Swim or Sink

Timing is everything and no-thing. Be careful what you wish for you just might get it. These two phrases hit me square in the eye this afternoon. When we make up our minds energy is set in motion and there will be times that it will not align with someone else or even the universe. It’s a good thing to find out where people stand when you take one because they might be just too afraid to make a decision themselves. And that’s okay because not everyone is capable of making decisions because they might not be ready  to make them. I on the other hand have made mine and just like I decided to put down the drink 23 years ago I have made another and I will swim even if others might choose to swim away or sink.  

New Years Resolutions

What did I learn this Christmas season? Well for one thing I know to trust my intuition. The signals I receive are sometimes in English and are easily understood. If I didn’t think it it’s probably my intuition speaking to me. I know that when FEAR drops in for a visit it’s not intuition because the universe doesn’t speak with emotion just information.  

I was watching an old Abbott & Costello movie and when Lou asks Bud to answer the phone Abbott replies it hasn’t rung yet. Lou shoots back why wait until the last minute. Of course to complete the joke the phone rings right after their exchange. Point is when someone crosses our minds its probably our turn to either call them or we can expect one from them. Interesting the way the cosmos keeps us “in touch” with those around us. 

I got away from my original question as to what I learned this Holiday Season? Well secondly   I know that my common sense is still mired in atrophy, as I am just the Absent Minded Professor or Magoo as some might be more inclined to say. I just don’t keep my head where my feet are.  I am constantly misplacing the same things over and over and over again. As to why I can’t seem to remember where my keys, wallet and phone are is beyond me.

Thirdly my prevarications accomplish nothing but havoc, hurt and anger upon those that love me. I might as well be Pinocchio. I try to cover my own loose ends but since there are so many it gets pretty crowded on Jack’s highway. My road is paved with good intention but it never seems to turn out that way. And while I am on that subject I am going to make a concerted effort to keep people that use me for my time, wisdom and patience without reciprocity out of my life.  I am not America’s substance abuse counselor or psychiatrist, not yet anyway. When I engage in these time wasting intervals I am left with resentment and that is a place I just cannot be.  

And so for 2013 instead of “winging it” I will simplify my life by making better decisions when it comes to romance, friendship and transparency. I will make a resolution to stop texting while driving (even if stopped at a red light) put my keys, wallet and phone in the same basket every night. Most importantly I am going to learn to say NO and be able to look at myself in the mirror and feel good instead of feeling fat  which is what I usually engulf myself in. These hardly seem like lofty goals but for this sexagenarian it is essential if I am to make it in one piece into the next decade.  

The Dark Side of the Moon

Although I love my younger sister there are times when I don’t like her much. When she looks at the moon it’s the dark side she sees.  

A Few Extra Screws

   When God put me together he handed my mother a few extra screws and said that even He didn’t know where they were supposed to go. 

My Life Before AA

They say that some are born with an “alcoholic gene” and I suppose I must be one. My own experience with alcohol started at 17 when I shared a quart of vodka with my best friend. We consumed it in less than a half hour and what ensued was comical from a distance but in the episode the seeds of alcoholic drinking perhaps were sown.  

That one foray into a drunken stupor kept me from indulging for a brief span until I finished High School. When I entered military college I quickly fell in with an experimental group of cadets. It was in this association that I drank and drugged sporadically without incident. Although there were a few tales that could have given me the warning signs that there was danger ahead but my blinders were still on.  When I got married drinking was for the most part social and it was not until I hit a single life again did my drinking and drugging get into high gear. 

For about 5 years I became a running fanatic completing 17 marathons and 3 ultra marathons (distances beyond 26.2 miles) and I can recall some friends asking me what I was running away from. I often scoffed at them telling myself they just had no clue. However it was me who had no clue.   At the bottom of that cycle I went from a chubby 214 to a borderline anorexic at 138 pounds. At age 30 a new group of friends introduced me to cocaine and the downward spiral was in full speed.  

Drugs and alcohol ruined me financially, physically and left me spiritually bankrupt. My reputation went from a man admired for his brain and running prowess to someone that people joked about behind my back. My success at work suffered in the sense that I never gave my employers my level best even though I did not get fired in any of the many positions I held. My alcoholism never brought me to a rehab or a DWI although if I had continued on the course I was on those “yets” would have come home to roost.  

What led me to the rooms of AA came from the addiction I had to cocaine. Let me explain.  After I had stopped using the white powder mostly for economic reasons my drinking began to escalate and I essentially replaced one drug for another. When I came to my senses that a drug is a drug my tenure in AA began August 28, 1989 a date that will live in my own infamy.  Fortunately for me I have not had a relapse and I know that I have been blessed to remain sober to this day some 23+ years later. 

My life has changed in oh so many ways to coin an old phrase. I never have wake up with a hangover or remember what I might have said the night before that might have been untowardly. My business has had its share of ups and downs but at the end of the day I can lay my head down and fall asleep knowing that most days I have given the world my level best. In sobriety I was able to earn a second college degree in psychology and I am currently enrolled as a CASAC in training and hope to finish that certificate by the middle of 2013.  My intention is to become an alcohol and substance abuse counselor because I know that my experience can be a wonderful way for me to give back to the sober life I now live. 

A Cat's Tale

A dream as vivid as they come this morning had my adopted out cat Audra reappear through an open door trailing a leash and in an instant she hopped into my lap.  It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my cat was me and the trailing leash of restraint would only work for a short time. Throughout my life I would usually break free even when it was  happiness I was enjoying.  I am almost 62 and the time for running away is drawing to a close. 

The Tactile Sense

Above the soft undulating clouds the fringe of sunlight headed west in the late autumn sky lengthens my breath. At nearly 600 mph the movement feels almost imperceptible beneath the wing. 

 It refreshes me knowing that as I tap the keys and enjoy the sense of tactile versus the glass screens that are ubiquitous in our lives today the sensation of touch will never go out of style at least not with this homo sapien. Somehow our touch is felt on our Droids and iPhones often with instructions never intended as we have no doubt pocket dialed one of our contacts at ungodly hours sometimes making for embarrassing situations that make our pulse quicken or worse yet our disembodied voice hears things they ought not to have.  Science in too much of a hurry has taken choice away from us and made decisions as if our electronic devices had an artificial intelligence of their own.  

From a movie in 1984 called Starman one of the characters verbalized about sending an anodized disc (a record) into outer space in the hopes of alien life forms picking up our signal to let them know they were not alone. The scientist in this offering verbalized that we humans were the ancients to the incredulity of one of the antagonists. He was taken aback as if knowledge had pretty much gone as far as it was going to go. That brings back the thought that pervaded the late 19th century when the powers that be felt they should close down the patent office as all the inventions had been accounted for. 

That fringe of sunlight as I started this piece is fire orange now and the clouds below look like matte photography.