Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Pen to paper

 I am a list maker, a journaler, a memory keeper from way back in 5th grade when I noted what I wore to school or who I was hanging out with in a little lock and key diary. A number of years ago, a sponsee as well as another friend, told me they'd burned all their journals. I was aghast. Burn them?! Never - I will keep mine forever! 

But, as Meatloaf sang in Paradise by the Dashboard Light, forever is a long, long time and there came a day when I decided to dispose of both my journals and my 20+ photo albums. OK, not entirely - I spent several months going through the photo albums, mailing off pictures to cousins and friends, destroying many (how many pictures do I really need of myself smoking cigarettes, or my mom standing in the driveway), ending up with 10 books and a box of mom's photos. The journals were tougher, and I ended up keeping a small stack, including the grade school years, the final year of my drinking and using and that first insane year of recovery (I read from that first-year diary at a recovery event - totally embarrassing, with the only saving grace that it was 25 years ago by that time). I've kept a few pivotal years, but the truth is, I rarely look at them, and without children who might be interested in my every thought, there really isn't much reason to keep them at all, save the notion that when I'm 90 I may want to go back and remember.

I'm still a journaler - sometimes too much so. At one point recently, I realized I had three different journals going - Step work, a retirement journal and the everyday volume. Dear God...  And in my declutter efforts, as I scanned various pages from these and older volumes, I realized with chagrin that I very often mused and complained and pontificated about the same.damn.things, over and over again, from one year to the next. Good grief. I've been on a "diet" since I was 11, concerned with romantic relationships since about then (real or imagined), fears around work, bumping heads with my partner(s), blah blah blah. Which doesn't mean I'm going to stop (!) - journaling is part of my spiritual practice, and along with the same-o same-o, I also write about insights and connections, dreams and goals achieved and longed for. But what my own record says to me is, either accept myself as-is, or change for heaven's sake. I know I don't care for it when an acquaintance goes on and on about the same thing every time we meet - but I do the same thing in my conversations with myself. Sheesh! 

So perhaps the crux of it is staying in self-awareness without veering into self-obsession/the bondage of self. As a sponsor once said, there came a time when she stopped viewing herself as a project, something to be fixed. As I contemplate July Step work, I read in the Alternative 12 Steps that Step 7 can be about collaborating with my characteristics rather than fighting them (which never seems to work or I'd be wearing a halo by now). A friend talks of cooperating with reality, accepting that what is, is and going from there. Like another old song, "wishing and hoping" won't change a thing. Acceptance, and the wisdom to understand what I can impact just might. 

Will there come a day when I stop journaling, or perhaps burn each year passed as a new year's ritual? Hard to say, but something to think about - or write about! And this blog is a journal of sorts, though my 24-year-old stepdaughter says that blogging is passe, with people these days preferring to watch a video over reading a post. Maybe... but I'm a paper person, a reader, with a paper calendar, journal, and grocery lists. I prefer a good book to earbuds, conversation to a podcast, so just for today, I'll keep doing what I do. Thank you for coming along.

Are you a journaler? What do you do with your old notebooks, or with Step work once you've shared it? Are there habits and pastimes that made sense when you were younger, but don't have the same pull these days? What is your spiritual practice today? Does it ever feel like time to revise and renew? If so, where do you find new inspiration?

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The NOW WHAT workbook is 78 pages of topics and processing questions, great for solo exploration or in a small group. Go to the WEB VERSION of this blog page for the link on ordering (PDF for those outside the U.S., or hard copy mailed to you).. Please contact me at SoberLongTime@soberlongtime.com or shadowsandveins@gmail.com with questions. And a reminder that the workbook, is available at the Portland Area Intergroup at 825 NE 20th. for you local folks.

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