Yes, my parents were married when I was born. In the not-so-old days, if one's parents were not married by the time one was born, one was considered 'illegitimate' or a bastard, which meant one was not heir to one's father's estate or title. Curiously enough, I found the followiing in Wikipedia regarding illegitimacy: "In Scots law, the terminology of natural son or natural daughter has the same implications. The prefix "Fitz-" added to a surname (e.g., FitzRoy) sometimes denoted that the child's parents were not married at the time of birth." So you may legitimately say of your neighbor, "That bastard Fitzsimmons!" At any rate, legitimacy is not really an issue as much as it used to be, but there was a stigma to being born to a single mom.
When I was released from prison for the last time in 2002, I had no ID except for my prison ID, and I had no keys. When I was able to procure a legitimate Wisconsin ID, I felt more legitimate. This ID says legally who I am, and allows me to do things like buy liquor, gamble, and fly in an airplane. (Note that only one of those things is good for me to do). When I received the key to the apartment that the DOC (Department of Corrections) had provided for me, I felt more legitimate. The key meant that I had a place, that I wasn't homeless.
I write about this because I used to feel like I didn't belong most of the time. This feeling of not belonging is a symptom shared by many who live with alcoholism/addiction and depression and other mental illnesses. I've heard from many who share that early on, before the onset of their illness, they felt like they didn't belong. I felt foreign in my family, I felt foreign in kindergarten, I felt foreign growing up and into much of my adulthood, and I can still feel foreign, or what I call illegitimate, today.
You see, currently I'm homeless, but not really. I'm in a state of limbo. I don't have my own place to live, so I sleep at the shelter (the Salvation Army in Waukesha, which is the best shelter I've ever slept in, and I've experienced a number of shelters across the United States), but I'm not really homeless because I have the keys to my girlfriend's apartment (I'm here right now) and I have permission to come and go as I please (so long as I'm sober). I have a job to go to. I can vote in the upcoming election. I can drive a car (sort of - my license was suspended, and now it's valid, but it could be suspended again in the near future; it's complicated).
See all qualifiers in the preceding paragraph? Those are qualifiers to my current life; however, they aren't qualifiers to my existence, or to my legitimacy. I exist, therefore I am. My stance on humanity is that if I can see you, touch you, smell you, and feel you, and you look pretty much like a human being, you exist, and you are; therefore, you are legitimate. It doesn't matter if your parents are married, or if you have a place to stay, or if you have a job. If you are, you are a child of God, and you get treated that way.
However, I have a hard time sometimes applying that policy to myself. I want to feel, in a deep-down way, that I belong, that I am 'legit', no matter what - that I am because I am, and that is enough. Job or no job, girlfriend or no girlfriend, home or no home, swelling bank account or no account, I deserve to be here because I am here.
Did you know that as Children of God (or of Source or of the Universe or whatever works) that we are heirs to all that God or the Universe has? That we are intrinsically a part of the Universe, and nothing and nobody can take that away from us? We are because we are, and it can be no other way.
Yet the mind, or, more accurately, the ego, tells me I'm not, that I'm different, that I'm somehow less than if I don't have things like a job and a 'valid' place to live, a partner, nice clothes, etc. Even when I have those things, I can feel less than.
I think we're born knowing who we really are. I think we forget along the way, or we're taught differently. I think along the way we get taught conditional love, and get it confused with Unconditional Love.
When I was in prison, I had a couple of guys threaten my life. I stood up to them and told them to go ahead and try to kill me, because that's what you have to do in prison. Obviously they didn't. Nowadays the only guy I have to be wary of is me! I would like to get to the point where I don't make choices or take actions that are harmful to me. I don't even want the harmful thoughts.
That's it - it's fairly simple, really. I want to think and behave from a place of Unconditional Love toward myself and others. But since I learned one incident or one word at a time that I was unworthy, I must work back toward knowing who I really am one word and one action at a time, and I must be forgiving of my mistakes. I learned who I am from people who had no idea who they really were; now I must relearn from the Power greater than myself. Day in and day out, this must be my priority over all else - is my thinking and my behavior coming from a place of Unconditional Love, and if not, how do I move it into alignment with Unconditional Love?
It looks like I'll have enough things to keep me busy for a lifetime!
Namasté,
Ken
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