Life's Potholes ...

Pothole (Vertorama)
Originally uploaded by Panorama Paul
Pothole (noun) : A deep hole, produced by wear or weathering.
(Earth Science Dictionary)

Winter this year has been relentless. Just when we have dug out of one storm, another one follows, bringing its own set of challenges.
One very apparent part of the aftermath is the massive and plentiful potholes, like little landmines for unsuspecting car tires. They can be jolting and scary when you're driving at night and hadn't had one in clear sight.

Which led me to think about the potholes in life. What are the things that are the product of wear and tear, of weathering situations that produce unexpected pits or perhaps holes in the fabric of our being? Where do we suddenly get tripped up, sink down, get knocked off our center because of the dip in our own ground we didn't see, didn't choose to see, thought would go away ? Take this even further, how about those situations and people who are literal and figurative "potholes" , swallowing and consuming and trapping anything that crosses their path ?

For real life potholes, some are merely patched up. Others are left go until they become dangerous, impassable sinkholes that require extensive road repair. Others still are unnoticeable, out of harm's way, and never touched nor attempted to be fixed. Some keep causing damage and harm until, for those of us who have finally "learned our lesson the hard way", are much more careful and cautious, even taking a totally different route.

There are two parts of my program and my healing that come to mind in thinking about life's potholes: denial and present awareness. Interesting ... these two could actually be "nested" together : denial (ignoring, not choosing to be aware as a defense mechanism, asleep to) AND present awareness (choosing to see, to be with, to be awake to).

In denial, I will almost always hit the pothole. And do some damage along the way, until my "wheels" can no longer turn, just spin in place or burn rubber or go flat. I was a virtual pothole, in and of myself, when I drank. I swallowed up everything not nailed down and I was drowning in my own pitiful, bottomless hole. Until I had nowhere to go but up and out. The denial I lived throughout the course of my relationship with my ex was also trying to dodge the giant sinkhole that neither of us wanted to acknowledge that was smack in the middle of our relationship. And it got bigger and wider and deeper as we each went further into denial about the reality of what was happening.

Funny thing about potholes is this: they start out as small, eroded "dips" on the surface. In the language of my sponsor, these would be the "wrinkles" that we feel when something is not quite right about a situation or a relationship that we feel in our interior. Choosing to ignore the beginning formation of a pothole in my life will enable it to get bigger with more weathering. The more "storminess" in my relationships or my life situations, coupled with denial about what is occurring, and my potholes grow. Eventually, they can't be ignored because of the damage they've caused.

My character defects are little dips that I get tripped up on when my personal GPS is shut off.   The program and the Steps enable me to catch them much quicker.   The cool thing with them is that I have a connection to something better than AAA  or the city streets department:   I can get those defects steamrolled by the Big G.   Best equipment in town. 

Traveling on the paths of my life now with present awareness enables me to see and feel the ripples in the road a lot earlier. I can't and won't ignore the bumps and the wrinkles on the terrain of my life. Conversely, I am aware too that bad weather is part of life and that there will be some erosion that is out of my control. This is where I have the opportunity to either do some good mending of the hole or that I make a conscious choice to go around it or take a completely different route. The Serenity Prayer offers me the guidance to do this.

My issues around finances are about the creation of a pothole that I chose to ignore when it was only a dip. Each bill and each tax payment and each frivolous expense made the hole of debt grow bigger. And now I am in the process of very slow, tedious patchwork repair. Bill by bill, small payment by small payment. And yet, there is now something quite fulfilling about getting my hands dirty and being awake to what it will take to fill and mend the hole. It's no longer something I can or want to avoid.

I understand that I will still encounter storms and rocky weather in my life. Some potholes, even if small, are possible in spite of my best efforts. I may occasionally trip yet it is less likely I will sink. And, more importantly, I will be a much more awake traveler on the path, no longer asleep at the wheel.