What have I become ? Look at the tracks on my soul. They are a record of what I have welcomed and endured to be in this place. there wasn’t a lot of engagement in the rest of my life, but now I am trying to change that and be in life, not on the sidelines. When you haven’t done that before there are frequent missteps and painful blunders, but I continue to get better at reading people and situations and lo and behold I am proud of what I do at times.

I am more sure of myself and if I let myself be, I can deal with my job and relationships in  the manner of one with the confidence of his convictions and himself. I feel my way now as much as I think it. I used to over analyse every situation and myself. Leaving me in a loop of confusion and fear, never to be able to finish or enjoy anything that I did.

Today I can look back on my day and reflect proudly on the effort that I have put into doing, engaging and achieving. I can stick up for myself, my values, my view and treat others with respect. My recent experience has taught me to be empathetic of others, even if they are reacting in a way that affects me. I have seen the pain that can be behind actions. I have felt the suffering that is behind lashing out at others.

I am trying to find that place where I will reach into my tool bag and not my war chest when facing a situation that is presented to me. When I don’t have to scrape the egg off of myself, or swallow the bitter vial of resentment and fear. Heaven forbid that I have to apologise for actions that I have taken to punish someone who has gotten in my way. Do I really believe that you have the right to be human, just like myself, or am I so wrapped up in my cape of trauma, fear, shame and addiction that you come a distant second ?

Today I can answer that I am learning that my life is engaged with yours on a level more intertwined than I could ever have imagined. I used to say to myself , when I was in the midst of my acting out, chemically, or behaviourally that I was the author of my own tragedy. What I failed to realise was that no person leaves this world without leaving ripples. Do I think that I can live in a stasis field where my actions have no    consequence ?

Today I want to be known as Peter. I will leave a legacy of a full, trying, forgiving and loving person. Not the chameleon that I used to be. I always new just a little bit about what you were talking about. I tried to make that stretch into the full experience of life. What I discounted was myself and all that I am. Without that I can only try to live a facade, not all of me, so much more than I could ever imagine.