This was a good weekend, a great weekend, although I once again let too much time pass between the times when I really found moments to do for myself, to enjoy myself, to allow myself more time to heal.
After Friday's shift ended, I attended the first of two meetings and enjoyed a nap between. I laid in bed on Friday night watching videos on YouTube.
After Saturday's morning meeting, I had lunch with Mark, and I had the opportunity to allow the last of any and all possible current secrets - not really secrets so much as those things that, if left unsaid, could become such - to come out to the forefront of our communicative dialogue. I realized on Saturday that I am, in fact, headed in the right direction.
I had an opportunity to watch tv, to read, to work on the floors in my room, and to attend five meetings in the past forty-eight hours. As always, my only complaint is that the weekend is far too short. I never allow myself to sleep in for fear that I'm missing what I really ought to be doing. I never allow myself to nap appropriately for fear of the same thing. I feel that the last thing I ought to be doing on any weekend is sleeping too much when there's a book that I really am excited to finish, multiple projects I really want to complete, and a variety of other people, places, and things with which I want to involve myself. I didn't even allow myself the time to work on my blog until now, with only one hour left in the weekend before midnight Monday rolls around.
Still, I have only this week and four days of next before Good Friday is here and I'll have a three day weekend to really enjoy myself. On Good Friday, I'll be able to sleep in and rise only at my leisure.
Tomorrow being Monday, I really ought to already be asleep. My alarm is set for five, and I plan to wake up, meditate and have my first cup or two of coffee, and to go for a walk with my properly charged ipod and my thoughts.
I plan to enjoy myself and to write more (and more succinctly and thoroughly and honestly and openly) later.
18 March 2012
15 March 2012
Still Reading in the Roman Numered Pages
But today was a good day. I didn't walk around and enjoy every moment on that pink, cloud 9 personal high, but I did enjoy every moment I recognized as one to savor. What's more, I realize that I have nothing to complain about, nothing to fear. Tonight's meeting was on the topic of the promises. Like last night, I heard things that I'm sure have probably been shared in the past, but I've never actually taken in nor turned attention toward.
After the meeting, I made a new friend and found my hand reaching out to somebody in a way that I don't think I would have any time before. There's a pleasant feeling in seeing another man who is in a place that I was in the night Jenny came to me and struck up a conversation and asked me to be her friend, the first night I think I ever really felt any form of acceptance in all the years I've been coming to meetings. Ariej wanted to fellowship, and I was never more grateful for the opportunity to recognize a kindred spiritual need to be a part of something that's just a little more, just to the other side of the steps beyond that brief fellowship/smoking session that I have after every other meeting.
Jennifer mentioned having everyone over this weekend: cooking, watching movies, and being together. I mentioned that I've been all over the idea of a game night for some time, and I was beyond excited that she jumped at that avenue.
Later, I took Ariej and our new friend, Cody, to their respective homes and drove home to text Ryan for the second of what I'm hoping will be a regular and consistent conversational getting-to-know-one-another experience. The chat was the best possible way I can think of having ended an otherwise regular day. I feel such an amazing and unexpected camaraderie and kinship with the guy - and at just the right time. For all my thoughts of low self-worth and feelings of inadequacy, it's an acutely exceptional experience to just sit back and listen to someone else tell me about himself, to have the ability to listen for our similarities, and to know that -no matter what- I will likely no longer ever be short of friends or someone who gets me and the way that I think.
My fears of creative insecurity are on the verge of alleviation, and that is such an uplifting and comforting idea. I now know that this significant period of detachment from my creative processes are merely stepping blocks on my transition into a world of give-and-take, of making time not only for what I absolutely have to do but also for the things that I really want to do.
I'll have to remember to mention my own thoughts and ideas on quarter-life crises and what it means to me to be a member of our own forgotten generation.
Life is good. Sleep is ready to set in. I don't think I'll even pick up my novel to read tonight. I'll just allow rest to take over and allow myself time to give thanks and appreciation... so that I can get up and do it all over again starting early in the morning. I'm feeling so great that I may even wake up to a post-meditative work-out before I get ready for my final four hours of the work week.
For once, there was no need to be wary of the ides of March. There are no longer any Bruti (my pluralization of "Brutus") to avoid. The only person capable of stabbing me in the back today is myself, and I no longer have the desire.
After the meeting, I made a new friend and found my hand reaching out to somebody in a way that I don't think I would have any time before. There's a pleasant feeling in seeing another man who is in a place that I was in the night Jenny came to me and struck up a conversation and asked me to be her friend, the first night I think I ever really felt any form of acceptance in all the years I've been coming to meetings. Ariej wanted to fellowship, and I was never more grateful for the opportunity to recognize a kindred spiritual need to be a part of something that's just a little more, just to the other side of the steps beyond that brief fellowship/smoking session that I have after every other meeting.
Jennifer mentioned having everyone over this weekend: cooking, watching movies, and being together. I mentioned that I've been all over the idea of a game night for some time, and I was beyond excited that she jumped at that avenue.
Later, I took Ariej and our new friend, Cody, to their respective homes and drove home to text Ryan for the second of what I'm hoping will be a regular and consistent conversational getting-to-know-one-another experience. The chat was the best possible way I can think of having ended an otherwise regular day. I feel such an amazing and unexpected camaraderie and kinship with the guy - and at just the right time. For all my thoughts of low self-worth and feelings of inadequacy, it's an acutely exceptional experience to just sit back and listen to someone else tell me about himself, to have the ability to listen for our similarities, and to know that -no matter what- I will likely no longer ever be short of friends or someone who gets me and the way that I think.
My fears of creative insecurity are on the verge of alleviation, and that is such an uplifting and comforting idea. I now know that this significant period of detachment from my creative processes are merely stepping blocks on my transition into a world of give-and-take, of making time not only for what I absolutely have to do but also for the things that I really want to do.
I'll have to remember to mention my own thoughts and ideas on quarter-life crises and what it means to me to be a member of our own forgotten generation.
Life is good. Sleep is ready to set in. I don't think I'll even pick up my novel to read tonight. I'll just allow rest to take over and allow myself time to give thanks and appreciation... so that I can get up and do it all over again starting early in the morning. I'm feeling so great that I may even wake up to a post-meditative work-out before I get ready for my final four hours of the work week.
For once, there was no need to be wary of the ides of March. There are no longer any Bruti (my pluralization of "Brutus") to avoid. The only person capable of stabbing me in the back today is myself, and I no longer have the desire.
14 March 2012
The Last Night Before the Last Full Day of the Working Week
Wednesday night meetings have always been good to me, but they've been particularly evocative of late for they mark a sort of turning point toward a few days off that promise the hope of rest, relaxation, reading, writing, self-reflection, and inspiration towards newer and better ways of looking at life and the world. Thursday is the last full day I have to work before hitting the Friday morning high of knowing that I've only got four hours from eight o'clock that separate me from a sort of introspective fun and frivolity.
After tonight's step study (seven), I wonder if I ever really worked the steps to the best of my ability before. I certainly never gleaned from them the assertions I learned from John H. tonight. I never found a path of gratitude nor one of burgeoning promises such as those laid out by the men and women who came before me. Although I know that I previously worked them to the best of my ability at the time. Maybe everything that happened since - the time between then and now - happened exactly as it was supposed to happen. Perhaps I was destined to make the choices I made that led me back to 05 February, a day when I woke up and made a decision to end the spiritual, emotional, and creative bankruptcies I'd once again found to proliferate my life.
Maybe I think too much and over-analyze and have too many questions. I don't know what was so special about that weekend. I ended my Friday shift that first weekend in February as I would any other. I filed my taxes. I met up with Bryan. I had every intention of continuing on the same road I'd been journeying since leaving the safe confines of the fellowship of other recovering people. I planned to re-up and to go to an art opening and spend the weekend thinking about all the things I planned to do (but never actually made the first step toward accomplishing). Something changed that night... even though 03 February -the date of which I'm writing- wasn't the day I made the real choice. I still had to have one more night. One more jump into emptiness before I could wake up and make the real decision.
I have tons more to write, many more words to put together. I'm too tired at the moment. YouTube playlists from Midnight Syndicate and the rhythmic, meditative sounds of the ocean area calling and sleep is probably only a few moments from now... or so I hope, as five (to five-thirty) am come(s) early. I've already read through my nightly paragraph of what to do before retiring at night. And I re-read the forward to the third edition for the millionth time, as suggested by Mark (although I've finally been instructed [suggested] to begin reading farther [further? - is that distance or time or figurative or some combination of both?].
Today was a great day. International Pi Day - math's greatest constant. Albert Einstein's birthday. And, according to a pseudo buddy/acquaintance (Dan) on Facebook, "Happy Steak and Blowjob day."
The past two days at work have been simultaneously calm and productive. I've had more interesting and uplifting and meaningful conversations that I can recall at the moment, thanks to Ariej and Jenny, Alex and Mark, Ryan and the girls from work. Today/tonight, I end the twenty-four hours up to now on a positive note.
Now onto a quick spell-check, a tickle of the "PUBLSH POST" button, then back to The Swarm, which it looks like I'll finally be completing after picking back up, re-starting, then putting back down only to pick back up again where I'd left off a second time with a few other novels in between. How could I find reason to complain? For now, good orderly direction is working well in my life.
Grateful. Happy. Pleased. Content. Un-worried. Un-hurried. Hopeful.
After tonight's step study (seven), I wonder if I ever really worked the steps to the best of my ability before. I certainly never gleaned from them the assertions I learned from John H. tonight. I never found a path of gratitude nor one of burgeoning promises such as those laid out by the men and women who came before me. Although I know that I previously worked them to the best of my ability at the time. Maybe everything that happened since - the time between then and now - happened exactly as it was supposed to happen. Perhaps I was destined to make the choices I made that led me back to 05 February, a day when I woke up and made a decision to end the spiritual, emotional, and creative bankruptcies I'd once again found to proliferate my life.
Maybe I think too much and over-analyze and have too many questions. I don't know what was so special about that weekend. I ended my Friday shift that first weekend in February as I would any other. I filed my taxes. I met up with Bryan. I had every intention of continuing on the same road I'd been journeying since leaving the safe confines of the fellowship of other recovering people. I planned to re-up and to go to an art opening and spend the weekend thinking about all the things I planned to do (but never actually made the first step toward accomplishing). Something changed that night... even though 03 February -the date of which I'm writing- wasn't the day I made the real choice. I still had to have one more night. One more jump into emptiness before I could wake up and make the real decision.
I have tons more to write, many more words to put together. I'm too tired at the moment. YouTube playlists from Midnight Syndicate and the rhythmic, meditative sounds of the ocean area calling and sleep is probably only a few moments from now... or so I hope, as five (to five-thirty) am come(s) early. I've already read through my nightly paragraph of what to do before retiring at night. And I re-read the forward to the third edition for the millionth time, as suggested by Mark (although I've finally been instructed [suggested] to begin reading farther [further? - is that distance or time or figurative or some combination of both?].
Today was a great day. International Pi Day - math's greatest constant. Albert Einstein's birthday. And, according to a pseudo buddy/acquaintance (Dan) on Facebook, "Happy Steak and Blowjob day."
The past two days at work have been simultaneously calm and productive. I've had more interesting and uplifting and meaningful conversations that I can recall at the moment, thanks to Ariej and Jenny, Alex and Mark, Ryan and the girls from work. Today/tonight, I end the twenty-four hours up to now on a positive note.
Now onto a quick spell-check, a tickle of the "PUBLSH POST" button, then back to The Swarm, which it looks like I'll finally be completing after picking back up, re-starting, then putting back down only to pick back up again where I'd left off a second time with a few other novels in between. How could I find reason to complain? For now, good orderly direction is working well in my life.
Grateful. Happy. Pleased. Content. Un-worried. Un-hurried. Hopeful.
13 March 2012
Write It Down, Make It Happen
When I started this series (or, rather, found a little fake energy through NOSC [non-ordinary-state-of-consciousness] philanthropy) two months ago, I had every intention of following through, but like so many other things in my life up until 05 February, that energy and interest dwindled. The cool thing about life is that it's never too late to start fresh and to take a different look at things and re-address something that's important to you in a totally different way. It's been an entire month since my last post, and that's okay. Things are good. Life is meaningful. I'm still not ready to openly discuss everything that I would truly like to here, but that moment is coming. Maybe sooner than I think.
My biggest fear in my life of recovery is that I won't be able to find my creative voice the way I was always able to when under the influence of that perfect beat. I am hereby making a public decision that I won't allow sobriety to get in the way of my ability to write, to paint, and to live a creative life. I know that Stephen King, the man who has no memory of writing Cujo, was able to overcome the idea of finding inspiration in a bottle or a pill or a line of coke. Although many of his earliest works are some of his best, he wrote Misery and his phenomenal On Writing after the fact. If the greatest modern novelist of the twentieth century can overcome a barrier like that, I feel I may be able to as well.
My biggest fear in my life of recovery is that I won't be able to find my creative voice the way I was always able to when under the influence of that perfect beat. I am hereby making a public decision that I won't allow sobriety to get in the way of my ability to write, to paint, and to live a creative life. I know that Stephen King, the man who has no memory of writing Cujo, was able to overcome the idea of finding inspiration in a bottle or a pill or a line of coke. Although many of his earliest works are some of his best, he wrote Misery and his phenomenal On Writing after the fact. If the greatest modern novelist of the twentieth century can overcome a barrier like that, I feel I may be able to as well.
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