Gathering

i'm up late bidding on quilts and making strange remarks on Twitter, and it's all kind of fun after a day that didn't bring much, or to which i, perhaps, didn't bring much. The best I could, I console myself, as I've been sick terribly sick for days now. And nothing worse than terribly sick and alone, truly. But here's a lovely quote I like, from a book about football:

"What effective leaders have in common is a vision of where they want to go and the ability to persuade and sell that vision internally and externally. They consider the position a privilege, not a right. And they're totally trustworthy."

I could read that every day.

I fear wading in waters too deep

I wake up some mornings - lately, a lot - and I don't even know why I should roll out of the rack. This morning while I was trying to think of a reason, I thought, This doesn't augur well for your future. I mean, I'm still "young" and - wow, it's horrible that I have to put quotes around that word - healthy and-- well, my future stretches out in front of me but it's a shorter stretch now, isn't it?

I thought, You need to have a reason for living. And of course Maya is the first reason. But she can't be the only one, and I don't have her with me now, or half the time.

I literally feel like I'm getting up some mornings because I'm alive, and when you're alive, you get up.

So I'm inching up on a greater purpose question here. Is there something I can do, something I'm meant to do, and I don't like using that word with its sense of pre-destination, but for lack of a better term... Where am I getting my meaning?

And I'm writing this here and now because I just watched an episode of Rescue Me and there's a great monologue at the end of the episode where Sheila talks about the death of her husband and I felt her, this fictional character, and cried a little, and thought That's what I can do. I can write something that makes people feel.

Because for some reason I think that's worth something. It's why I wanted to be a reporter, it's why I always wrote - so somebody else would feel something. So that yes, there was this sense of our common humanity - and that's important and meaningful to me. I think that's why Buddhism appeals to me too - because this life is shared, even if we feel we are experiencing it alone. If I focus on the shared experience - literally, that I am not separate from you or you or you, from the ocean or the trees or even that magazine on the nightstand - do I even need to find meaning? Isn't it just that meaning is?

Could this really be me starting to keep a journal again?

The situation I'm in right now is making me actually live by principles.

I avoid this thing like the plague. I don't keep journals anymore - if I'm not getting paid, I'm not writing, baby! but I think I have to return to the pen, as it were, to actually take a closer look at my life and maybe keep a record of what I'm learning, what I'm resisting, what's working, what isn't.

I am struggling every day not to stay sober, but to live in the now. The job, which is complicated and disappointing and frustrating and ego-deflating, is turning out to be a great teacher. I have nooooooooo control. Zero. Except in how I choose to live in this moment. So if I've got some principles to live by, or fucking cling to in this case, then I've got a better chance at better living. I can live fearlessly. IN THIS MOMENT i have nothing to fear.

I've got this sort of joke greeting to start the day with, said in a cheery way emulating how my daughter greets me in the morning from her room: Good morning, Day I have no control over! Good morning, Powerlessness!

Thing is, it makes me smile, and it pretty quickly puts things straight. That's exactly the situation I'm in. Now live.

(btw, the English language really screwed up with "live" - what would have been wrong with "live" and "lyve," or some other way of discerning the difference in the written word!?)

Powerless over that too, bitches.

florida

i have now gone to two meetings in Florida by saying this to myself: "If LA was here, she'd go in."

What popped in to my head en route to the meeting tonite: Let me seek to understand than to be understood.

I think i've been pretty great with the kids on this trip but I realize that I haven't really tried to see it from their point of view. I've been making decisions based on old experiences but this is a new experience for all of us. More listening tomorrow. Less shoulders up around my ears.

crimes and misdemeanors

When the third cat went missing, I didn't care and didn't look. Previous experience, his habits, told me he'd been hit by a car and was dead somewhere. But I didn't even think about my daughter and how it would affect her. I didn't think about how cold I must have seemed. Was. Because his death/disappearance was a convenience... I didn't want three cats anymore. And now I didn't.

Songs about a cat named Virtue, sung by the Weakerthans, wrench my heart and bring me to tears, but poor B... he got nothing from me, while my girl wrote notes to an invisible fairy and asked he be given a second chance.

returning

went out over the holidays. ten short days, and drinking wasn't the real issue. it was the glorious white powder. and i'm grateful i did it, because i REALLY came face-to-face with my powerlessness this time, as i blasted through 3 grams in less than 24 hours - possibly a personal record - and then i finished the shit off, went to a party, had some tequila, drove the girlie and i home and stopped to pick up the pizza i'd ordered...

and saw my bank in the distance and thought, i could call my dealer now and then hit the bank for some cash and get home in time to get some more and do some more and stay up again for no reason but just to have it again...

with my kid in the back seat.

so if you ask me if i'm done, yeah, i'm done. i'm back at AA with no conditions. I had a lot of conditions when i went back in September, but i can't afford them now. The group can be my higher power. i'm phoning people. and i'm writing this again.

so that's that. i got in touch with my old sponsor, and made an amend to her when i've been thinking for years that she owes me one. so that felt good.

and oh yeah. I had a facelift and an eyejob, which was a decision i made shortly after the anti-depressants kicked in months ago, and i can tell you, i have no regrets. there's still some soreness in the neck/throat area, but it's healed really well, and i look less and less like Mickey Rourke every day. (seriously. the first day was Not Good in that respect). It'll still be swollen for a couple months, apparently, but i think i can see how it'll be, and i gotta say, the outside matches the inside better.

OK. I'll post tomorrow about my weekend of crying non-stop about jobs i'm not getting.

triggers

when i get news i don't like. To wit, the third cancellation on my dinner party on Saturday night. Suddenly pretty perfect situation of nine people has now been whittled down to six. For me, whole tenor of evening changes. NO WAY can it be as good. I hang up the phone and want a drink. I pray that E will arrive with cocaine. Anything that will... wipe out the feeling.

And oh yeah, en route to a meeting that morning, anticipating cooking, seeing myself with a glass of wine. Fa la la la la - look at me, i'm sophisticated. I sip wine while i cook for nine. well, more fool I as it turned out to be only six, so thanks god i didn't drink, right?

there was one more that day... can't recall what now. So how did i stay off the sauce? Partly just noticing how much I wanted it, especially after cancellation #3.

Fave saying from saturday morning meeting, re: hanging out with your family: "They know how to press my buttons; hell, they installed them."