Grateful?

I worry a great deal, especially lately. I worry about money. How will I make rent, pay my phone bills and utilities, buy groceries and still save up for a car? I worry about my health. Have I lost or gained weight, are my electrolytes OK, will my doctor approve of what I am doing or am I in trouble and heading to the hospital again? I worry about my eating, incessantly. Did I eat too much, too little, the wrong thing? Will I get fat? Will I look alright if I eat this? Will I feel full? I worry about my relationships. Should I call, am I being annoying or clingy, or too distant and isolative? Why am I so lonely? Does anyone like me? Will I ever have romance? Will my family and I ever be reconciled, or have I done too much damage?

So I worry a lot. My head spins, out of control, and I want to numb it out. Quickly.

Then I read in my devotional this morning (which I admit that I only read because I didn't know what else to do -- I rarely read it, which is a sad confession) that I need to go about my day trusting God and being thankful. Crap. I have been so busy worrying and numbing that I completely forgot what I do have.

So ... I am grateful.

I'm not in the hospital or treatment. I have a good care team who are watching out for me. I purged less this week. I have wonderful loving parents who practice boundaries, most of the time. I have a job, which pays the bills even if I don't love it. I have an weird and quirky and wonderful family. I have a few friends who have stuck with me through all my mess. The sun is warming up my section of the planet. I'm finally figuring out my medication. I get to take a really cool class on anthropology.... and my list will continue. There's always something to be grateful for, even amidst my worries.

Self-centered

I wonder, sometimes, if I am capable of real love. I am so selfish most of the time, so self-centered. And most of the time, I don't even realise it. I tend to think that I am the center of the world I live in, that everyone's thought's center around ME. I walk up the stairs at work in front of me and wonder if the person behind me thinks my butt is cute. I go to talk to my family and find all I talk about it my problems, my day, and it never occurs to me to think of asking, how are your problems, how was your day? Humanity makes us egocentric, and addiction even more so.

So I wonder again ... am I capable of that selfless love? That un-selfconsciousness that allows one to care about another human being? If I am I certainly haven't been practicing it. But maybe even the awareness of that is a way to start...