The Journey's the Thing…

Over the past year-and-a-half I have been regular in my AA meeting attendance. I tend to go to meetings at night, leaving my days free for school and other activities. The meetings that I attend are regular and predictable. My homegroup is strong and representative of many walks of life and both genders. I feel confidant in my sobriety when I am there. I leave that meeting feeling refreshed and new, with a positive, forward thinking attitude towards my sobriety and the future. There is a Step Meeting that I regularly attend on Friday night which has been instrumental in my sobriety. That meeting also has a Sunday night speaker/discussion meeting that I enjoy. Unfortunately there is one AA group which, 7 times out of 10, leaves me cold, confused, and feeling as if I have been watched, judged, and found wanting. It is a very ‘cliquey’ group and not the friendliest bunch in the land.

I have just returned home from that meeting with those same feelings. I have battled for a long time concerning my feelings and my safety in that meeting. I guess that’s the upshot–I don’t feel safe there. I feel as if people are quick to judge, and I also believe that certain people gossip about me and my pre-sobriety past behind my back, spreading untruths and rumor. I find that kind of behavior disgusting and extremely un-sober.

I do not feel that way at the other meetings I attend, so I know it’s not just my nutty mind playing tricks on me. Unfortunately there are some people there who I do like, trust, and get along with. But, as they say, one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel.

The nights I attend this group are Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I can change Thursday to a Big Book Step meeting nearby that I enjoy and reap a benefit from. The Tuesday night I can figure out somehow. I’ll check the schedules. The Saturday night meeting I’ll keep because it’s a big group and those same people that irk me tend not to go that night.

I know that I’m in this for my sobriety. I know that what other people think about me is none of my business. I know that I should turn it over and rise above the pettiness of others thinking, but I must make a physical change in my life to help this process out. “Move a muscle, change a thought” as a wise man once said to me. So I will.

This is not a new thing. I have posted about this issue before, and recently. It’s time for me to quit whining and make a decision.

Johnnyboy

It’s raining to beat the band. The wind last night sang and moaned in the telephone lines and howled in the chimneys. At times it reminded me of arcane Japanese flutes being played in a bamboo forest. I woke up this morning to a heavy sky and high winds. It seems as if global warming is working its magic. I remember reading somewhere once that the Northeast US will assume the weather patterns that we see more prominently in the Northwest, i.e. Seattle, Vancouver, etc…From the looks of this winter the predictions are correct. Thankfully my home is on high ground and there are already existing waterways around the house to carry the deluge downstream.

My own mental deluge continues, however. I calculated my future in terms of school credits, and, if I can stay in school full time (12 credits, or 3 classes) I will have achieved my B.A. in a little over 3 years. That “if” is the chance. Of course I was projecting the future, which never looks good, but I would like to stay on course if possible. It’s not the money I worry about, it’s the time that seems so elusive. That is the nature of time, though. It is purely relative and a figment of our imaginations. Many scholars believe that time does not exist at all and that the only reality is what is here, right now. So if I stay in the moment, live for today, and have gratitude for the present, I’m OK. So why do I project? It’s as if I want to find a certainty and an unwritten schedule of my future. I want to know that everything will be alright. Of course, if I use that philosophy to live in the present, everything will be alright, because the future is constantly becoming the present. Tomorrow will become today as surely as today will drift back into the wake of the past. Memory will replace the now experience and as waves behind a boat change shape with the passage of my craft, I move through the brine, creating and living in my amorphous future/present.

I neglected to post the haiku yesterday. These next three will be the last of the “Jail Haiku”. Although there are many more, I am becoming bored with this rehashing of my painful past. I will begin to write more haiku, specifically for this post, and have them up faithfully every Tuesday. I will try to pick these last three with a sense of closure. So, as I watch the wake of my boat from the transom, I will see how the waves fold back into one another, smoothing themselves out, falling back into the sea, undistinguished from the rest of the ocean.

#165.
Faded timetables
and a broken luggage cart:
forgotten station.

#241.
Through the grey morning,
and my narrow, stained, window,
illumination.

#14.
The brooks water flow
has increased triumphantly:
winter is thawing.

Johnnyboy