The Sell Out

My friend Will says I should have had “representation.”  He says that ” one man’s dishonest and sleezy is another man’s brilliant internet business model.  But when twitter contacted me because TEXACO wanted to use their own name for their twitter account, even though I was not violating the terms of service, the idea of keeping the user name didn’t cross my mind and asking for the kind of money I imagine I could have got seemed, well, dishonest and sleezy.  I did ask for a t-shirt, which twitter tells me they are more than happy to oblige.  Actually, twitter said “they’re happy to send you a shirt and some other stuff (I’m not exactly sure what) since you’re such a big fan ”  There is a twitter t-shirt on it’s way, too, so I should have enough free logo wear to get me through the summer, huh?

It has me thinking about the ways that I sell out, though.  My job is the big obvious thing.  In spite of having had my hours cut pretty significantly over what they were prior to my illness and surgery, I’m still making enough to live, and because my hourly rate is so high the likelihood of finding other employment that paid more is virtually zero.  The job wouldn’t be so bad if I had any ability to concentrate on what I’m doing but I’m still so scattered that I find anything that requires me to pay attention almost impossible.  Technically I’m on the clock right now, which, if I practice a more perfect honesty, equates with stealing from my employer.

I sell out in my romantic life by exhibiting a practiced indifference to anyone who lives anywhere near me.  Put them 1000 miles away and they become much more fascinating.  That way I don’t have to lose the weight that I put on since my surgery or the weight I put on when I got sober.  I just have to still be able to get into my fat jeans and I can easily do that on 3300 calories a day.  I deny myself nothing.

Lately, too, I sold out the idea of being a non-smoker.  After 100 days off cigarettes, 60 of them recovering from lung surgery, I picked up cigarettes again and I haven’t found the courage to put them back down.  I allow this to continue by a subtle insanity; telling myself that I don’t need to beat myself up about this right now.  Again, I can see that it is really a strategy to keep myself from doing the hard thing.  I never want to do the hard thing.

There is this show on MTV called “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” where these totally nice girls are dating these total douchbags and I look at these guys and wonder, if they have girlfriends, why I don’t have a boyfriend.  The answer really is that I don’t pursue much and I would never tolerate being treated like these girls tolerate being treated.  I’m not in a relationship because I won’t put up with anything.  I sold out having a relationship so that I wouldn’t have to put up with anything and I wouldn’t have to change.

I am assured by the basic text and by my sponsor that everything is just the way it should be, but that if I want something different I need to change what I am putting in to the equation; I need to not sell out and not sell short.  I need to find more of what is good in me to give; to my employer, to my friendships and to other addicts.  That’s the point where I really melt down though.  What could I possibly have to give?  I’m like nobody.  Nothing.

At this particular moment I’m going to just allow the idea that one doesn’t come back from what I experienced quickly, and while bodily I am much, much better than I was even two weeks ago, perhaps mentally and spiritually I may have a ways to go.

I have to allow that idea.  If I linger too long on the memory of the time in early recovery when everything was new and every experience was revelation, it becomes very easy for me to think that I’ve lost something, that I’ve steered wrong someplace and that I’m irretrievably lost.  I am sober though, I still go to meetings.  I still work with a sponsor, so I don’t think it can be true that I’ve gotten myself someplace from which I cannot return.