dailyprompt-1945 – An Inspired Odyssey Through✨️Ink & Stardust✨️

Today’s prompt was asking what Legacy I want to leave behind. The answer is simply the service I can give to others. Being in AA and now the Legion of Mary, I have come to feel the rewards of a new life that used to be crowded with selfishness. I was always selfish, so self-absorbed in my own life and worries, I never thought about others or the impact I could have on their lives. Now, I believe, when people think of me, I want them to remember someone who gave back to their community, as someone who helped those in need, and most of all helped those suffering in addiction.

People can argue the existence of God till their blue in the face, but nothing can take what the feeling is like to know that God, what I call my higher power, took away my addition to alcohol. It is nothing short of a miracle, especially as someone who was a chronic morning drinker; someone who’s first thought as soon as I woke up was to take a drink. It was all-consuming, all the time, and it ruined my life and all my relationships. Only in surrendering to God, or to me Jesus Himself, was where I learned redemption and what my true purpose was.

As I move forward in life, I am meeting a lot of people who struggle with that same strife that I was able to leave behind. I guide them through the 12 Steps, I give them rides to meetings, and I help them understand that there is a life beyond the dark corners of addiction. In addition to that, I am very devout in my church, serving the community by visiting elderly couples, nursing homes, and delivering the Eucharist to those not able to attend mass. It is the most rewarding experience of my life, and I hope that once I pass the probationary period of my Legion, I will be ordained as a Eucharistic minister, and I could deliver the Host myself.

This is the legacy I want to leave behind. One of service, one of love, and one of duty to my community. From the floor of a jail cell to homelessness on the streets, I have been delivered through the Grace of God to do this work out of gratitude of saving me, saving my soul, and saving my family.

Stay tuned.

To me the legacy I want to leave is one about hope and ultimate triumph. There were so many rock bottoms in my life, I mean, there was rock bottom, ten feet of crap, pond scum, then me. That’s where I was and where I have been, especially when I was laying on the floor of a jail cell in late 2021.

I just want to say, stay positive. So cliche to say that, but it’s so true. We speak so much of our lives into existence. Yoda says, there is do or do not, there is no try – and I can’t tell you how true that is. If you say, “I am going to try to go out today, I am going to try and get a better job, or I am going to try to be a better partner,” 9 times out of 10 it will not come to pass. You are either going to DO it, or you Don’t.

So much of being in rock bottom, is a lot of our own making. Sure, there are outside circumstances that can put us there, but we don’t have to lay there and wallow in it. It’s like my therapist told me, “We aren’t going to talk about your past at all, we will focus on the present and how that relates how to build a better future.” Thank God I searched out a therapist that is an actual psychologist with a PhD and not one who just took an online course and is suddenly a “therapist.” Trust me people, it does make a difference. We spend so much of our lives rehashing the past over and over, that we just end up living in it and never moving forward. These kinds of ways of thinking are how I have broken out of the biggest rock bottoms of my life.

My legacy is my story, in the way it shows how I have overcome so much in such a short period of time. Rock bottom doesn’t have to break you, it can propel you, to heights and a life greater than one you can ever imagine.

Stay Tuned.

Daily writing prompt

What is the legacy you want to leave behind?