The person with whom I had a huge blow-up last year is back this weekend for a short visit.  I have made a full amends to her and the two times I have seen her I have been cordial and polite if a little aloof.  I have forgiven her for what she said to me but that does not erase those words or how they ended our friendship.  I do not want her to be sad or hurt, but I am afraid she came here with expectations of being friends again.  That may be my own imaginings.  It would be ego-centric to believe any of this.  Still, my amends give me the ability to stay on the same side of the street with her and not have to avoid any kind of further meetings.  Tomorrow evening I’ll head to the regular Tuesday night AA meeting in Marpissa and talk about that if I need to.

All of this is not as important as I would like to make it out to be.  In the long run, these are small blips on the radar.  They point towards experiences from which I have garnered wisdom, like rocks in familiar seas I have learned to sail around.

I am also heading to Athens on Wednesday to pick up a camera I left for repair and see some friends.  I hope to hit at least one meeting while I am there, maybe two.

Johnnyboy

The meeting this week was good in at least two ways.  The first is the obvious: a meeting.  The second is that I was able to learn both ho to live and how not to live soberly here on a small island.   I can leave the old resentments behind and dispel the angers that others have.  Thank God I am working my program and not that of someone else.  I m alright if I stick to my program.

I have been reading Marcus Aurelius’ ‘Meditations’.  It is amazing what the old Emperor had to say about how to live in a world of chaos.  For him the best that one could do was to shoulder the load of a day’ work with honesty, dignity and a sense that this is only for today.  Sound familiar?  It wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere along the live Bill W, Bob or their predecessors in other programs had read ‘Meditations’ and gleaned some solid common sense form the words of a philosopher who was stuck with the job of ruler of the known world-and I thought I had tough situations!

I have now been to meetings in Italy-Florence and Rome.  My scope i widening and as it does it is reassuring to hear the same stories in the room wherever I go.  I am not unique, not hopeless and not alone.

Johnnyboy

There is nothing I can do except stay out of their way.  The can bulldoze all they want through this term and I am keeping myself clear of their chaos, and there will be chaos, especially when we reach the island.  I doubt these kids will get much work done.  That being said I am the once who needs to get my work done, be selfish with my time and resources.  I can also set a few ground rules with them regarding the dark room and what that means.  There is only one I need to talk to and all he needs to know that there is no place for drunkenness or goofing off in the dark room with his buddies after a long night drinking.  This can be said with candor, honesty and, I hope, a sense of man-to-man straightforwardness.

Regarding my own program of action:  I will be attending the Tuesday night meetings on the island and, possibly, the Monday night group as well.  The second group is Greek-speaking, but it is easy enough to have translator for the bi-lingual angle.  This, on top of my mp3 speakers, phone calls and Skyping once on a while can keep me sober, sane, happy, joyous and free.

I will be in Rome tomorrow and I have the addresses for the meetings there.  They are a short, but uphill, walk from the hotel.  I will be grateful to be able to hit two–Monday and Tuesday evening.

Regarding the behavior of others…What I learned from last year is a gift from the Al-Anon program:  I didn’t cause it, can’t cure it and can’t control it.  What a relief that is!  Once again this is  a one-day-at-a-time formula for living that insures my own emotional sobriety.

More will be revealed…Johnnyboy

I am in Italy.  Next week I’ll be in Greece.  I have attended a couple of meetings in Florence (noon and evening) but not since the beginning of the month.  This can be a dangerous predicament, but so far, so good. I have remained in contact with God all the while-hitting my knees, asking for help, minding my own business, being calm…so I del pretty good.  Today started off early, so I’ll have to watch for being tired this afternoon.  I will be in Rome for a couple of days next week so I will try to get to a meeting while I am there.  It seems that even the intent to go to meetings is a good start to keeping spiritually fit.  I was listening to a speaker last night on my laptop and he reminded me that attendance at a few meetings is alright, but no substitute for working the Steps.

When I am back in Greece I have the Parthenon Group while I am in Athens and then the small group on the island while I am on Paros.  I can make the Tuesday night meeting this time since I do not have the commitment to the art history lecture that I have had before.  This brings up the topic of me, my future and what that means.  I have no idea.  That’s the long and short of it.  I really must let God take these things in hand. True, I can do all the footwork, but sometimes even that is unclear.  Suit up and show up–and sometimes sit down and shut up.

Does my life include a larger role on Paros?  Am I successfully, if slowly, removing myself from the caregiving role I have had for so long?  I am still being asked to micro-manage some pooches from afar, but that’s alright as long as these actions do not become to consuming of my time and energies.  More will be revealed…

Johnnyboy

Anyway…I have also sent out an email blast to my worldwide AA friends about having some Skype get-togethers while I am away and on the island. So far two responses–one from Australia and the other from Serbia.  This will be a good start.  It really is up to me to stay sober and sane and if I want it bad enough, I’ll go to any lengths.  To that aim I have made a decision to go to the Tuesday night meeting in Marpissa and skip the art history lecture.  I have been through that lecture already so I won’t miss anything.

I am wary about what the Italian experience will be.  I am certainly not going to be stand-offish, but I have to remember my place as an adult in a group of much younger adults than I, some of whom have never experienced the world outside America.  I must be the quiet guide to their questions and wondering eyes. I must also not be their teacher.  As a sober man I must be the upstanding example of sobriety and not some nut-job.

So I begin the packing…More long pants for this trip, lighter sweaters, neater wear as opposed to the island fashion that Paros demands.  August 29th approaches…

More to come…Johnnyboy

I have been in contact with the AA folks in Italy, primarily Florence, and they at least know that I am coming at the end of August.  I can go to a couple of meetings before I head to Pistoia, where the school will stay for a few weeks.  There are no contacts in Pistoia, so it will be me, the telephone and God for a while.  I will practice acceptance and keep my nose out of other people’s business!  That’s a good start.

I have been invited to go bowling this weekend with a gay bowling league in a nearby town.  I haven’t bowled in a while so it will be interesting, plus the added queer dimension should be fun.  Why do I have a feeling I am going to run into someone from my past, and I mean longtime-ago-past?  It’s not a “sober” bunch, but neither are they drunks, just normal humans.  I am looking forward to the chance to socialize with some new faces and who knows what may happen.  If I keep walking through the open doors I will experience more and more of life.  It is still strange to think that when I came out over ten years ago, bowling and real social activity was not part of the scene for me. Drinking, tom-catting and acting snarky and cynical were de rigueur–all very unhealthy, especially he tom-catting.  I acted pretty slutty to get what I wanted from whomever I picked up in the bar.  At least I played safe.

Hotter than the hinges of hell (as my mama would say) here in Somewheresville.  No rain predicted, just more hazy, hothothot and humid.  Pray for rain…

Johnnyboy

I wrote this in an email to a friend this afternoon.  Since that time I have gained a level of acceptance for my future, my life and my being that I have rarely felt.  I have been able to let go of much fear in the past few days. I feel the root of this ‘letting go’ began when I decided that it was time to leave the care-giving of my mother to the caregivers and slip into a healthy stream of life.  At a meeting tonight an AA friend told me he is moving to Albany to re-energize a gay activist group he was a big part of in the 1980s.  The time has come again for this group to act.  This has inspired me to think, “Why not Albany?  Why not an urban center with a large community?”   If I were to try to predict my path for the next few years, or set a goal of life along predetermined lines, I would be selling myself short.  I wish to be happy, joyous and free, with the emphasis on ‘free. This is what I will practice, one day at a time.

Johnnyboy

My time in Greece was wonderful, productive and exhausting.  It tested my emotional sobriety to the breaking point when at last all I had to keep me sober was my Higher Power and the ability to go to bed early.  In many ways it is my fault, but, as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.  It all begins with drinking, of course, but not my own, thank God.  I’ll make the tale brief if I can.

Halfway through the term the weather changed from cloudy, wet and cool to sunny and dry.  This allowed the younger students to stay out late and party.  Let’s face it, they are all very young, away from home for the first time in a country with a very lax drinking age.  For a solid week they began coming back to their apartments at 3, 4 or 5AM, making a huge amount of noise and waking the neighbors, of whom I was one.  So I complained.  I made waves.  In doing so I separated myself from the majority by underscoring my own sobriety (or really the fact that I do not drink) and becoming a wet blanket to their international fun,  just like the AA Big Book says.  I had not been to a meeting in quite a few weeks and was feeling the disconnect from reality. In my emotional state I turned to another student who I had become friends with over the course of the previous year.  I turned to her for advice, a way to vent instead of going crazy and, I hoped, a little solidarity.  Yes, we agreed on many things: that the school’s reputation was being hurt by this behavior; that something must be done; that there was little unity among the student body, etc…So something was done to stop it, and the noise ended.  I had opened up a huge can of worms, however, in confiding to this student In thanks for her friendship and a way to say ‘good luck’ on her future I gave her a gift, a small piece of sea-buffed marble set as a necklace.  Remember that this was out of friendship, a fact she actually acknowledged.

The end result is that she blew up at me, told me to stay away from her and in a very cold and callous way ended our friendship surgically and without anesthetic.  I was left feeling like my guts had been torn out with a dull spoon, but in the end the only thing I had done wrong was dump too much of my emotional needs on her young shoulders.  I have since made amends for that and am able to slowly let the event and her go into the mists behind me.  I really do have more important things to do.  My last month was lonely and angry, feeling paranoid and wronged.  I do feel she handled it badly, but I give her credit for being so cold and cruel.  That kind of action takes a lot and is not often found in someone so young.  She was obviously frightened of me because she continued to distance herself and even moved to a different apartment, the location of which she lied to me about-as if I was going to come visit her.  I have a feeling she felt that I was stalking her.  (Nasty business.  I even consulted my attorney at one point.) Of course I was not.

The fate of the necklace is truthfully unknown, but I suspect she gave it to one of the other students, a sullen and negative young woman from New Jersey.

There were a small handful of students who really worked and created art of beauty and charm–these I applaud.  Many were stuck in the Culture of Death that permeates the USA.

So what have I learned?

Do not rely on anyone except God or an adult older than I for emotional guidance in times of stress.

I return in the fall.  My goal is to build friendships with the locals in preparation of a possible move.  I will also stick closer to Program in any way that I can.  That was my first and biggest mistake and it could have led me back to the bottle and deat.

Johnnyboy

All is well in Somewheresville.

Johnnyboy

1. Finish my editing work for the new magazine.

2. Ready work for one, but possibly three shows to be hung before and during my absence.

3. File two sets of taxes.

4. Pack a large box of clothes and gear for the trip, to be sent on ahead of my arrival.

5. Arrange my finances for the 3 1/2 month absence.

6. Have a staff meeting here at the house and make sure all the tasks are delegated.

7. Let go, let go, let go….

What it comes down to is my happiness.  How happy do I want to be today or am I so stubborn that I need to be right all the time?

Johnnyboy