror when I started each day often brought on feelings that seemed as far away from love, happiness, peace, and joy as one could be. In all reality, I hated myself. I hated who I had become. And I had lost most of any of my own self identity. My life had become a hodge-podge of other people’s personalities, and their likes and dislikes. I made a decision a year ago, that it was time to go back to my childhood, to the last time that I could remember when I was getting to know the real me, the one that had been born into this world unique and special.
I look at my childhood today with a very different set of eyes than what I had when I started this a year ago. There were so many painful memories I was holding onto from my dysfunctional family that I actively lived with self-pity because of them all. It’s easy in this world to numb myself from those type of memories. For awhile I used drinking and drugs to forget them and me. Later I would find other things such as gambling, sex, love, high doses of caffeine, geographical cures, and mega shopping to hide from all of those dark corners in my life. Eventually, none of it worked anymore. I fully believe that one can hide from all painful experiences for a period of time, but eventually, they find a way to rear their ugly head. In my case, in came through severe levels of physical pain.
I’m more grateful today for the physical pains I still continue to face because they have led me to doing the one thing I didn’t want to ever do. They have forced me to be still and be with that person I’ve been trying to avoid since around the age of 12. They have made me be with me, without any distractions, and without any interruptions. Much of my time is spent alone today praying, meditating, taking light walks as best as I’m able to, writing, and reading. Through all of it, I am beginning to learn what my own likes and dislikes are. I am beginning to learn what I really love in this world. Best of all, I’m beginning to let go of all those things that I took on in my life that came from other people’s lives and not my own.
The more I continue to spend time alone, the more I see how much of me was really about everyone else I kept myself occupied with for most of my life. As a child, I did the sports my mother wanted me to do. I enrolled in classes and majored in an area that my parents felt I would be best at. I tried many drugs in college just to be accepted by others. I shoplifted during that time of my life to be considered cool by a few people I was hanging around. I joined a fraternity as well because all of the people in my family were members of a Greek organization. I jumped job after job after graduating because I thought the financial success of being in better paying corporate jobs would make others appreciate me more. I sold almost everything I had at one point and bought a bed and breakfast to make an ex-partner’s dream come true so that he could happy. I later temporarily enrolled in a Master’s program in college because others told me I’d be good at it. I tried fishing and golf for a period of time because it was the pastimes of someone I was obsessed with. I even got into motorcycles and Harley-Davidsons because of another person I was chasing after. The list is infiniteness in all honesty. Ironically, at the current time, I’m not into or part of any of the things I just mentioned.
I lost sight a long time ago on what made me happy because I grew up in a family where I tried to make them happy by doing what they wanted me to do. From that point forward, I spent my life following that pattern with person after person, friend after friend, and relationship after relationship. That was until a year ago when it all changed and the physical pain became too great for me to keep living that way. Since then, I promised myself to follow a new path, one that was forged with God at the center of it. And one that has allowed me to discover the real me.
Thankfully, I realized it was never too late to begin again in my life. I may be 40 years old but there are days when I feel like a kid again as I learn all over what I really like in life. While I may have been doing some of them during all those co-dependent years, now I am exploring each of them and more because of my own inner desires. In just over a year, I have learned that I like a lot of science-fiction/supernatural related things, vanilla ice cream in a bowl and not in a cone with peanut butter topping versus hot fudge, being on sandy beaches staring out at the ocean or snorkeling within them, watching movies by myself at home or at the theater, playing a card game named Euchre on my phone, talking about God’s presence in my life anytime and anywhere, being active in my AA recovery, spending hours on putting together a 500-1000 piece puzzle, sitting under the moon and stars next to a campfire in my backyard toasting a marshmallow, eating spicy Sushi rolls and very burnt pepperoni and green olive based pizzas, and occasionally getting a big, juicy, double bacon cheeseburger with a regular cajun fry from Five Guys.
I know that the list of these things is only going to grow and change over time, but at least today, there’s no one else telling me what I should like or dislike, believe or not believe, and follow or not follow. Well, I take that back, there is one. And that’s God. But I’m ok with that, because I know under God’s helm, I’ll get to know myself better than I ever did in most of my life………until now.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
