SuperK and I drove to the airport a couple of days ago to get on a plane to travel to the Mediterranean for a cruise and some time in Greece. I misread or misunderstood or misinterpreted the passport requirements for this country and heard this from the gate agent: "I'm sorry - I can't let you on this plane." We scrambled and hustled and threw Hail Marys all to no avail. We couldn't get mad at anyone because it was our own fault and we couldn't ask for an exception because this was a diplomatic issue - even if the agent let us on the plane the customs officials on the other end wouldn't have let us enter the country. Compounding the fuck-up was the fact that a significant portion of the trip was non-refundable and therefore forfeited.
All of this makes me reflect on the idea that life inevitably has its good moments and bad moments although I categorize them as pleasant moments and painful moments. This is a nod to the inevitability of pain and pleasure in life and it takes out the moral component. I'm not rewarded for being a good person and I'm not punished for being a bad person; at least it isn't a one-to-one equivalency. My life does run more smoothly and is more joyful when I'm behaving well but that doesn't give me an exemption for shit happing that I don't like. The religious phrase is that "God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust."
The lessons here are unclear at the moment. I'm still too agitated and emotionally involved. I do have the benefit of some hard-earned wisdom that allows me to look back on my life and see how pain led to pleasure and vice-versa. I was on a fast track to being a doctor of optometry when my escalating drug and alcohol use blew me into the weeds. Disaster, right? I segued into a line of work that gave me a great deal of freedom and the ability to manage my own time and I think I made as much money as a lot of optometrists, professionals who have forced into a manner of doing business that is no longer attractive to me, having changed so much from when I was young. When I temporarily got a career going while still using the drugs and alcohol scuttled this avenue and I was demoted and humiliated and forced to move to Chicago where I met the ethereal SuperK. Today I can see serendipity whereas while I was going through these disasters I could only see doom.
I talk about my own personal recovery slogans. Here's another good one: "I don't know shit."
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