New Beginnings and new relationships

It's been over a year since my last relationship ended. Honestly, longer than that. It was really over before it started. My emotions over the last year have been all over the map. Not only have I been dealing with that ending, but also have been attempting to define a new life. I am a recovering alcoholic, and my disease when active, makes me an indescribably horrible person. I had the disease arrested for a short time in 2006, and then made a really big change way too early in my recovery. I didn't protect my recovery and lost it very quickly, and eight months later lost everything, most importantly the love I had always said I wanted. I spent a long time after I finally got sober (for what I hope is the rest of my life) blaming him, blaming the move, blaming everything except my actions. Recently I found evidence of my egregious behavior in black and white. Most of what happened I don't remember, I was that far gone. Some has come back to me, but seeing it in my own writing has made everything crystal clear. He says there is truth that comes from losing ones inhibitions while drinking. I agree to a point, though I argued against if for months. In documenting my journey through sobriety, he says I was trying to convince myself of something. Yes, I was. I was really trying to convince myself and ingrain in my head and my heart that there is another way to live. That sobriety is possible and life on the other side of that hell can be better. I'm here to say that it can be infinitely better than I could even imagine. Giving sobriety a fighting chance is well worth the effort.

There is another piece. I was at the same time trying to convince myself that it was his fault. I can't remember him ever pouring alcohol down my throat. I can remember him doing everything to try and talk me into getting a handle on myself. I railed against it violently. I hated the move I made. I hated being away from my family and my beloved state of Colorado, I hated him for talking me into making a move to what I considered such an awful place. I hated not having friends or social contacts. The truth is that had I stayed sober, I could have made trips home, been in Colorado as much as I wanted, and made social contacts. I didn't do any of that. I drank. I sometimes live in the woulda, coulda, shoulda, but it does no good, and I do it less and less every day. I did what I did and lost the most important relationship with a man I have had to date.

I do believe that I will find another relationship and will enter it more wise, more honest, and with more humility than I ever have before. However, any other significant relationship with a man will be founded on something entirely different and new to me. It will have a foundation of sobriety, integrity and respect, or it cannot be a relationship. I have an entirely new outlook on life that is lucid and rational. I no longer have expectations of a prince on a white horse, or my knight in shining armor. I have learned to accept my humanity and the humanity of others and appreciate that we are all way less than perfect and celebrating our flaws together is a joy to be cherished. I do also know that my new found respect for myself is the key to opening the doors that allows other people into my life.