Follow the bouncing post.

Well it is only 8:45am my work load is really light so thought I would start a ramble. One day I will try a 55 Friday, but this will be more like 5555 words give or take 100 ;-D We are still not laying people off but our big agricultural sprayer customers are slowing way down so we don’t have a bunch of summer orders, for the most part people are building stock items for parts we sell to John Deere and doing piddly stuff to keep them busy, the guy who does testing has been playing a lot of solitary on the PC and management isn’t saying anything. Did I tell you the one thing I like about this company is they are very laid back, probably never work for another quite like them.

I mentioned that one of the guys I sponsor was banging dope over the weekend. The guy M has been working with me since about October, he is one of those sponsee’s that will really sink his teeth into recovery for a short time then abruptly stop and usually relapse. We will have a few weeks of talking and seeing each other at meetings or him coming by the house then nothing. During his absence’s he wasn’t always drinking or using, he would get passionately involved in Charismatic religion and that would work for short periods of time. M has mental health problems also, so his mind send him in different directions with out much thought, and he is seeing a counselor for this. The good thing is his time out after a relapse is getting shorter, so there is willingness. The other night I told him I wasn’t sure what else I could do for him, I suggested he concentrate solely on the fact that he was powerless over drugs and alcohol, nothing more, nothing less; to stop worrying about the causes and any other form of mental masturbation that he has the habit of doing, to keep it simple. He told me he had also stopped journaling and stopped reading the Big Book, I had suggested he read pages 86 and 87 every morning, so I suggested he start doing those things again because along with meetings and hanging out with recovery people he was staying sober doing those things and was happy. I will always be there for M and I hope he can find a recovery practice that works for him, like always the choice is his, I can carry the message but I can’t carry the alcoholic or addict. I only know what works for me, my sponsor and those I am closest too, but there may be someone else out there who can help M, well besides God.

The disease took a member in town about 45 minutes away from here, some of us know him, he would show up at events we had with his sponsee’s or we would see him when we went to meetings there. TK had around 7 years clean and sober, it is still unclear whether he was using again or not, stories are going around both ways. The sad thing is TK started isolating and distancing himself from people. In one form or the other he took his own life. It is sad and tragic, I reiterated at the mental health hospital meeting and the jail meeting last that this fucking disease kills!! I have known people take their own lives after they got sober because they just couldn’t deal with the feelings that where coming to the surface. I don’t know what the stat’s are but I have heard that just as many people commit suicide after they get clean and sober as do those who do it while practicing. One of my special friends still has a hard time accepting the nature of the disease and while deaths due to the disease of addiction or alcoholism sadden me I have learned to accept them as the nature of the disease, shed some tears, say a blessing and move on, might sound a bit harsh but that’s how I deal with those loses, I also remind myself and others “but by the Grace of God, there go I” we who are alive, clean and sober are miracles for today, may our “today’s add up.

Tomorrow is the Nebraska state AA reunion in a town 1-1/2 hours from here. I am taking my friend and her 2 daughters with me. The reunion use to have a lot of speakers but the area lacks the funds to have as many as they once did. Tomorrow morning is an old timer’s forum, in the afternoon there is an Al-anon speaker followed by an AA speaker, and then our area delegate will give her report from GSO, in the evening is a talent show followed by your choice of large meeting or dance. About 75% of the districts have hospitality rooms so you cruise around talk to people, meet some new ones and sample the goodies in the hospitality rooms, so really you don’t have to pay for lunch or supper. The town where the reunion is taking place has a nice park so I told my friend that during the delegate’s report we would take the girls over there and walk around, then go out to supper at a Mongolian barbeque restaurant, during the talent show the girls can go swimming then it is time to dance. If my friend wasn’t going with me I would opt out of the dance and head to the meeting where my comfort zone lies. I am still afraid of reject so I can’t ask someone to dance, even though I can dance and love music I am scared shitless that I will be judged and ridiculed by my partner, this is one of those deep seated fears that I am trying to work on but is extremely powerful and goes back way too many years. Yes I know I am not being judged but they telling that to a deep seated feeling of insecurity, that scrawny teenager still lurks in the recesses of my mind and over powers the average built and somewhat attractive man.

Sunday I will return to the same town as the AA event for a family reunion. It will be the first time just the decedents of my maternal grandparents have had a reunion on our own, always in the past family reunions have included cousins so many times removed you need a NASA data base to figure out who is who, that is if even you care and honestly folks I don’t. It will be nice to visit with some cousins I haven’t seen in years. I have a niece from Tacoma WA and one from Chicago coming in for it also, so I am looking forward to spend time with them. My family isn’t a drinking family so there won’t be a ton of beer there; I was always the one going for a drive to drink a few in the past. One of my sponsee’s is dating my niece who is also in recovery plus my cousin and her boyfriend are both in recovery so more than likely we will hang out together. Strange new twist for me, I am actually looking forward to attending this, I think I am finally starting to shed some of the terminal uniqueness and not worrying about not having anything in common with my relatives, I am alright just sitting still and listening or taking a stroll if I need some personal quiet time, sharing what I have to share and leaving it at that. Also Angel will be there and she spends a lot of time by grandpa’s side and grandpa spends a lot of time by her side. Oh yeah Angel is going to make a liar out of Grandpa, she will be 1 on July 4th and the way things were going I didn’t think she would be walking by then but the last few days she has been stand on her own and taking a couple of slow steps, so know how fast she progresses she may have the walking started by the 4th.

The friend who is going with me to the AA event is the one who has stirred up some special emotions within me. She was the one who’s house I was at Sunday and with the exception of last night she has found a reason to be over at my house every night since. She told me when we where camping a couple of weeks ago that she was mad at me for leaving and said she understood it was selfish of her to feel that way. The topic of my leaving is something we try and avoid as much as possible. I told her Wednesday night that we need to make the best of the time we have together while I am close and that is happening, the hugs are getting tighter the special smiles are too. When she was over at the house Wednesday night I was playing some old music for her daughter and started to busta move to some old funk and she said “I hope to see more of that Saturday” just a simple statement but it was a good statement. We are having an Indian supper and disc burning evening Monday, I have Nan bread, Biryani paste for a curry and will make saffron rice, sorry the dessert will have to be a layered chocolate cake. I have a bunch of classic rock and soul music that we are going to turn into play list for my friend and her daughter. Tomorrow will be a good day to visit both on the drive and walking around the park, I am hoping we can both open up a bit more to what is going on inside, I may have to take the lead here and tell her my feelings. I have thought about this from different angles and feel it is better to let her know and accept her reply whatever that is, than to not say a word and have 2 people walking around with hidden feelings. Here is another odd thing and maybe a God thing, we work together and I am a fairly strong believer you don’t have a relationship with a co-worker, so now that I am leaving this attraction comes to the front. Maybe if this had happened before it could have been uncomfortable for both of us. I have watched her grow and strengthen which adds to the spiritual attraction. Physical attraction in women has always been a third of the attraction for me, I need to be spiritually and intellectually attracted as well, the physical attraction to her isn’t overwhelm which I find refreshing, so the lust level isn’t heavy. My ideal couple has always been John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John could have had any stunning woman he wanted yet he connected with Yoko who wasn’t a beauty queen but was attractive, John fell in love with a woman who completed him and he saw the attraction at deeper than skin level. I think a lot of people, myself include, start at the physical and work there way inward if they ever do, guys definitely do this, women seem to see deeper when choosing a partner. Anyway that’s my perspective on that. Alright so I understand that the whole thing with my friend is as Kevin Griffin would say “me telling myself stories” and that I need to understand expectations and prospective, the story I am telling myself may just be a story and she may tell me she just likes being with me as a friend who she won’t get a chance to spend much more time with very soon. She may say she is too afraid to get any closer, she may say any number of things. I have to open myself up to all possibilities, I need to be open to Right Speech, Right View, Right Intent, Right Mindfulness, I have to open myself up to my Higher Power. If all of this is for nothing then I have learned something for the next time I find someone I feel I am attracted to and connect with, bit by bit I can learn not to take rejection personally, not with someone who is already a friend anyway, it will be easier for me to take a chance and roll the dice, instead of sitting at home wondering what might be. Everything is a lesson in understanding suffering and using the Dharma to keep on the middle path as much as possible and trusting my God, good old 3rd step. Maybe Monday I will have a different tale to tell, but this is me in this short moment in time.

Well that’s all for now. I know the ball bounced around a lot on this post but the nice thing about writing for me is I get things out, I open up to me and I open up to anyone who is still reading this.

Until the next time
Peace Love and Light