Self-love and unapologetic queerness in recovery

As I was writing my Full Moon intentions and what I’m releasing tonight, and thinking more about what I want to bring in, I’ve realized that I have already had a lot of moments lately where I feel like I’m in a higher state of joy than I had been in a while. Extra energized; smiling and laughing more, scream singing songs in the car, feeling so confident and empowered within myself when I am getting ready for the day and just truely fucking enjoying who I am, in this moment and the person I’ve been and still am blossoming into. And she’s always been there, but for a long time she’s been scared and she didn’t know how to tap into this joy, or that she deserved it, didn’t know if and how she could access it.

It’s been 6 months since I ended my last ever straight, heteronormative, monogamous, jealousy and lies and guilt and shame and codependent filled relationship, and each moment that goes past by the further away I get from it, I thank the fucking universe. I truly, after 29 years of living, now feel like I never need to be in a situation with someone again that takes away all my energy and joy and brings me fulfillment only very temporarily. I never have to apologize for being myself again, or hide, or over explain. I can just be myself, authentic and real and unapologetic.

And being now in my first ever honest, communicative and trusting, polyamorous queer relationship, I feel so much hope for myself, and for the future. I also have hope and a knowing that if I can experience so much joy, love and understanding in a relationship that other people too are experiencing this, or are starting to realize they can too. And that young people everywhere know they never need to suffer for another person’s comfortability.

I truly thought I was so wise and since I had overcome challenges in addiction, and that since becoming an intelligent, hard working responsible adult from growing up in a home where I was raised by miserable addicts and alcoholics living in poverty… that I could be inspiring and motivating to people that needed help. Because I felt for them, I had been where they have in some way or another. So I subconsciously attracted these people into my life, really feeling like In some way I could heal them. Me, a person who was also fairly new to recovery and in no way a fucking saint or God, who clearly still had her own shit to heal from. I needed someone else to fixate on, because I thought I solved it all for myself. Nailed it. Recovery solved.

Nah bitch, that shit never ends. I will always need therapy, need a community of AA members, maybe also ACA or CODA. Anyways, as long as it took me, I am here now, and I know deeply now after all the hard lessons that I’m the only one who can save my goddamn self, and that goes for everyone else. “I love you, but I have to let you go so you can heal.”-it’s a big mood.

In my experience all the woke radical queers in my life seem to have a much better understanding of this, and the concepts of setting and respecting boundaries, consent and asking for what we need, realness and honesty, choosing yourself first over others, etc. than “the straights.” Ok a few straight, cis women get it, too. And even fewer straight, cis men. I know they are out there and exist though. This is definitely a generalization but in my experience and I’m sure many others it seems the more privilege a person has the more they expect to get what they want. But this is a conversation for another time.

Another thing I am working on and continuously getting better at understanding about myself is that having expectations, of anything, of how outcomes will turn out in a certain day, in a reaction from someone, in relationships, in how the year will go, etc is a set up for disappointment. And I don’t say this in a downer way, just that if we go into a situation expecting a certain outcome that everything will go perfectly as we planned, it’s unrealistic.

Things are always changing including our minds. I had an entirely different view a year ago of what I wanted, what my life would look like just a few months later, where and who I would live with, be in a relationship with. And also then COVID happened and the world was different for everyone. But my point is that what I may think I want my life to look like in the future right now will probably change quicker than I think, as life circumstances and viewpoints change so often. And that’s totally ok. I don’t want my life to be predictable. I want whatever is supposed to happen for me to happen, and I trust that the universe has got my back. I have to, she always has.