[RufusACanal]

Sitting on our back porch last night after work, my Wife turned to me after I had finished commenting on my day and said in a kind and loving voice that I was at times, inflexible. She paused and went on to describe my inflexibility. For once, I did not interrupt, but instead I listened intensely. After she finished, I was stunned, because every word was the truth. No one alive knows me better than Elsa. To say that I have moments of pure and unadulterated insanity would be kind; I can be completely intolerant and petulant without regard, but inflexible? Me, inflexible?

She said that I usually formed a strict representation of a person; what I think that person is and how they should be and I literally cast that person permanently into that form or position. So when that individual does anything outside the norm, I am immediately conflicted because they no longer fit into my portrayal that I have so cunning crafted. This behavior was one of my Mother’s; to say I despised it would be an understatement. The rigidity and intolerance coupled with personal perfectionism that my Mother displayed for years was a horror show on wheels and I would have gladly picked intoxication rather than live in a world so studded with the fear and hate .

I swore I would never be like her and for over 35 years I almost effectively purged myself of her taint; more truthfully I began to see the destructive traits and worked to live more freely by turning my will and life over to the care of something greater. Now, much to my chagrin, I am once again falling into the patterns most disgusting to me. I am not offended by my Wife’s love extended in this conversation; I am stunned that I have moved backwards in my New Life. OK, so some of the symptoms where there; denial, grandiosity, arrogance, selfishness, but to my thinking they were as transient as anything else and simply part of normal living. No, I had cracked open the door to self and here I am now, Mr. Ass****.

I have been pissed off again at most everything in life. Those closest in my life has caught the sharp edge of my tongue and I have finally found myself once again in my own analogue; standing in a parking lot of an employer Funeral Home in 1999, I thought everyone around me was wrong. Moments later, I realized that it was me that was the culprit and one would think that after having this spiritual awakening I would be more prepared when it reared its ugly head again. I was not, because I had rested on my laurels.

Peace is returning and I am looking at how I can once again let God be God and me be me. This is not easy, especially when my sense of “right” gets in the way. A New Life is much more than the simple beginning of not drinking one day at a time. As I learn more I will write. I am a lucky man today.