Ow

You know those annoying people who feel the need to go into exhaustive detail about every minor injury they sustain? They talk about how they got hurt, where they were when they got hurt and, worst of all, they offer to show you every cut and bruise?
I'm one of those people.
I was walking Indy earlier this week and I fell down. That's the abbreviated version. The longer explanation starts two days prior, when I didn't walk him, and the day after that, when I didn't walk him again. Two days on the human calendar; 6,594 days in dog time.
By the time we finally did go for a walk, Indy was on fire. He ignored my commands to walk, he yanked me hither and yon, desperate to make up for those sniff-and-pee deprived days.
Then he spotted a big, mellow galoot of a dog being walked on the other side of the street and felt the urge to hurl shrieking oaths at him. Embarassed, I pulled Indy close and hustled him away. In mid-hustle I tripped over Indy's feet and crashed to the pavement, landing on all fours.
The good news is, I did not unleash my formidable temper on my hapless pooch. I got up slowly, feeling as teary and sore as a 6-year-old after a playground spill, and gave Indy a stern talking to.
He stared up at me with those round, earnest brown eyes and a big doggy grin, waiting patiently for Mom to stop yammering so we could resume our tour of power poles and fire hydrants.
The bad news is, damn I hurt! My knees were scraped and bruised and I ached in peculiar spots: two fingers on one hand, the palm of my other hand, one side of my neck and one spot on my lower back.
And yes, yes I did tell everyone I encountered, from my daughter when I got home to every hapless coworker I saw the next day. No, I didn't show anyone my poor, banged up knees - but only because I hadn't shaved my legs.
What is this compulsion some of us have to dwell on what hurts? Misery dwelling was the theme of my drinking career, topped with a generous helping of self-pity.
Why, oh why were my parents so dysfunctional and weird? If only I'd had better parents I wouldn't be such a mess. Nothing for it but to get good and wasted.
There's a saying in recovery: Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.
Recovery gave me the freedom to stop playing the victim, to accept responsibility for my lot in life and to choose what I wanted. This didn't happen with the touch of the recovery fairy's wand. It took years of working my program, getting honest and accepting my share of the blame for whatever went awry in my life.
Being a victim is comfortable. The only action required is whining and lifting that bottle. But being the victim leaves you at the mercy of outside forces, and those forces aren't necessarily benevolent.
To sum it up with another recovery truism, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Being responsible is hard work. When I screw up I have to own up to it and live with the consequences. How much easier it would be sometimes to point the finger and whine, "Well what about what you did?"
But I don't want to be a victim anymore. I want to hold my life in my own two hands, and I want to be a woman others can lean on for support, the way I've leaned on my comrades in sobriety. I'll take my lumps and learn from them rather than drink over them.
But the next time I fall down you'll probably hear all about it. As I like to say, I'm a work in progress - and a bruised one at that.