Center

"Your Center is a place you can Trust."

Jesus.

My yoga teacher said this last night, and it took me down, the way only The Truth can. The internal tears waiting for the socially appropriate time of my drive home, when they escaped into the dark hollows of I-25, the route that has absorbed so much of my sorrow this past year.

There is inherent wisdom in me. God and The Universe, the angels and the star dust that is currently wandering around as this Thing Called Me have within them a compass that is set to my own destiny.

(Yours does, too).

I Fucked Up Royally this past weekend, operating against my internal truth, my own center for reasons that are mostly irrelevant to you, I'm sure. Normally I would spend a goodly amount of time punishing myself for this, feeling immense shame that I have hurt both myself and others. It would be untrue to say that I haven't Gone There in the past few days, berating myself. But I've also resisted the urge to flee from my mistakes, to cut ties and Start Over.

Rolf Gates asked me (and a few dozen other people): is there wisdom in this?

I think so. I think the wisdom in making mistakes is not necessarily running from them, but amending them. Recalibrating and staying in conversation. This is a thing that is new to me, and it is awkward and murky, like my recovery has been so far to date.

Recovery from codependency is obscure – it doesn't have some of the clear lines that surround other addictions. It doesn't make it easier or harder, I imagine, just different.

My experience of recovery from codependency is one millimeter at a time, one moment at a time, one interaction at a time. For awhile, I withdrew into the Joy Room and avoided dating (and men, truth be told). That was important. I've said I'm Ready a few times, with some hilarious and tragic results. I'm struggling to find the nuance that isn't full brake pedal or full gas pedal, but also isn't both at the same time.

(This weekend was both at the same time.)

My god, the effort.

I remember very little from that one time that Jon taught me to drive a manual transmission car on the Air Force Base parade grounds, but I think that it involves something like a third pedal that says – I'm ready for the next gear.

This is interesting to me today.

Hopeful.

True.

I'm learning to drive again, with new rules. It's clumsy, and the car stalls. And while I could get out and kick the tires, or give up and walk or just die where I am, I'm tuning in to the gifts of the past. The ghost of a man who had infinite patience. The teacher who said the right thing at the right time.

The highway home.