The Journey: Ranting and Admission of Failures
I fancy myself as being able to let go on this blog. To make myself totally vulnerable. To hold nothing back.
In reality, that’s not the case at all. Sometimes I feel like ranting, as I did near the beginning of this journey, but I’ll stop myself from doing so.
Why do I do so? Why do I keep negatives bottled inside?
Fear. Fear of losing everything positive that’s been happening in my life. Fear that others won’t want to read what I write or listen to me speak if I let out every aspect of Donny…
If I loose myself on the world, so to speak.
What do I mean?
I want to write about everything going on inside of me. It’s a huge release to let it out on “paper”, and I want to remember all of this journey. Every step. I want to talk about feelings where I question my own sanity. I want to talk about the times I’m sexually tempted, but how I combat those temptations by reminding myself of all that has changed about me, all that I’ve given up, and how disappointing it would be to make those changes mean absolutely nothing at all by giving in to temptation.
I want to admit to being set off every time I receive another check in the mail with Belinda’s name on it. Or another letter from the bank financing her car.
How hard can it be to call these people and change your address? How hard can it be to tell the bank financing your car that you no longer work for me, so they’ll stop calling if you’re a few days late with your payment? How hard can it be to give them your new number so they’ll stop calling mine? And what in the world makes you think it’s okay to have my replacement relay messages to me? If you want to let me know where to send your mail have the respect to tell me yourself.
I want to admit that it hurts when I find out Belinda’s new boyfriend has changed his MySpace title into a very personal message to me (click here to see a screenshot of it), and the pain is multiplied once I see Belinda posting on a public message board that the message comes from both of them.
But I hold that back and don’t write about it.
I want to admit that such things make me wish to steal from her every good memory we’ve ever had together. I wish I could remove all of those from her mind. She doesn’t deserve to remember the NUMEROUS great, amazing times we had together. She doesn’t deserve to remember my son, who loved her so much.
Sometimes I’m spiteful and will send a text message or email that reflects my mood. The purpose? To steal memories. To replace any positive thoughts she has in her mind about me with negative thoughts. To purposefully poison the past so that it no longer brings a smile to her face. To be in control of how she thinks of me. It’s SO WRONG to be that way, yet I still do it once in awhile.
But I hold that back and don’t write about it.
And then I stand up on a stage in front of hundreds of people and talk about how God has saved me and changed my life. Hypocrisy, no? And I do hate hypocrisy.
This inner struggle, this turmoil, this cycle… I don’t beat myself up about it. I find it beautiful for some reason. I love it, yet hate it, all at the same time.
I haven’t given in to physical temptations, and for that I often congratulate myself. But isn’t it just as bad, or worse, to give in to spite by sending negative messages to Belinda from time to time?
Besides, those physical temptations really aren’t that big a challenge for me. My past has given me plenty of tools to combat them. They’re a relatively easy battle to win. My biggest problems are my ego and my stubbornness. I lose those battles almost every time.
I’m not the smartest man, but I’m beginning to think there’s no perfect solution to these problems. They’re a constant battle over which victory is going to take much time. Much effort. Much pain.
Is it crazy that I look forward to the fight?
