I would take option #1 :) Like ripping off a band-aid.... git r done. Then again, perhaps I am a masochist of sorts..pain is familiar to me.

i would like to think that i would chose option 2 but i feel like i am slipping back into the darkness that i thought i was coming out of.

Heheh, I hear ya. Oddly enough when I had my moment of clarity (and no, it wasn't an addiction as that phrase is normally associated with) four years ago I 'chose' Option 1.

Not that I wanted to, but like the intrepid interstellar voyager in Cygnus X-1 Book 1: The Voyage who, once caught in the gravitational well of the black hole of Cygnus X-1, I was compelled to proceed through. There was no turning back.

Deep introspection of that level and magnitude, like getting too close to a black hole, is a very fearsome thing.

Through the void
To be destroyed
Or is there something more?
Atomized --- at the core
Or through the Astral Door ---
To soar.

And no, I'm not a flake. ;-) The Cygnus X-1 duology is truly a magnificent concept. Neil Pert is an amazing storyteller and lyricist, and I take it has more than a passing knowledge of philosophy.

Oops, my reply was to namaste. I wasn't heheing your situation memory, but I can relate to what namaste said, and I always try to find some humor in any given situation. Guess it's just the way I'm wired.

Plus the fact I do find humor in most situations doesn't mean I'm not taking stuff like this seriously, or not ackowledging the underlying pain.

i was at 1.
now i am closer to 3 than 2.
what was it that was said? the path to recovery isnt a straight line? i guess i am part of my crooked line right now. its been pretty rough the past 2 weeks.

i guess i can endure any of it (because i really dont have an option) and because its nice to know i am not going thru it alone. sometimes i stay in option 3 for so long i forget that.

someone said to me this past thursday "how long have you been divorced?" and i told them 14 months. she said "really? you started nursing school and were going thru this divorce too? you are always so upbeat and happy. i would have never known". when i got in the car i just started laughing. you never know how someone perceives you. i feel like a ghost most days. i guess im a good actress.

xoxo

ilrts ... Yup, fully understand. It took me somewhere near 2 years and maybe a tad longer to reconcile everything inside me before the pendulum started to settle in the middle.

Now mine wasn't the result of betrayal by a long-term relationship. Hmm, that's not true. It was a betrayal of one: My relationship with myself...

it is so tempting to just look inside and do all sorts of introspection. i don't know what a person expects to find. maybe some way of fixing something that is supposed to be wrong with them. that way, if they fix it, life will be a breeze and they will live happily ever after. introspection can keep one in the cycle of grief and anger forever if they let it. we can create phantom black holes of despair in some sort romantic idealism or we can see that life is not that hard unless we make it hard.

we are just people. we are not the least bit complicated. we might create complicated personas but we don't have to.

i vote for option one and two depending on my energy level on any given day. acceptance is hard. it is painful. the loss of the dream. the loss of a lover. the loss of a mate. really hard stuff to let go of when we have to honor their right to pursue their freedoms.

with or without them, we can win at life because we are never truly alone. we live in a free western society at the easiest time in human history to have been born. if we can't find ways to adjust, then there is something seriously wrong with our creative problem solving skills and we had best be improving them.

May I get a new option 1.5?

I would like to go out in the sun but look down a little until my eyes can get used to the brightness and then look up, face forward and never look back.

"if we can't find ways to adjust, then there is something seriously wrong with our creative problem solving skills and we had best be improving them."

Under normal circumstance, yes, I agree. Most are here under extraoridinary circumstances. The way is lost, the path unclear.

The way back to the path lies within us, and sometimes it's buried quite deep, with wall upon wall of defenses built up over the years.

Ah, option 1.5) Confront the full force of the Sun's rays, with a pair of uber cool sunglasses on! :-)

but, we aren't off the path in the first place, Just. we just have to dump whatever is weighing us down. maybe they are layers of armor or whatever that we just don't need to be wearing anymore. after all, there are tons of people just zipping through life without armor. those people simply lead with the heart and let it fly.

life can be a piece of cake if we let it. sometimes it is easy to forget that.

Whatever flowery language we use to describe it, on occassion people lose their way, their sight, whatever you want to call it. They forget they have all the tools within, or they don't trust the tools they know are there.

They have to rediscover those tools, or learn to trust them again. Before they can, they have to figure out they are there, or figure out why they no longer trust them.

The answers lie within, submerged in the subconscious. That's where honest introspection comes into play. The answers to all the important questions are not without, but within.

Heheh, of course this is just my opinion, but it seems to work for me. I also have a cousin I grew up with back in Queens who lost his way. He was a NYC EMT, made good $$$ with lots of OT and had great benefits. After a nasty breakup with the lady he thought he was going to marry, he turned to alcohol and cocaine. It just about destroyed him.

He went through rehab twice, to no avail. What turned aroound his life was AA, and he's sober to this day. That's somewhere around 7 years or so.

Ahhh Faithful... when we reach a certain age of maturity, that not always have to do with chronological age, we begin to protect ourselves in different ways.

My way has always been the wall around me. I avoid the punches by creating this cemented castle around me and keep my emotions protected by standing alone.

Not lonely, just alone.

If I follow the simplistic approach, when I could just live and let live, if something happens I could not just shake the dust, I would fall into a trap that has no end and that could lead to depression. I would lose faith in the beauty of others and most of all, trust that whatever anyone is saying is indeed the truth.

I cannot deal with lies.

It is really difficult to get out of the hole when the choice for action involves alcohol and drugs.

@ JustASimpleGuy - I respect pain. I understand that every situation is different. Substance abuse is an escape, the blind fold that temporarily makes the issue go away, only to see it coming back over and over, hurting deeper and deeper.

I am happy that your cousin is out and clean, I hope he is now happy, with a beautiful familiy to any other way he pleases.

There is an easy transposition of real problems that bother our peace. Sometimes we relate to a breakup, other times we feel that the financial matters could be the cause of unhappiness. Whatever there is, I feel that a little UV protection will let you see in a clear manner, still out there in the sun and allow one to move forward.

My sunglasses come with cement. Ha!

CMondo, that, I believe, is one of the tricks of aging to overcome: the temptation to build a rigid barrier around ourselves. but, it is a trap. the trick is to realize that aging is a subjective concept and need not be embraced. we are actually forever young and no different than we always were. our bodies are older but our belief systems can be just as fluid and flexible as they were at any given time in our lives to date.

Just, I hear ya as far as the inner guidance system thing. but, i don't think that the answers lie in our subconscious. our subconscious minds are merely another tool of our bodies to train and develop. our minds work for us, not the other way around.

the inner guidance system is deep in our hearts and accessible through our intuitions and our abilty to quiet ourselves to perceive the ever quieter places of reality below the external worlds of our bodies, minds, and the external world.

i'm glad that your friend found a way out of his maze with AA.