Category: Family matters

What luck…!

Johnnyboy

For some reason I am now able to log on to this blog, something I was unable to do while overseas last spring, and the spring before that.  I am lucky in that way and since I am sober and working the 12 Steps to the best of my ability I am lucky at life, or at least in a state of acceptance and reasonableness.

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

Gratitude, acceptance and the uncertain future…

Johnnyboy

“I am returning to the Aegean Center in a few weeks for the fall term, which may be my last as a student.  I do not expect any sort of position to be offered, nor do they need anyone to work for them.  My future is very uncertain these days and I feel very much at sea.  This is an uncomfortable feeling but perhaps I should accept that this is where I am at right now, let it go, and take what life has to give me.  I am grateful to be where I am, doing what I do and surrounded with support that I have not asked for.  My actions should be my gratitude and I will work on that.  In the past few months I have become very aware of how much a one-day-at-a-time this program is, especially when it comes to character defects.  I can only be the best sober person I can be today, not tomorrow.  The world is an open book and what I have to do is remember that certain pages, or even chapters, do not represent the whole of my story.  To use a metaphor I like, I am steering my small vessel through, if not uncharted waters, then at least oceans I have not yet sailed.  My compass is not spinning wildly but I have lost sight of the safety of the shoreline which for any sailor is a chance-filled situation.  I have maps and charts to guide me, gifts from others who have come before.  I need only maintain my heading, weather storms, doldrums and smooth sailing as part of the journey and make landfall when I see it.  In short I am making a journey that all people must make yet to me my course is unique.  What I sometimes fail to recognize is that there are other small boats in this same shipping lane.  From high above it is really an armada, all of us tacking back and forth, trying to find the best wind to fill our sails.  Older sea-charts have blank spaces on them which read “here there be monsters” but these bogeymen are only the manifestations of my own character defects and not real.  If I truly have faith in God then I should not worry, but rather pay attention to the compass, hold the rudder in a firm hand and stick to the heading.  It is only at the end that I will be able to look back and see from whence I have come.”

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