Losing Its Charge

It feels like it should be midnight. It's been a day. I've been talking on the phone this week with a newcomer to AA. I picked her up this morning and took her to my home group meeting, her first outside a treatment centre. Weird how being strangers and having sobriety in common helps cut through so much in a nanosecond. We chatted easily for not knowing one another, connecting on many levels. That was a gift today. I feel drained tonight. I wasn't prepared for that.

I realized this evening that I've chaired every meeting I've been at since the beginning of December so it's no wonder I feel like I need a chance to share at a meeting. I never put that together until I was talking with dearest one tonight. It means I need to be picking up the phone more and making some connections and dumping the crapola rattling around in my brain where someone else can help me make some sense of it. The committe is getting crowded in my noggin.

I only realized about 5 minutes ago that tomorrow is Sunday and that means it's my day of being not only away from the internet, but away from the computer altogether. I wonder when that will get easier. I often picture other people and their morning routines. Do they get up, go brush their teeth and then make their way to the kitchen and make coffee? Do they have a shower, get dressed, make their bed and then go make coffee? What do other people do that provides a sense of security and routine to their day? I get up, head to the kitchen, make my breakfast, take my meds and head to the computer where I eat my breakfast and start writing a post while I catch up on your blogs. I've been doing that daily since July so to make a detour feels strange. Even the energizer bunny does a double take when I don't go into the office on Sundays. She looks at me like she's trying to give me a discreet nod of the head that says, "Um, in here sweetheart, you made a wrong turn." Lord love her.

I need to have a conversation tomorrow with someone about uncomfortable, in your face kind of stuff. Circumstances haven't presented themselves to have this talk - I've been waiting 6 weeks already - and tomorrow I need to do a bit more on my part to make it happen instead of being relieved when it just doesn't seem to be the right time and maybe, yes definitely, next week would work better, thank God. I've gone through it in my head how to approach it in a civilized, none accusatory way. But the hard stuff still needs to be said. And I have an obligation to more than myself to clear the air. On top of that, I see Fr. Charlie on Monday and I promised I wouldn't bitch about this person to him again until I'd had that talk. So I don't know if my motivation is anything more than wanting to bitch about them, or whether I'm seeing that I have a responsibility that extends farther than being happy that the opening to talk hasn't fallen in my lap. Did I mention I'm not good at confrontation? Let me rephrase that. I'm only good, if you can call it that, when it's prompted by strong emotions and knee jerk reactions. When it's calm and civilized and done with a dollop of sanity, it loses its charge. Well, that clears it up somewhat for me. I plain old miss the drama. I can see this post is one where I'm going to paint myself right into a corner if I'm not careful.

So I'll change the subject.

Here's a quote from my favourite recovery author:

"Life work is always about learning to respond to the events in our present life with the emotional intensity appropriate to the event and not with the emotional intensity that was appropriate to tragic situations twenty or thirty years ago........Serenity or living in a state of recovery is all about letting yesterday be yesterday and today be today. Recovery is training ourselves by practicing daily disciplines to act in the present as the present and not from the emotional stance of a thousand past yesterdays"

Lordy, Lordy, have mercy.