Friday, July 15, 2011

Mistaken Identity

The photo is from my trail run last night. It was awesome.

Yesterday morning, I was fooling around on facebook, as I frequently do. I checked my profile and found that I had just posted some kind of pornographic video - I didn't open it, but I assume it was pornographic from the still photo posted. I was horrified and deleted it at once. Thinking of my friends from Biblical School, and my nieces and nephews. Oh goodness. I changed my passwords and my privacy settings, but felt a little bit sick about that.

When I got to work, I had a message from my trash removal company. They asked me to please not dispose of needles in my trash. And urged me to please put them into a gallon jug, tightly sealed, if I did dispose of needles in the trash. Holy Crap! I called my daughter, because that is what I do when the topic of needles comes up. She first told me that she had been clean and sober for 2 and a half years. To which I replied "I know that!" But I asked her if she had found needles in her storage boxes she had removed from my house last weekend - and then thrown them in my trash.

She was horrified! She said she would NEVER throw loose needles in the trash, not even when she was in the depths of her addiction! And she went on to say that she would be happy to talk to the kid next door about how to properly dispose of needles. Funny how we both jumped to THAT conclusion - that it was the kid next door. She urged me to first call the trash removal company and verify that it was truly my address they were calling about.

I did that. I talked to someone. She was mystified because there was no note on my account - which there should have been. She said she would ask the person who had called me to check it out and call me back. She never did. I will call back today because this is horrifying to me and I want to find out what the deal is.

In both of these cases, I wanted to scream "Don't you know who I AM??" I am a sober, Christian woman. I don't look at pornography, and I certainly don't inject drugs or anything else into my veins.

I have thought a lot about this in the last 24 or so hours. Why so upset? And the conclusion I have come to is that living clean and right is very very important to me. I don't even want any appearance otherwise. And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. As long as I don't go crazy and get a resentment...

Tonight I am going to see Harry Potter with my daughters and a 35 year old man who is my son's best friend. This will be the second in the series that my son will miss because he is in Iraq. But we have gone to see all the rest of them together. This will be the last. :-( I love H.P. And I am grateful for this little tradition. So grateful to be included in my children's lives. Without porn or shooting drugs.

Thanks be to God.

9 comments:

susanm said...

One of the greatest lessons (I have to relearn all the time, by the way), is to not take things personally. But for the grace of God.....

Dr24Hours said...

Don't worry about the FB thing. That happens to almost everyone sooner or later. These viruses travel around, with a provocative image to try to get you to click on them. You're lucky that that one seems relatively benign: some post it to all of your friend's walls, instead of just yours.

dAAve said...

I learn a little more every day.
(LOL)

Anonymous said...

I wonder if they sent it to all of their customers, not just you? That would seem much more appropriate. Have a great weekend MC.

Anonymous said...

You live the life many would be blessed to have, you are an beautiful example of sobriety!! Give yourself a break!!! The facebook stuff happens all he time with those crazy pictures, everyone will know that you didn't do it!!! The needles are interesting, but I bet there is a reason, YOU know it's has nothing to do with you. Take care of yourself and know that others know you, and know your heart!!

Syd said...

Life on life's terms. Something comes along every day. I realize that it is not what others think of me that matters.

Pammie said...

That kind of mixup stiff drives me crazy too!
oh..I've never seen any of the Harry Potter movies or read the books...it feels too late to jump in now :-(

Lou said...

Strangely, I missed the whole Harry Potter thing also...

steveroni said...

At sixteen years sober, someone announced he had seen me drinking in a bar--ridiculous! But I fretted over that (needlessly) for a long time.

No Harry P. in my life...yet!