A Mission From God

I've been pondering this Mission From God that I've been on for the last ten years to convince my parents to move out of their home and into a kinder, gentler retirement community.  They've listened to me and done what they wanted to do - as is their right - which is NOT move out of their home and into a retirement community.  They join a large crowd of people and institutions not doing what I want them to do.  This is a Big Win for the human race, given my ability to make almost everything worse.

Recently, my father took a series of falls and my mother can't get him back on his feet anymore. It appears that they've accepted the fact that they can't stay in their home anymore.  I hope things work out.  I'm not sure that they will - some people take change harder than others and leaving your home of 55 years on fairly short notice is a whopper.  My Mission included a slow, controlled liquidation of 55 years worth of stuff.  Also ignored.  Now with a sudden shift the liquidation is going to be hard and fast.  If only they had done what I wanted when I wanted them to . . . oh, right, that almost never works out well.

I recently returned from a tough trip home and it looks like I'm heading back there before too long.  My sister is doing all of the heavy lifting with my parents and my presence is going to be the Right Thing To Do.  It's all pretty inconvenient seeing as I just made the long trip back.  If they had only done what I wanted . . . oh, snap, I'm thinking about myself again.  

Funny thing, this service.  Doing what needs to be done not what I want to do.

The Here and Now

Now:  The present time.

I attended a meeting yesterday where we read from "As Bill Sees It."  The speaker chose as his topic "One Day at a Time."  I was not surprised to see that most of the selections were from the chapters in our literature that deal with prayer and meditation.  Again, my tendency is to look into the past - full of regret and remorse - or to flee into the future, where I face terrible obstacles sure to bring me much pain and suffering.  I forget about the minute.  I forget about where I am - a shame because most of the time I'm in a very enjoyable spot.

The prayer and the meditation - the meditation especially - brings me back to the Now.

Slow And Steady Ensures a 10th Place Finish

Steady:  Constant in feeling, purpose, or pursuit; not fickle, changeable, or wavering; not easily moved or persuaded to alter a purpose; resolute. 

I've mulling over the Long Haul the last few days.  When I was getting started my nickname was "Half-Measures Seaweed."  This is technically not true.  I heard someone tell that story when I was getting sober in Indianapolis and I liked it so much I made it my own.  I tell it all the time in meetings, happily, with no regrets, employing great poetic license.  It certainly could have been applied to me - I had taken doing as little as possible to stay sober to the Next Level, with the results that you might expect.  I did a little recovery and got drunk.  I did a little more, stayed sober a little longer, then got drunk.  It went this way until I was fully engaged in our 12 Step program of recovery and I've been sober ever since.  It's not like anyone is calling me "Full-Measures Seaweed" but my reputation has improved.

There's a guy from The New City who has been calling me since I've moved.  Good guy, clean and dry for a while courtesy of a long prison stay, now working hard on his recovery.  He's gotten busy in his personal life as his circumstances have improved - which is what we want and expect to happen - and it's crowding out his recovery life a tad.  I think he'll be OK but it bears watching.  It reminds me of all of the thousands of people I've seen cycle into The Rooms, work at this just long enough to get the trolley back on the tracks, and then cycle back into oblivion.  

This diligence with our recovery applies to so many other areas of our lives as well.  Slow and steady results in a tenth place finish but we're finishing and we're not tearing our Achilles tendons and we're in the race the next day, not like that flashy SOB who dusted us off in the last race.  That dude's in the ER getting his knee scoped.  It's like swimming across a wide lake - I don't get to swim for a while and then take a few days off, unless I like the sensation of drowning.  

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

Everyone Needs A Hobby

Whenever I don't feel well, the first thing I do is get on the internet and search for diseases with the same symptoms that I have, then I pick the worst one.  That's what I have.

It's like a hobby.

50-50

My recovery is a 50-50 partnership with my Higher Power - he does all of the worrying and I do all of the work.  Really a bit of a pity because I have demonstrated some real talent in the worrying milieu.  Moreover, I have not demonstrated much of a capacity for the work thing.  I find it kind of hard and burdensome.  

37

This is funny, in an "You're not all that, dude" kind of way.

A woman announced 37 years of continuous sobriety at our meeting yesterday.  She thanked everyone for their well-wishes and said: "This is the only Program in the world where we receive applause and a birthday cake for running out of a burning building."

Pogo and The Construction Workers

Pogo: To use a pogo stick.

I was reminded of this story recently:

Three construction workers eat lunch together every day.  And every day one of them opens his lunchbox, takes out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and proceeds to swear like a drunken sailor.  PB&J again!  He hates peanut butter and he hates jelly.  He hates bread.  If he has to choke down another peanut butter and jelly sandwich he is going to lose it.

Finally, his friends speak up: "If you hate those sandwiches so much why don't you ask your wife to make you something else?"

"Wife?" the guy says.  "What are you talking about?  I'm not married - I live by myself."

Pogo: "We have met the enemy - and he is us."