Everything Makes Sense . . . In Retrospect.

Retrospect: A looking back on or thinking about things past; contemplation or survey of the past.


I ran into Tree Man at a meeting last night. Not literally, of course, although I did back into his car and take off without leaving a note. He mentioned that he is thinking about transitioning from his current line of work which is . . . well, I'm going to assume that it's doing something in trees or with trees or to trees -- I'm not interested enough in what he's doing to actually ask him -- and going back to the kind of work that he did before The Troubles took him down.

It reminded me of my start in this Great Way of Life. I've documented it or at least planned on documenting it or thought about documenting it but got the thinking and the doing confused and am not sure whether I actually did it or just thought about doing it, which is not at all unusual. You can imagine how confusing it was making it through the day when I was smoking a lot of dope. I said the same things over and over, I'm sure. I'd sit there and think: "Did I already say that or did I just think about saying it?"


Did I mention that I documented something?

Anyway, I had my ass transitioned for me by an angry company when I was newly sober. I went from a job where I had some responsibility to one where I had none. I was basically a typist. Now there's nothing wrong with being a typist except that I can't type, don't like to type, have no training as a typist, and had to move to a much more expensive city where I was going to be making less money to take up my typing responsibilities.


It was actually kind of funny. Or it's kind of funny in retrospect -- it was decidedly not funny at the time. I was assigned a desk in a huge warehouse of an open office space. There were probably 75 women there and me, a six foot three Ichabod Crane figure, towering a foot over everybody else. Maybe god was trying to jump start my love life. If he was, I didn't take the hint, probably because I was engrossed in all of my typing responsibilities. God should know that if you want to get my attention you have to get right in my face and scream at the top of your lungs. Or better yet, use a bullhorn, an amplified bullhorn. Even then I might not pay attention. When I'm thinking about myself, which is all of the time, I'm focused to the point of delusional psychosis, should such a thing exist.


To increase my enjoyment and sense of self-worth, I was stationed right near the office door where all of my former equals came and went. My humiliation was on display for everyone to see. In retrospect, my job paid the bills and gave me the time to do what I needed to do: get healthy. I started at 8, ate lunch, and quit at 5. I went home and ate dinner -- notice that I ate two meals? big improvement -- went for a jog, then hit a meeting. I got there early and stayed late. Then I went to bed and got a good night's sleep. I didn't need a lot of stress or responsibility or long hours at work. I needed to eat, sleep, and recover.


Eventually, of course, the time came to move on.