Who Would You Be - If You Hadn't Married An Alcoholic?

I've spent a long time grieving who I have become as a result of my marriage. A long time mourning the loss of my soul. This marriage has turned me into an angry, volatile, person. It has taken the sparkle from my eye, the fire from my belly. It's dimmed my light and broken my spirit. It's turned me into someone I never, ever envisioned for myself. Not surprisingly my daily actions and choices reflect these feelings. But then yesterday, this thought snuck into my mind:

Who would I be if I hadn't married an alcoholic? 'Cause whoever she is, whatever that answer is - that's the place from which I need to start acting. So many of us - not just those who are married to alcoholics - long to Be someone or something else. We want to Be financially secure. We want to Be thin and physically fit. We may want to Be a writer or a florist or a professional chef or a clothes designer. We want to Be kinder or more organized or more in control of our emotions. And that's ok. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to our grandest potential. We should all aspire to our grandest potential. The problem is we come to view these aspirations as destinations rather than a life long journey.

No one arrives at Being thin or Being financially secure or Being in shape or Being patient or Being kind. You don't even arrive at Being an artist or a writer or a florist or a chef or a designer or an entrepreneur or a business owner or a world traveler. Our greatest potential is an ever moving, ever evolving target. It's something we must live everyday through everyday choices. If you practice your art everyday, when you life ends, you will Have Been an artist. If you write everyday, if you exercise everyday, if you eat for health everyday, if you start a business and tend to it everyday, if you strive to be kind everyday....then when you life is over you will Have Been a writer, in shape, healthy, an entrepreneur....

So who would you Be if you hadn't married an alcoholic? Don't say "I don't know." You know. She's whispering in you ear. She's there when you lay you head down at night. You may want to say "I don't know" because that's the safer, that's easier, that keeps you from having to wrestle those demons that want to keep you in the status quo. Alcoholism is a wicked jailer. It locks you up for years but then one day It throws wide open the jail cell door and laughs while you remain inside.

I've hated (HATED!) being married to an alcoholic for so long now. Too long, probably. It's kept all my focus on all I have become - rather than all I can Be. Who would you Be? If you hadn't married an alcoholic? Be her a little bit everyday.