Calm Waiting

The longer I plug away at this the more convinced I become that waiting to make a decision is simultaneously one of the hardest and one of the simplest courses of action.  Someone once said: "All motion is easier than calm waiting."  The truth of the matter is when I slow down and let things unfold that answers appear, solutions present themselves, problems evaporate.  But I'm in such a hurry to rush headlong into the future that I don't give life a chance to play out.

Simple but not easy.

I can see that my plans for the trip are the best for everyone involved.  They really are.  If it's not me making the plans, who then?  You?  Please.  I position, I maneuver, I set up excellent, excellent plans, and very few people go along.  It's quite frustrating.

I gave up trying to force my family to help me out in a way that I think I should be helped out, and voila! solutions appeared to my left and to my right.  And after I calmed down I could see that people didn't want to do what I wanted them to do.  OK.  What exactly is the matter with that?  

Today a friend suggested to me that the answer is control!  more control!! take control!!!

A wise man, that guy.

Pushing Buttons, Pulling Levers, Crashing Planes

So, here I am, sitting pretty, living large, on top of the world, with a solution to my vexing problems and a very viable back-plan firmly in place.  I go to my 7AM meeting and yuck it up at my family's expense, to a few desultory laughs.  (Actually, I don't do that - I yuck it up at my expense because everyone finds that a lot more hilarious.  They know who the %$!! problem is, after all).

I texted a friend a few days ago whose mother lives in the same retirement community as my parents.  He comes over for the Sunday brunch often and we usually eat together when I visit - he's in the same Program class as I am and there's a bond there that's hard for outsiders to comprehend.  He was the kind soul who let me use a car for an entire week the last time I was in town at a total cost to me of approximately nothing.  We penciled in the second Sunday of my visit for a meal as he is out of town on vacation for the next 10 days.

This morning, after my meeting, I get this text: "I have a car at the airport that you can use until we get back."  I do not question the sincerity of offers like these when they come from Program people.  He made the offer because he wanted to, and I accepted because it is very, very helpful.  I thanked him a couple of times, and I let it go at that.  I think it devalues the offer to refuse a gift given - an offer is an offer sincerely made.  Thanks means thanks.

The point is that once I let go solutions came my way.  I'd like to say that the solutions are always convenient like they are in this case - lamentably not the case - but the situation clears up.  The important thing is that when I'm pulling the levers and pushing the buttons I can never get the damn plane to take off.  When I go back to my seat in coach and let the damn pilot fly the damn plane I get where I'm supposed to go.

Now, I still don't want to go back but that's a whole 'nother topic.

The Best Defense Is A Big Offense

Offend: To hurt the feelings of; to displease; to make angry; to insult.  

I was going to deliver a blow by blow analysis of how badly I have been treated/am being treated/will be treated on my past/current/future trips back to visit my family.  Then, I thought: " Maybe I better read what may have already written about these outrages."  "Hmmm," I thought, after completing my review, "Here it is - you've already vented your spleen, in exhaustive detail, only yesterday, and you don't even remember doing it."

Lot of good this daily writing is doing me.

Today I was so offended by these outrages that I thought I'd fabricate a lie to simply make the trip go away - I missed my flight, there weren't any other flights that day, the cost of any flights there might be was so outrageous, etc. etc.  I was so offended that I was willing to eat the cost of the entire ticket to get out of the obligation of this trip.  However, SuperK and I have this exercise where, if one of us is planning to tell a little white lie/somewhat larger lie/great, big, ol' whopper to evade a little/some/a huge shitload of discomfort, then the other person says: "It's never worth the lie - come up with a solution that involves the truth."  I'm not saying the person on the receiving end of this bromide is happy about it but it's always good advice, in the long run.

I thought: "Maybe I should pick up the phone."  I spoke to my sponsor, who didn't think too much about the lying idea,  and we hashed out a pretty good solutions.  Then I spoke to LWSJ who said: "Why didn't you call someone and ask for some help?"  I think a lot of the time it's more fun/more vexing/more grandiose to take a small problem and make it big, keeping it to yourself, complicating it where possible, and then feel really, really offended by the whole matter.

More good solutions.  Ask for some help and you get some help.  What a concept.

True Family

I went to a big Program barbecue today that was followed by a big meeting, outside, under a big tent, on a gorgeous day, at a ranch in the hills outside of Vacation City.  There were probably 125 people there and I didn't experience anything but good cheer, hale fellows well met, and all of that.  It's always amazing to me to see common folks stand up in front of a large group and speak like they're reading from a script.  There is a very low bullshit to truth ratio, assuming I'm not asked to share.  The words are from the heart.

I spent a short period of time in the morning pondering my family resentment, swishing the taste around my mouth like I was testing fine chocolate.  I looked around the gathering today and thought: "This is what my family sees when we get together."  What I see is something different, more of a low-grade toothache visually presented.

All in all, it was a lovely contrast. 

The Coup de Grace

Coup de grace: A death blow to end the suffering of a severely wounded person or animal.

I thought that I had moved past my resentment at having to travel back to The Old City for reasons that aren't pleasing to me.  And it is, of course, all about me and my comfort.

Complicating matters is the fact that The Old City has kind of a minor league airport that nonetheless manages to sustain the highest average fares of any airport serving a major city, and it has held this distinction continuously for many years, except for the odd occurrence of dropping down into second place.  In this case the statement: "We're Number One!" holds little appeal unless you're the one major airline servicing the place.  They're probably tickled pink at this award.

For a while I could get a reasonable flight out of a regional airport near my home but the dominant airline obviously killed this option as it vanished from the metaphorical radar screen, and went the way of the great woolly mammoth.  Now I have to take an expensive shuttle a couple of hours down to the main airport servicing Vacation City.  This adds a nice chunk of money that I have to spend on this trip that I don't want to take in addition to the two extra hours.  And because I'm heading into a minor league airport after 11PM all but a few of the biggest car rental places will be closed.  In lockstep with the dominant airline these guys are comfortable charging an amount in the neighborhood of a down payment on a Maserati to rent a Ford Focus.  All in all, I'd rather fork over the down payment for a Focus and get a Maserati instead but that isn't coming up on the Options list.

My sister, with whom I have a pleasant but distant relationship, will not pick me up, has never picked me up, offering a panoply of excuses.  I wish she'd just say: "Naw, don't feel like it."  It would be easier for me to accept than half-baked and lukewarm excuses.

Note to self: try to tell the truth more often.  Sometimes would be a goal to shoot for.

I'm kind of shit out of luck here.  I can take a very expensive cab; I can sit at the airport for 5 hours until the fucking car rental place opens; or I can rent a hotel room.  I'm leaning hotel because this would pack the greatest passive-aggressive wallop while costing the least amount of money.  It's not like I'm in a big hurry to see these people.

The coup de grace is that I doubt I get to accomplish any of the tasks I'm going back to accomplish.  This, in and of itself, is OK - after all I'm there to help others, not to complete my agenda.  I don't think the coup is a mean-spirited one - I think these people are not thinking of me at all.  Unfortunately, I foresee at some point, a phone call asking me to come back to help them accomplish the very same things that I want to accomplish this trip but will certainly be thwarted from accomplishing.  These things require a bit of planning to finish off and I don't think any planning is going on.

There's a great Seinfeld episode where Jerry buys dinner for a guy that he doesn't like to repay a debt.  The guy shows up, says he isn't hungry, that he had a hot dog earlier, and he orders soup, which isn't really dinner, to his thinking, so the debt still stands.

"No," Jerry says.  "Who told you to have a hot dog?  This is the dinner."

"This is just soup," the guy protests.  "That's not a dinner."

"So order anything you want," Jerry says. "This is the dinner!"

It's not a good thing when a Seinfeld episode serves as one's model for good living.

27

Cistern:  In a flush toilet, the container in which the water used for flushing is held.

I realize this is shocking news but I ignored my friend's example about humility and service that should hold true even on a Program anniversary - especially on a Program anniversary - and decided to Take a Cake to celebrate with my brethren and sistern.  The desire to be the center of attention was transcendent, overriding my desire to be humble.

What I forgot was I forgot that Friday is a book study so the attendance goes down by half - if you want to reduce attendance trot out some literature and ask people to read it - and that it was a Tradition study to boot, halving the already decimated attendance even further.  I mean you could hear crickets in the corner of the room.  When people talked there was a distinct echo.  I had just assumed on my anniversary it would be SRO, that my sponsor would have arranged a big screen TV and powerful speaker system so that all the folks who wanted to laud the shit out of me but who couldn't get into the basement would still be able to catch my remarks in kind of a flash mob that would spill into the street, blocking traffic and attracting reporters and law enforcement and paparazzi.  

I was still working on my shtick while Michael was reading How It Works.  I was going to KILL this morning.

I'm not making this up.

I guess I thought I was up for an Academy Award or something.  If I had said everything I had said to myself in my own head before actually coming to the meeting no one would ever get to leave.

I was brief.  This isn't a comedy club.  No one wants to hear me work the room.

Still, I'm proud of 27 years.  There is a certain amount of diligence required to add up that amount of time continuously.  I am proud of the considerable work that I've done.  It takes some time.  The payoff is unimaginable but it still takes due diligenc.

Taking a Cake

The day that I quit drinking and using drugs 27 years ago is coming up in the next few days, more or less.  I'm not sure of the exact day, to be honest with you - things were a little hazy at the end. I had been in and out and in and out so many times that I kind of quit paying attention to whether or not I was still using.  Does probing the pipe stem of a giant bong with an unraveled metal hanger, wiping the blank gunk that comes out onto a piece of cigarette paper, and then smoking that unholy mess in the exact same bong constitute a relapse?  I'm guessing "yes" even though that eventuality isn't specifically prohibited anywhere in our literature.  I probably smoked more metal shavings and plastic scratchings than I did THC.

In The Old City we called this day an Anniversary; here in Vacation Town it's a Birthday.  In The Old City you got to announce your Anniversary every day for a week, which was pretty cool, while here you only get to speak up on the exact day of your Birthday, which is kind of stingy, BUT you can actually get a real cake on your Birthday.  We actually have a Cake Commitment here which is a hell of a commitment if you've got to do service work.  I bet the Cake Person licks the batter spoon.

In The Old City I noticed that on my anniversary week I usually went to a meeting every day and I attended a few large meetings as well, meetings that I didn't even really like.  While I've always been active in my meeting attendance I've never gone every day and I've never been a big fan of large meetings, seeing a little too much posturing and preaching by some of the members, like me.  I began to question my motives, wondering if I was doing some posturing and preaching:  "Look at me!  Look at how great I am!"

Someone said once: "The Fellowship: the only organization in the world that celebrates the fact that our members decided, at one point, to run out of a burning building."

How'd I do it, you ask?  Don't drink and don't die.  It isn't rocket science.

I congratulated a friend of mine a while ago on 30 something years - he looked at me and said: "You know, Seaweed, I thought I'd be a lot further along than I am."

True dat.

On my 15 year anniversary I was in the 4th row of a Black Sabbath concert.  Kind of hard to top that one.  LWSJ and I were so pumped that we forgot where we parked our car and ended up circling the parking lot until almost everyone else was gone.  

I called an old anniversary class mate this week to ask him about Taking a Cake, as they call it here, because I know that he doesn't even announce his anniversary any more.  He didn't say don't do it.  I wouldn't have listened if he did.

That's humility.

Anyway, I waited until the penultimate day before ordering my cake.  I don't trust myself, the center of attention in front of a group of people.  Humility isn't my strong suit.  The last thing the world needs is me talking about myself.

Finally, I decided to Take a Cake.  The desire for sanctioned cake at 7AM overrode my admittedly small desire to appear humble.