Skip to main content

Day 19 Happy New Year

Happy new year 2015.  This is the year I turn 60 and being this blog is about the days running up to that date, how appropriate we're here.  In the year.  Celebrated last night in grand style.  I was invited to attend a dinner at Vince's Ristorante in West Sacramento.  It was the 40th anniversary of the New Years dinner so quite a tradition and I felt  honored to be invited.  I sat next to Danny and across from several women who attend the Cathedral meetings regularly.  Chris, Carolyn, Vicki, Jeannie, Kim and Nina.  I had a blast from the minute I entered to the minute I left.  Very good people and a million years of sobriety gathered.  

I just chaired the Cathedral meeting Tuesday and it was packed.  It was the end of the month birthday meeting so quite the crowd gathered.  I swore I wouldn't be nervous but a whiff of insecurity breezed through me as I walked up to the table to speak.  It was my third chair in 5 days so I didn't want to parrot what I already talked about.  It was an earlier blog that inspired part of what did come out.  I brought up the St Francis prayer and went off on the "to be loved" portion.  Other than that I mentioned that I have a mental illness and have suffered with chronic depression my whole life.  That is my truth today and I will share that with impunity here on out.  It's not a big deal and the truth is that there is a lot of suffering like that going on.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Am Dardanelle So I decide I’m going to go for a hike but I don’t want to drive. What to do?  Well my strength is imagination, pursuing thoughts, strong holding onto old memories, er, you get the picture.  So let’s take a virtual walk.  Summon all my daily thoughts and tell them to take the day off, I’m going on a hike!  This is my hike.  It is on my planet and is free for all to enjoy.  I speed through the uneventful drive but secretly delight in the destination ahead.  I always get lost so part of the adventure is finding the right spot to park.  I have to unclutter my mind and focus on the feeling that tells me the right place to stop.  I stop and get out and look at where I am.  The road is planted in the middle of an immense garden of pines, cedars, elms, big rocks, pine needles and clouds.   My path today is traipsing through this garden with no thought of later. I skip across the street and instantly I’m strainin...

Day 319 Busting Depression

Good morning.   It’s been a minute since I’ve been on here and I’d like to report that everything is grand but it truly is not.   I find myself circling the drain again.   What I prayed for so hard to never happen again is slowly wrapping it’s tendrils around my precious soul.   Depression.   Flatness.   Dull awareness.   It’s clear that I’m lonely but I’m not doing much in terms of harvesting companionship.   In any relationship.   Forget being with a woman.   They’re not knocking on my door while I have the TV constantly turned on.   This is not what I planned in my last days rolling into 60.   I thought it would be more of a parade, more of living what I’ve learned in this weary life.   So what have I learned?   What secret do I have to share with myself to guarantee that I escape these doldrums? I’m not a victim.   Of anything. Granted I didn’t get the best start in life with the frantic, chaotic childho...

Day 361 It's Just Days Now

My friend told me I shouldn’t date a woman from the “program” as they are just too damaged.    I countered that opinion with my second wife who was “normal” but crazier than bat shit in the end.   She had her own agenda and it wasn’t about making peace or being compassionate.   I think women from the program are as damaged as any woman or man but the one thing that separates them from outside women is that they are trying to heal.   Whatever way or path that they choose is still driven by a choice of wanting to get healthy.   And on a good day they realize that they are broken and they pick up their pieces and try to mold them into a way of life guided by some sense of sanity.   I’ve known normal women that don’t even see how they’re wrong with anything.   There is no fighting them as you’ve lost before you say the first word.   My mom was a perfect example of this theory. I’m afraid of women right now.   I think about them more ofte...