After returning home last week I took my usual Thursday walk though the neighborhood, appreciating spring's blooms that are late this year, but lovely nonetheless. As I trod up a hill and around a corner, I saw the fellow who walks while wheeling along his oxygen tank. My "problems" are miniscule.
Later that morning, the phone rang. There was something wrong with one of the radiation machines, so my start date was delayed until Monday. Sigh. There I was again, thinking I knew what was coming next. And then, a call that we were back on. Okey dokey. This is after my flight home was delayed two hours. Another call last week was from a friend changing vacation plans for the end of May. And my husband's flight home (a day after me) was delayed an hour. If the past week has been an indication, what I need to be mindful of is flexibility, of going with the flow, of making plans but not getting too invested in outcomes. Again and again, relax into the moment, whatever it brings (or doesn't).
Bill Plotkin, PhD, writes that the first half of life is our survival dance and the second half is our sacred dance. I very much agree that the first part of life (I won't say "half" given the addictions that delayed maturity) is about striving, about moving ahead, if that means sobering up, education, finding the right job, maybe a partner, perhaps parenting (though that wasn't my path). I experienced a notable shift as I entered my sixties - less interested in pursuing a step-up at work, no energy for another degree. So then what? How does the sacred dance enter the picture if I don't yet know the moves? What is my sacred dance if the things I've been doing for years feel a little flat? How do I relight the spark if my practice feels rote? (And how much of that "flat" is related to pandemic holdover isolation?) More will be revealed.
I took a different route on my long weekend walk, traipsing through the schoolyard where I attended grades three through eight, past the public stairs where I had my first kiss, and first drunk, and then through the park at my high school, past the brick bathroom where I smoked pot with the guys at lunch time. And then, almost hilariously, I attended a newish meeting in the neighborhood that is in a church my cousins and I broke in to when we were 13 or 14. And so it is, living in the town, the neighborhood, where I grew up and did much of my damage. Thanks for the memories, city streets, and thanks to AA for moving beyond morbid reflection to see the humor in my antics as I tried to navigate the world.
When I think of "what it was like," I can name places and events, but the rest of it (feelings, motivations) is mostly speculation. I have a vague sense of what I was thinking at 14, or 16, or 26, but a lot of that went by in a blur. And even the events themselves are sometimes murky, remembering things differently than friends, and some not at all, including the feeling that my younger brother and I grew up in completely different households.
Does it really matter at this point? When I speak at a meeting about the past and today, it's like I'm talking about two different people, and in many respects, I am. My husband teased me the other day about being wild back in the day, but I wasn't. I was introverted, and self-obsessed, shy and scared. My inner know-it-all was in there somewhere, visible with a small group of close friends, but unless I was hammered, I was the girl in the shadows. I do describe myself as a party-girl, excited for possibilities that gatherings promised, but I was the one who made sure to get to the bar or club after my friends so I wouldn't have to walk in alone. Today, I can view the past more realistically, neither glorifying or villainizing, and accepting that there are gaps in the story.
Where are you on the striving continuum? Is there anything - a project, or perhaps an unnamed longing - whispering for your attention? How are you with flexibility when things don't go as planned? What is your relationship to your story? Are you able to see humor as well as the pain?
* * *
See the Jan 13, 2023 post for a sample of the "I've Been Sober a Long Time - Now What?" workbook with 78 pages of topics, member's views, and processing questions. Available in PDF format for those of you outside the US (or who prefer that format) or hardcopy mailed to you. Email me at shadowsandveins@gmail.com with questions. The payment links are at the top right of the WEB VERSION of this page. I've just moved to a new payment platform - please do email if you run into any problems. Note that the workbook is also available at Portland Area Intergroup at 825 NE 20th
No comments:
Post a Comment