What you resist, persists

I've been thinking about this aphorism that I was introduced to so many years ago, long before I got sober and started hearing the well-paired quote from the Big Book, that "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today..."

Essentially, what I've done with both of them is realize that the importance of pretty much everything lies in my own perspective. That's excluding the possibility that there's some sort of objective measure of importance. I'm not going there.

So it's very interesting to find that I can look at the same thing with different eyes, and give it different meanings, or take different lessons. To wit: When I was in my mid-twenties I was, for a time, a single welfare mom. On the one hand, it is certainly true that I was living hand-to-mouth. I obviously didn't get the memo about how to live high off the hog on welfare and food stamps, because it was penny-pinching beyond anything I'd experienced before. And that was even while I was getting occasional infusions from my parents and working under the table at a bar. I was able to augment my food stamps with leftover food from the bar. I did some occasional babysitting for cash. I kept body and soul together for my baby and me. You do what you have to do.

On the other hand, that time was rich with personal growth. I was getting free counseling from Family Services, so I had a therapist and a group to turn to for support. I was fresh from a high-drama divorce and feeling terrible about myself and my prospects in life. In that group, I found friendship, learned what to accept and what not to accept, started seeing my part in life events, thus discovering that I was not a victim after all. I learned to give and take in friendships --- ask for help when I needed it, offer help before it was asked for. I came to the realization that I DID want to continue living, something that was very much in question the first time I walked into the therapist's office.

So what's the truth? Was I a down and out welfare chiseler living on the public dole? After all, I didn't follow the rules to the T. Was I mentally unstable and an unfit mother? Or was I a seeker, on a spiritual journey? Or maybe I was a closeted lesbian, tortured by living a lie.

It was during this time that I finally acted on the long-held desires I contended with from my late teens onward, and finally found the woman of my...dreams? A girlfriend anyway. It was the one in the joke, the one with the U-Haul after the second date, no lie. Her longtime partner had kicked her out. Actually, it didn't go any better than any other relationship I'd ever had. Go figure. So back in the closet I went. It felt safer in there, until it didn't.

Perspective. As I look back, I can focus on whichever aspect I want to, put it under the magnifying glass, look for the connecting threads and try to follow them out. I rather imagine that other people do that, too. At least I hope so. (see mentally unstable, above) I find that my story has different emphasis depending on who I talk to and why. The story I recount at a "what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now" sobriety meeting is different from the "coming out" story I have or the "poverty" story or the "art, music and writing" one. You see how that works?

I'm writing a love story right now, between two unlikely characters, which makes it more interesting. I carry their backstories in my head, at least in outline form, but as I get to know them better, more details come out. It's a lot like talking to myself. Wait. That's right. It IS talking to myself. Being a novelist is so confusing sometimes.

Take home lesson:
The woo-woo people are right, I think. Whatever I focus on becomes bigger.
The therapy people are right, too. I get to choose where I focus.