Minding My Ps and McQs

This is the Jack version that makes an old cliché a bit more personal. The formal version of minding my Ps & Qs is an archaic reference dating back possibly to the 17th Century. It means essentially be on your best behavior. 

Often it is not what I do it is what I fail to do.  Planning ahead was never a forte of mine and because I fail to plan I often get swamped when I wait too long to do things promptly when the monster is just a baby.  This default modus operandi causes money wasted, hurt feelings and leaves people including myself unsure of where they stand.  More about that in a Jacbook of the future.  

I like to think I keep to myself but because I am an attention whore (as someone once referred to me as) I get myself “in extremis” more times than I can count.  My intuition is strong but when it comes to minding my Ps & McQs as they pertain to my life I get a F- if that grade is possible.  

What to do?  One thing I have to do is keep my mouth shut when it comes to divulging information that is not pertinent.  Many times I get sidetracked in idle chatter that is seemingly innocuous but because I am so descriptive it often becomes a narrative and I end up with trouble that is totally unnecessary. There have been times when I withhold information for fear of losing something dear and I cause heartache all around. 

I think that my military schooling is the first road I can look to as an orderly approach to my day and weeks ahead.  This would help me to be less reactive to situations that my intuition tells me (but I often ignore) are going to happen.  It’s simple enough make a schedule and stick to it. Life has to be flexible but there are some items that I cannot leave out or deviate from. 

Socially I know what I need to do and if I adhere to it happiness will be my reward even if I have to disappoint others. This will help eliminate some of the psychosocial drama that seems to follow me like a pilot fish on a shark.  In business I need to take my persistence and relentlessness into a format that is orderly and systematic instead of the out of a clear blue sky, which is purely chaotic.  

Physically is the one front I seem to have a good focus on even though there are those that think my exercise regimen is obsessive and compulsive.  I know where my addictions are and feel comfortable that I have those in check.  

Psychologically I am fit when it comes to being an advisor to people that I don’t have a personal investment in. I need to take this calm demeanor and apply that wisdom to lower elevated heartbeats and a sweaty brow.   

Jack CASAC

As my studies in the curriculum of a CASAC begin I am marked by the genuine excitement I feel towards the vocation that I may have been born for. The study of alcohol from its history throughout the ages to the emotional, physiological and social affects it has on those that are dependent and abuse that liquid substance will be my ultimate therapy as I head into my sunset years. I know I have a lot to give between my God given grey cells to my experience and gregarious nature. The world I will touch will be the legacy I have always longed for.  

I have talked the talk and now I will be able to walk the walk all the while reinforcing my own sobriety that I protect like the pirates who guarded their buried treasure with their very lives.  

This past month marked year XXIII in Roman Numeral time of my sobriety and for the first time in many an anniversary I can genuinely say that I have a renewed sense of purpose as a sponsor and with my enrollment as a student in the certificated course as a Certified Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselor.  Someone once told me I have "game" and for this alcoholic my “game” will be to really put in the footwork and help others do the same.  

Top of the Light Zone

Above the clouds once again and the week that was will be the last time my Father has forever left the building and there’s nothing I can do about it.  And when I said goodbye to him I merely chirped I’d see you later Dad.  No need for anything more as my words would be gone in an instant almost as quickly as he drew his next breath. I hope that God takes him home to my Mother’s side in the not to distant ticks of the clock because his quality of life is like an empty box of crackers. I have no regrets as I have said all I had to say to him some years ago when his faculties were at his fingertips. Although I always loved him he was a difficult man for me to like because of his intimidating parental style he employed in my formative years. 

My youngest sister gave me the insight I needed when she said his world was much like that of a child’s as everything is about him. His pronouncements of hunger and his next visit to the toilet were his return to the child he once was some 80 plus years ago. It was funny and sad as I listened to his exclamations. The smiles were tempered however with the realization that my sisters and I will soon have to relinquish the reins to the professionals of assisted living which if his health holds out are but a virtual certainty.  

Father time catches up with all of us sooner or later and I am ever cognizant that my own stick is getting shorter but I do hope my trip to the top of the light zone is quick like the extinguishing of a light saber. And I can only pray that the noise left in my corporeal form will ring like the bells of Notre Dame and not the static between radio stations on the dial.  

Driving With My Dad

When I automatically assented to take care of my Dad this week in the absence of my dear sister, I had no clue what I was in for, no clue. I have or so I thought forgotten all the psychic wounds between my Father and I after all I am an adult and a child can often misconstrue things in their own egocentric world. However, I discovered that two of my character defects of impatience and intolerance would wage a pitched battle with me and in some of the skirmishes I was vanquished. 

My Dad, in advancing stages of Dementia is not the Father I knew but when he is still alive on earth it’s challenging to remember that he is not responsible for anything he says or does.  And for some reason only known to God he remains in the waking state. Maybe one reason might be is for his son to learn lessons about himself that he still needs to.  I can only wish that he is oblivious to his own pain and cannot tell the hurt that my sisters and family feel as we watch him disintegrate before our very eyes.  

My Mom passed more than 12 ½ years ago and I know that she is watching over him and sending me messages through the medium of the universe that I am finally starting to listen to. I have begun to filter out my own selfish ways that I am being inconvenienced by his short-term memory that appears to be less than minute. It’s like pouring water into a glass with a hole in it and anyone who lives with a loved one with this condition knows what I am talking about.  

 I made a video of him and I driving this past week and when I watched it I laughed out loud and thought it was funny but I also knew that this time might be the last time.  Driving with my Dad a moment in time I will treasure all the days of my life.  

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The Child is the Father of the Man

There comes a time in the child of the man that the roles are reversed. From afar I could see the mismanaged emotions of others trying to cope with the aging parent that could no longer function on the level their offspring were accustomed to.  Now it is my turn and the bath by fire is my tub. My father holds many mixed emotions in my psyche and I think that is partly the reason why I lose my patience with him when my own world is turned a degree off its axis.  

My younger sister put it in perspective for me quite succinctly: My father is 2. He wants what he wants when he wants it. A man that was fiercely independent has now become needy and he is loving it and I am falling right in as the enabler as if I was born for the part.  This is not a role I was ready to take on. When my emotional investment is nil I am cool calm and collected. Now that blood is mixed into the family soup I almost feel like I am in over my head. More to come on these thoughts….

Wait til Next Year

As one of my favorite titles from 1982 played in my head: Hot In The City* I never felt more uncomfortable without air conditioning than I did yesterday except for brief reprieves on the 79th street ferry back and forth to New Jersey. Those breezes albeit warm were brisk and a welcome relief to my sweating torso and I wasn’t even walking quickly let alone biking over a 100 miles or running a 26.2 marathon. It was after all the day my friend Tripp Doherty was taking on his 3rd Ironman challenge  starting out with a 2.4 mile swim in the brisk current of the North River more commonly known as the Hudson.  

A very long day was highlighted (when I couldn’t witness my friend competing) with two acquaintances that I now consider my friends. David Blatt and if you don’t know this man you’re missing one of the most generous and easy to be with personalities I have ever met in a long time and Constance Korol or CK as I call her who always is optimistic no matter what life throws her way or in Saturday’s case her dear friend Tripp.  We did a lot of walking on Saturday and both CK and David estimated it to be about 10 miles a far cry from the 140.6 miles logged by Mr. Doherty but nonetheless when you add in the standing on two feet it left this curmudgeon with back spasms and a blistered foot. And whatever I was feeling I knew that I could  multiply it by tenfold as to what my friend in the river and on the road was feeling in the sweltering heat and humidity.  

As I told him as he went by a few hundred yards from the finish it’s all about the love not about the competition. And as the Dodger fans of Brooklyn would say: Wait til Next Year! (Except for 1955) 

Fortune Cookie Philosophy

The last few days I have supplied a website “Share a Learning” with some of my original metaphors. I started writing creating these short similes about 6 years ago and they were my gateway to the writing I do today. I don’t make many entries in my blog Inner Knockings in which contains them but this website has given me the impetus at least in the short run to continue them.

My friend Lori Spiegel gave me a belly laugh yesterday when instead of her usual “Lori Spiegel Likes This” said instead:  “What’s with this fortune cookie philosophy this week?”  I suppose Lori it is and thank you for lampooning me it was a great metaphor you gave me.