Reflections From A Guy Who Never Thinks About Anyone Else While Believing That Everyone Else Is Always Thinking About Him

Rampage:  A course of violent, frenzied action.

As I work through another pile of a seemingly endless pile of irritation at people who aren't doing what I want them to do I usually end up at the spot where I realize that nobody is doing anything to me.  They're not even taking the time to think about me - at all - let alone coming up with some complicated plans to make me uncomfortable.  It's a paradox of unimaginable futility on my part.  We talk about egos-on-rampage all of the time in The Fellowship - sometimes I get complacent and think that my ego is  . . . not rampaging, exactly, more like some mild, uninterested pillaging.   

I'm guessing - and I'm probably pretty accurate here - that my sister isn't thinking about me at all.  I'm not that important to her day to day life.  I sent an email to her and she had a reaction to it - likely an uninvolved reaction - and then she moved on with her life.  But me? I think she has plotted out an elaborate scheme to punish me for something I've done or left undone.  I don't spend any time on other folks but I think they're obsessed with me.

I clearly have a long, long way to go.  Luckily, it's a long, long journey.

In Control (And I'm Sure I've Used This Reference Before)

Different:  Not the same; exhibiting a difference.

When I find something unacceptable in my life I do everything in my power to change it into something that I find acceptable - I mean every, last, little fucking thing that I can do - before I consider maybe asking my higher power for help and direction.  I very rarely start with the premise that my higher power has a better plan.  I start with the premise that my higher power is going to fuck things up.  Consequently, I need to take charge.  I need to BE IN CONTROL.  If not me, who?  I'm serious here - who better than me to control the world?

I believe that this string of incidences with my sister and my father has been the catalyst to push me through and into a different mind set.  Other old people are likely familiar with the Charlie Brown, Lucy, and The Football story.  Lucy holds the football so that C. Brown can kick a field goal.  He makes a big run at the ball, winds up for a mighty kick, and ends up flat on his back because Lucy jerks the ball away at the last second.  But she always convinces C. that this time it will be different.  It's never different.

Why in the world did I think that this time it was going to be different?

I don't want to be mad at these people who I love but I don't want to be on my back, on the hard ground, looking up at the twinkling stars, either.  I hope I can push through to a new sense of acceptance, to a more realistic reality.  I'm doubtful here but this time it feels different.

Guide To The Proper Fertilization of Garden Variety Resentments

Compassion:  Deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it. 

And then when I think about all of the conversations I've had with people over the years about family difficulties - intense, focused conversations -  the response, usually delivered with a resigned sigh, is along the lines of: "Family can be hard."

That's it?  Those are the great words of wisdom accumulated over years of sobriety and diligent spiritual work?  Family can be hard?

Behavior that I wouldn't tolerate with potential friends and colleagues can be tough to reconcile when it comes to blood relatives.  If I don't like how I'm being treated I can find a new job or hang out with someone different, options not available with family.  You can't pick a new sister or a new father.   There are advantages to these long-term relationships, of course - we're forced to work through things with some diligence and that helps us learn to compromise, effort that can lead to relationships that are incredibly strong and resilient. 
It's pretty hard to jettison family relationships.  That takes some resolve. 

But drunks aren't known for hanging in there and working through things.  Drunks are known for packing up a car and driving off.  Drunks are known for taking a slight - real or imagined - planting it in good soil with plenty of sunlight and excellent drainage, fertilizing it, pruning it when necessary, watering it but not watering it too much, a common problem with most resentments, resulting in a stunted and unattractive resentment which I think we can all agree that nobody wants.  I mean if you're going to have a resentment do it right. Don't half-ass your resentment.

You can pick your nose but you can't pick your parents.

I Surmise I'm Not Too Bright

Surmise:  Thought, imagination, or conjecture, which may be based upon feeble or scanty evidence. 

I surmise that the best thing I can do for these people is to leave them alone.  Nobody is asking me to come back, for god's sake - when my sister needs help she usually speaks up. And when she speaks up she basically says "deal with dad however you want - I'm taking the week off."  She doesn't complain about all the work she does; she isn't a martyr; she isn't passive-aggressive - I know exactly where I stand, which is pretty far back in line.  What's the matter with that scenario.

I'm helping people as I think they should be helped, praying that they be cured of this or that irritating character trait.  Which they seem to be fine with, by the way.  I go to an Eleventh Step meeting every Saturday where we emphasize how stupid this kind of behavior is.  Not sticking with me, apparently, which is why we read the same fucking things over and over.

I'm taking a little trip north of The Old City to my parents' childhood home to attend a much beloved and highly nostalgic county fair.  Because I'm not sure when I'll next be back I got in touch with some peripheral second cousins and great-uncles to see if they'd be around, and they were thrilled to hear from me.  We've gone back and forth several times.  THESE are the people I should be in touch with.

Clearly, I'm not too smart.

Into the Ring of Fire

Heading off to the Old City in a week or so.  This won't be Scandinavia, that's for sure.  I'm wondering if this will be my last trip back for a while?  I've said this many times but I may finally mean it.  I sent a big note to my sister discussing a variety of weighty matters - which took me quite a while to put together, included a few revisions and rewrites, and caused me some mental anguish - and 3 days later I get nothing back.  

Dad is dad - uncommunicative, angry, discontented.  He's doing dad things - I suspect that when I'm there that he appreciates it more than I know but . . . it's not as if I'm doing anything to make his life better.  He doesn't want to talk.  Really - he's always been a pretty selfish man.  He did a decent job of handling family responsibilities, setting a decent religious example, but not a lot more than that.  And my sister and I have never been close - never been remotely close - so this behavior is very consistent on her part.  Am I not the guy who prides himself on behaving consistently?  That's all I can ask of someone else - do the best that you can and behave in a consistent manner.  That way I know what to expect and can adjust my expectations accordingly.

I'll see a few friends and I'll leave some more alone - I do myself a disservice if I make it a priority to see them.  If I leave it all be then they become people who are simply dear old friends that I love a lot who live far away.  I can hardly get upset - if I want to be reasonable about it and I do not - with people that I never spoke with on the phone when I lived there or with people that I made uncomfortable when I gave it a shot.  Some of us don't like the phone.  Or texting.  Or email.  

Maybe I'll take a few drives through downtown; see the house, recently sold, that was in the family for 55 years; check out my old neighborhoods; then call it quits.  Go back when someone dies.  It isn't like people are pounding on my door to stay in touch - and this is the exception rather than the rule, so whose fault is that?  Go find a mirror.  I'm the dude who fled.  If I wanted things to stay the same then I should have stayed put.

All Matters Family

Yesterday I rang up Shorty, my go-to guy in all matters family - I haven't given him the chance to tell me to go to The Fellowship For Those Who Know Alcoholics for a while.  I figured his time was nigh.  He needs to feel like he actually knows something from time to time.  This is my opportunity for passive-aggressive service work.

I need my friends to help me look at difficult situations from all possible angles.  I don't need people to agree with whatever it is I'm doing - I'm not in a bar drinking anymore.  I want to see stuff with a new perspective because my inclination is to think that whatever stupid thing I'm doing is, in fact, not stupid at all but a very smart, very appropriate thing.

I want to balance my responsibility.  I'm the guy who has a powerful spiritual program - I need to go the extra yard, to be the bigger, better, badder human - and I'm also the guy who should know enough to keep a low profile when I'm not needed, or wanted, a tough task for someone who knows everything about everything.

My family percolates along.  I try to stay in touch.  I try not to stay in touch too much.  I try not to get angry or judge.  I try not to tell god what it is he should be doing or not doing.

Seaweed: Aribiter

Arbiter:  A person who settles a dispute or who has ultimate authority in a matter.

As an arbiter of everyone else's fate I confess to wondering if things wouldn't be better for my father if he went and met my mother up in heaven.  That's a euphemism for wondering if he would be better off slipping into the next world in his sleep.  Another euphemism, of course, for death.  I feel awful even thinking that but not as awful as I feel imagining what it must be like being in my dad's place: broken body, loss of spirit, now deprived from the one thing that might have given him some solace - brother alcohol.

Like I know what's best for anyone.  Like I know who should be alive and who shouldn't.

To be clear: I'm not wishing that my father would die.  I'm wishing for him to have some peace of mind and I don't see that as an eventuality in the current state of affairs.  It's painful for me to imagine what a day must be like for him now.  I can't imagine that it's pleasant.