Elephant in the room

Thought I'd share something that has occurred to me recently, and you know what a visual person I am (if you don't know that you soon will)  :-)

The further away I get from the woman I used to be, who used alcohol as a way of processing emotions and feelings (good bad or indifferent), the more I am able to see just how lost and inauthentic I really was.  All the things I thought were wrong with me,wrong with my life, were really just delusions that I fueled with the drink.   Its like living in a room that I thought was painted this grey/taupe color.  I was fine with that, didn't know anything different so all good.  But in time and with distance from my drinking,  I'm able to see that the room wasn't actually grey/taupe at ALL ,, that was the huge elephant in the room, which was my drinking.  It was so huge, so invasive and I was so close to it, that I thought that WAS me, my life.  Now I'm learning that the room is actually multi-colored, vibrant & beautiful - green, pink, blue, orange & red.  And in that room, sitting on the floor, is a little stuffed elephant, a reminder of how myopic I used to be ,,, and could be again if I fall flat on my face.

A new poem I just finished.

        Strangers

Yeah, you never knew me
You saw what you wanted to see
I showed you who you wanted me to be
But you never really saw me.

All those years, the good times we shared
It was all smoke and mirrors
I was just lost
And my soul was never bared

You kept me around
I was your unicorn, your clown
We mystified each other, you know it too
It was an illness - alcohol and you

You are such a deep part of who I used to be
It’s the past, no longer true 
That you and that me.

Pain and yes anger, that’s what I feel
I would not or could not be who I was, be real
Love, now I don’t even know
Hard to say, when we are both letting go

Yeah, I never knew me
I saw what I wanted to see
I gave the world what it wanted of me
But I never really saw me 

My vision is clearing