I have a tendency to go big or to not go at all as befits a man of extremes yet here I sit in a Program that preaches moderation as a virtue of sorts. It teaches me that I have a responsibility to move forward while being mindful of red lights and stop signs and brick walls. I would wallow in self-pitying lethargy and then drive full speed off a bridge, ignoring the signs that said that the road ended and there was no bridge anyway. I'm a lot better at doing things than sitting quietly, trying to read the signs and hear the small, still voices that tell me what I should I do. I'm a man with a lot of screaming, shrieking maniacs in my head. It's not easy to hear the wisdom found in whispers over that cacophony.
I've always wanted to live in Europe. I'm grateful of the advantages my upbringing afforded me but I'm a restless man, too, and I like to take chances and have adventures and see new things. Up to this point I've satisfied those urges by visiting places on vacation. Recently we've taken two pretty long trips to two of our favorite places and found that we really, really enjoyed it, to the point of not wanting to come home. In the past at the end of a long trip I was ready for the end but not on these two trips. There are a variety of reasons for this and while I think it's better to run towards something I like and not away from something I don't here in The States we're pretty divided and I feel that this division has seeped into the rooms. We're congregating with like-minded people more and more, to the detriment of the recovery community.
This is all personal speculation, of course. A lot of people don't see anything wrong and a lot more choose to ignore these tensions. People who obviously do a better job of practicing tolerance and patience than I do. Anyway, the point of this screed is that when I was in Europe - in rural Europe - I had no access to in-person meetings and for the first time in my life I didn't miss them. So often today I feel the strain of our political divided - real or imagined - and chafe at the homeless people who have found a cookie-coffee home in our overly generous community. But not this time. It was relaxing not being in a contentious environment.
