I'm in a very strange, almost surreal space right now and I feel as if something is testing me hard and around every corner. It's as if my moral character is on trial and on the witness stand and it's being cross examined by a very contemptuous and crafty prosecutor who's throwing 100 mph curveballs directly at my head in rapid succession. I also feel that it's no coincidence that my confirmation name within the Roman-Catholic faith of my childhood is Peter, first of the twelve apostles who was later to deny Jesus three times before the cock crowed three times before dawn.
Without going into great specific details I'll just touch upon a series of events that occured yesterday that have me wrestling with myself over moral issues. The first of which is that I discovered through some investigative legwork of a friend who it was that burglarized my home twice this month and stole several laptops, what's left of my guitar collection as well as some treasured and irreplaceable family heirlooms. I know for a fact it was a person who was doing some work here at my "urban abode" as I heard and recognized his voice on a voicemail he left on my friend's cell phone in responce to my friend's email sent on the one guitar that this person was attempting to sell online. My dilemma comes into play because I know this person is going through a very painful trial right now with a terminally ill spouce being removed off life support today and being allowed to pass. Does this justify this person to break into my house and steal family treasures of extremely sentimental value that I had been saving to pass down to my son? Obvioulsly not but it does cause me great internal struggle about having told my discovery to the detective assigned to my case yesterday. I was very upset with the fact that I was violated by a person that was hired and paid to do work in my home and who took items of such personal value to me yet conflicted and moved to tears with feelings of understanding and deep compassion for someone who is under the great emotional distress of having to literally disconnect a spouce from life suppport and I am still struggling within myself over this situation although I intellectually know what is right and what is wrong and that I did the right thing by giving this information to the detective to investigate.
The other test that presented itself very vividly to me yesterday was being made aware of a friend who was in the depths of methamphetamine withdrawl which is a living hell that I've had to experience more times than I care to recall in my life and was seriously dope sick and in need of a fix but broke and no means to "get well" other than to resort to selling her body which she would have done in order to get what she needed so I asked her this question "Do you want to get clean or are you just out?" and the answer was "Just out" and although I know it was the wrong thing to do I wound up giving this person enough money to get well and spared her the indignation of selling herself. I don't abide by the "tough love" philosophy as I've been on the receiving end of that doctrine and it doesn't get anyone closer to surrender, it just makes them do more degrading things in order to get well and cause the cycle of guilt, shame and remorse to start all over again...lather, rinse, repeat. I know all too well that nobody's ready to clean up until they're ready and I sense this person is close but not quite at that point so she would have "gotten well" one way or another without my intervention and that's a fact but I do struggle with it and actually came very fucking close to doing some up with her myself last night and took off out of her parking lot like a bat out of hell with my "hand wet on the wheel" as in the song Radar Love and locked myself up in my little house down here in the hood with the bars on the windows and held my little kitten and thanked God or whoever, whatever it is that's throwing these curveballs at me for one more day clean and sober.
That's all for now I guess, just needed to get this out so I can get back to the many tasks at hand and let things shake out the way they will shake out and be glad that I have such "moral dilemmas" in my heart today for not too long ago I would have handled these very same situations much differently. A very short seven months ago I would have hired a few goons, gone to this guy's house, kicked in his door and his face, taken my shit back then gone to my other friend's house bought and sexually abused her body and then done the dope with her and that's all there is to it....
Without going into great specific details I'll just touch upon a series of events that occured yesterday that have me wrestling with myself over moral issues. The first of which is that I discovered through some investigative legwork of a friend who it was that burglarized my home twice this month and stole several laptops, what's left of my guitar collection as well as some treasured and irreplaceable family heirlooms. I know for a fact it was a person who was doing some work here at my "urban abode" as I heard and recognized his voice on a voicemail he left on my friend's cell phone in responce to my friend's email sent on the one guitar that this person was attempting to sell online. My dilemma comes into play because I know this person is going through a very painful trial right now with a terminally ill spouce being removed off life support today and being allowed to pass. Does this justify this person to break into my house and steal family treasures of extremely sentimental value that I had been saving to pass down to my son? Obvioulsly not but it does cause me great internal struggle about having told my discovery to the detective assigned to my case yesterday. I was very upset with the fact that I was violated by a person that was hired and paid to do work in my home and who took items of such personal value to me yet conflicted and moved to tears with feelings of understanding and deep compassion for someone who is under the great emotional distress of having to literally disconnect a spouce from life suppport and I am still struggling within myself over this situation although I intellectually know what is right and what is wrong and that I did the right thing by giving this information to the detective to investigate.
The other test that presented itself very vividly to me yesterday was being made aware of a friend who was in the depths of methamphetamine withdrawl which is a living hell that I've had to experience more times than I care to recall in my life and was seriously dope sick and in need of a fix but broke and no means to "get well" other than to resort to selling her body which she would have done in order to get what she needed so I asked her this question "Do you want to get clean or are you just out?" and the answer was "Just out" and although I know it was the wrong thing to do I wound up giving this person enough money to get well and spared her the indignation of selling herself. I don't abide by the "tough love" philosophy as I've been on the receiving end of that doctrine and it doesn't get anyone closer to surrender, it just makes them do more degrading things in order to get well and cause the cycle of guilt, shame and remorse to start all over again...lather, rinse, repeat. I know all too well that nobody's ready to clean up until they're ready and I sense this person is close but not quite at that point so she would have "gotten well" one way or another without my intervention and that's a fact but I do struggle with it and actually came very fucking close to doing some up with her myself last night and took off out of her parking lot like a bat out of hell with my "hand wet on the wheel" as in the song Radar Love and locked myself up in my little house down here in the hood with the bars on the windows and held my little kitten and thanked God or whoever, whatever it is that's throwing these curveballs at me for one more day clean and sober.
That's all for now I guess, just needed to get this out so I can get back to the many tasks at hand and let things shake out the way they will shake out and be glad that I have such "moral dilemmas" in my heart today for not too long ago I would have handled these very same situations much differently. A very short seven months ago I would have hired a few goons, gone to this guy's house, kicked in his door and his face, taken my shit back then gone to my other friend's house bought and sexually abused her body and then done the dope with her and that's all there is to it....
