Swifty phiphty niner

Merry Christmas.  I guess this is the last Christmas of my fifties.  Sounds macabre.  So far it's just been only another day.  No sleep last night at all and up at dawn doing chores.  Gave a friend a Christmas ride to the airport at 8.  When I got home I tried to take a Christmas nap but no sleep came.  I can't contact my Christmas sister as her phone goes straight to voice mail.  I did my Christmas chores in my rental room.  I did Christmas laundry.  My favorite part of the day was doing Christmas laundry folding.  My favorite Zen moments come from folding clothes.  Lay the inseam north and the next one south and the next one north.  Makes the Christmas piles of laundry even and smooth.  I found the perfect Christmas wire trellis to stick into my barrel vine I'm growing out front.  Now I'm going to get ready to go to a Christmas brunch with Winnow and her Christmas family.  I'm hoping later to se...

Rebuilding myself through Zen, therapy, sponsorship, DBT and willingness to do it.   There are days when the overwhelmingness fatigues me to the point of endless irritability.   Then there are days of non-stop gratitude for the distance I’ve covered and energy I have for the rest of the trip.   Where did the passion come from this time?   I don’t have a woman to impress.   Well I just don’t have a woman. J   That’s growth right there.   “Don’t have a woman!”   Even Firestone doesn’t contact me anymore.   I would hear from her on my birthday but now after 29 years, no sir.   I offer or cough up a little controversy and I’m out the door.   A little moxie goes a long way.   So what about that?   My long standing unease of being manipulated into taking Trojan via dad proxy has turned into something untouchable.   I’m not a dog person.   Tried to do it.   You know like trying marriage because it’s the righ...

My therapist has introduced the theory to me of the inner child.   I have to say that as long as I’ve heard of this I didn’t give it much credence.   After several sessions though a light began to glimmer and it started making sense.   Especially when she told me it’s not just one inner child, it’s a bus load of them.   “But you’re not unique in that Pher!”   Knowing me, that was key to say.   When a familiar feeling arises that resonates with one of my “children”, that voice is the one that leads the pack.   Rage for instance, can rally the troops and all in unison they’ll abdicate their place and the screaming eventually finds its way out of my mouth and out into the real world.   Results vary but mostly on the poor scale.   The melancholy child sets off an entirely different rumbling throughout the bus.   He broods and the whole gang starts dragging.   The chain reaction activates the depression child and then the droopy voice ...

Monday ugh, could not get out of bed today.  I literally spent all day yesterday sleeping in bed or on the couch.  Woke up officially at 1PM and had a small breakfast then straight to the couch.  Turned on the TV to watch soulless football.  Every time I would look up to see a play it was a different quarter.  I figured out that this was just not going to be one of those awake days. I had the Kill Headache all day Saturday.  Once those are on board there is nothing to do but suffer silently.  I've basically had them since childhood but this one has been a doozy.  It started in June and I had a few bad weeks of level 6 or higher every day.  The past month, 2 months it has been slowly stirring the pot at level 1 or 2.  Those I can deal with.  Saturday was an 8/9 and I felt desperate to abate the pain.  I've been to the dr's, been to the ER, seen a neurologist and nothing has changed.  They're not migrai...

My first blog straight from the keyboard to you.  I chaired 2 meetings these past 2 days.  A nooner yesterday and the 830 morning meeting today.  I chaired them.  Wow.  It wasn't that long ago when I would pass if I was just selected to speak.  If I did speak, it was a bit rambly, (understatement) fidgeting the entire team and most likely, completely off topic.  I'm not breaking into new ground into Toastmasters but I felt comfortable both times and had intent.  I introduced my topic (well sort of), kept on point and wrapped it up with a decent sensible ending.  I can truly say I'm proud of the growth that I've experienced this past year and pray that I will stay with the flow. My topics were forgiveness and I heard some wonderful responses from the crowd.  The unruly but darling crowd.  I have the feeling that these are my people and that is good.  I respect the thunder from AA and realize that what I get from AA i...

This is my Xmas Tree this year.  It's the first tree I've set up since my son was a little kid.  You know what?  I like it. Yes I like it.

We may consider the material world as the clay which the artist works with, to make of it something beautiful or ugly. We need not fear material things, which are neither good nor bad in the moral sense. There seems to be no active force for evil--outside of human beings themselves. Humans alone can have either evil intentions--resentments, malevolence, hate and revenge--or good intentions--love and good will. They can make something ugly or something beautiful out of the clay of their lives. Prayer For The Day I pray that I may make something beautiful out of my life. I pray that I may be a good artisan of the materials which I have been given to use. Typically I go to a bipolar support group  every Wednesday night that's called Balanced.  It is a Meetup group that was created almost 6 years ago as a peer to peer group for those blessed with bipolar, depression, anxiety etc.   It's good for me to hookup with my people.  I've been attending for 5 + years now. ...