I Coulda Been A Contenda

I read the literature, I go to meetings, I talk in therapy and I pray earnestly the third and seventh step prayers. I ask for my “somebody-ness” and my ego manic to be removed or at least lessened. I am sincere. I have humor about this too. I talk to others and to God and I mean it when I say, “Thy will not mine be done.” And I mean it when I say, “Help me to carry your message and not my ego.” Inside I am secretly proud of this good spiritual intention of mine, also, humorously, observing the pride of my own humility.

And then, ah, and then.

And then at work I bristle when the Board questions my decisions. I smile but tighten when someone asks why I need this or that in the budget. That would be the organization’s budget, but I am thinking of it as “my” budget.

Oh, I catch myself and I think, “Not mine, not mine, God’s will, carry your message, not my ego.”

I talk to my self as if I am training a dog: “Ego down, down ego, down girl.”

How deeply embedded is this ME and MINE. How intractable this will to be recognized, to be somebody. There’s a juvenile tone voice in this that I recognize as a stereotype from a bad teen gang movie: “He disrespected me, man.”

Jesus, who is this in me?

I can imagine that with just a touch of senility, or a teensy bite of dementia and I will be parroting an even worse movie line, “I coulda been somebody. I coulda been a contenda.”