The Kitchen Trash Can

It was the fall of 2011; our faithful rectangular hunter green lidless kitchen trash can was beyond retirement. Not only had several places on the lip broken off, cracks were beginning to develop as well compromising the overall sturdiness of the receptacle. It had been a useful and reliant trash can. I bought it over a decade ago and was finally dealing with the fact that I had to let it go. So I mustered up the courage and funds and decided to invest both in a new garbage holder. I really did spend WAY too much time and energy shopping for the item needed. I wanted something without a lid, it had to fit under the kitchen sink and of course I didn’t want to spend too much money on something that no one would see. Time for a perspective check, yes, we’re talking about approximately a $20 expenditure on something that is going to last several years. Doing the math, I think it comes out to LESS than pennies a day. Yet, I still managed to obsess about it. FINALLY, I made a decision. I purchased and brought our new trash can home! I filled it with a fresh white liner. I opened the door on the left side of the cabinet under the sink, slide it in and immediately ran into resistance. I pulled out the can, pushed it in again. It pushed back. I finally bent down and assessed it was all the stuff under the sink blocking the way. I rearranged the cleaning supplies and again attempted to put the new can in place. It still didn’t slide in. What was the deal?!?! After a bit more investigation I came to realize the garbage disposal was hanging down so low that the new trash can wouldn’t fit in the same old spot. What to do, what to do. With all that I had already gone through in order to get the new can, I was at a loss. Then it dawned on me. What if I put the trash can under the other side of the sink? Yes, the right side. Oh ya, it slipped right into place. Issue handled. Or so I thought. You see, after a decade of the same old habit, trash can on the left, getting not only myself but every member of the family to switch was certainly a process. We each had to stop and think before we acted. The habit of tossing a wrapper or scraping a plate was no longer “normal” or routine. It had changed. It’s been over a year now and I think we’ve all adjusted and adapted to the new home for the new trash can. Just like we’re all adjusting to being in recovery. Old systems of hurts, habits and hang ups weren’t working for us any longer. To be honest they were a bunch of yucky smelly garbage in and of themselves to begin with. The new trash can is a tangible daily reminder that change can happen. It takes effort. It affects others and in all honesty, at first, can come with slip ups. Easy? Not necessarily. Worth it? More than any value could ever be assigned. Recovery, it’s not a bunch of garbage. It’s letting the garbage go. Daphne, Another Changed Life- Say Yes to serve in CR Team leader

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do we introduce ourselves?

One of the things that might confuse a newcomer coming into this great ministry is the way we introduce our self and do so every time we meet in a Step Group and/or Open discussion group. The question that often comes up is; “Why in the world would we have to introduce our self every time we come together? I mean, we all know each other don’t we? We all know what the other is struggling with right? So why should I have to state my main issue I am dealing with? These are all logical questions and I think the below content from Tina at Saddleback might help shed some light on this. As you may already know, in our small groups we ask our Leaders to introduce themselves with this statement: “Hi my name is _______; I am a believer who struggles with________.” We ask our leaders to keep it short; to stick to one or two primary areas of recovery. We ask them not to state a host of recovery issues and character defects, etc… especially because we do not run recovery specific groups for cha...
Read more

12 Days Of CR Christmas

Image
One of our great leader Monica rewrote the lyrics to this old Christmas song to tie into the 12 steps. We had a lot of fun singing it and love that it keeps the focus on the 12 steps thru Christmas. Great job Monica! On the first day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the notion it’s not about me; On the second day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the third day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fourth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my inventory, will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fifth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me On the sixth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, desire to be humble, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the ...
Read more

Guidelines are there for a reason

Anyone who has participated in a Step Study or a small group through Celebrate Recovery has heard the five small-group guidelines. They’re supposed to be read aloud before each meeting starts, just to remind everyone or to inform any newcomers. Most of the guidelines are obvious and make perfect sense on the first reading. Anonymity is vital and as people who are submitting to God as our Higher Power, we should realize that we are in no more a position to “fix” each other than we are to “fix” ourselves. There’s one guideline that puzzled and even annoyed me at first, that pesky no. 2. “There is NO cross talk. Cross talk is when two individuals engage in conversation excluding all others. Each person is free to express his or her feelings without interruptions.” At first I really didn’t understand the guideline. “Did they seriously need to tell us not to talk to each other while someone was sharing?,” was my thought. But as the guideline was explained further, I better understood. We ar...
Read more