Swifty phiphty niner

I chaired a meeting yesterday morning at North Hall.   It’s the LGBT meeting for Sacramento.   I don’t know why you needed to know that.   You need to know that it’s the first time that I’ve been there.   It wasn’t too bad, about 13 or 14 people.   Of course I don’t have a spiel lined up other than I wanted to talk about happiness.   How my life has been shaped by happiness, the lack thereof, the pursuit, the moments that I mistook for happiness etc.   I started by mentioning my mom’s lack of happiness and how it affected my pursuit of happiness.   You see if she wasn’t happy, she took it out on us.   In me it created a need to affect my mom so she was always happy.   OH what a responsibility to be in charge of keeping mom happy.   Nothing was predictable so she could go off in any moment and for any reason.   It’s hard to keep control of the uncontrollable.   And there are no perks for this job, I would get beaten wit...

I was reading with my sponsor last night out of a book, “Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be” by Lama Surya Das.   We were reading about loss and the author was listing off a peel of losses, one after another as if they were days on the calendar.   But the loss that cut the most was the loss of his dad.   He talked about his relationship with his dad, how close they were and how 6 years later the loss has cut across time and is just as acute now as the day he originally died.   I started reading out loud during this page and I couldn’t do it.   My voice started breaking and I could feel the tears flowing down my face.   Now my dad passed 13 years ago but there are moments when the loss is so fresh in my mind.   I kept reading despite my choppiness and got through my part.    My sponsor asked me if that was a rough spot and I nodded in agreement.   But it really got to me how fresh the wound was. I texted him later saying, “It’s ...

“Hi Anne, it’s so good to see you!” I blushed as I blurted this out. “Hi Chris, it’s good to see you too.   You look good.” Anne was blushing a bit too. I reached over the suitcase and gave her a hug and did an awkward side face kiss.   She kissed at the same time and we hit each other on the cheek.   I was aiming for her lips like the fool that I am but at the last second tilted the angle and swiped along the side of her face.   The funny thing was she was doing the same thing.   Now it was really awkward. “Thanks for coming out to pick me up, I thought you would be busy with the kids and Eddie would come.” “The kids are all almost teens now and I wanted to see you first!” she admitted.   “I put Eddie to work on tonight’s dinner.” “Well that was a good decision.   Let’s go get ‘em!” I rushed my words hoping to hide the nervousness of my thoughts.   Anne picking me up.    I was looking forward to seeing her but her pic...

Hi.   I have just come back from a week and a half vacation.   Whew is it hard coming back to work.   I went back East, no surprise and spent time with my cousins.   Specifically Halina and her beau, David.   And their 3 teenagers and 4 dogs.   4 dogs.   Two of them are the yappy Chihuahuas that true to their nature, yapped whenever I got within walking distance from them.   God I wanted to step on them.   Other than that it was sweet.   Went down to North Carolina to the Outer Banks and spent time in the sun.   And in the water which was a balmy 75% degrees.   But it was just sweet to get comfortable with my family.   I had thoughts of the big picture, a cousin hanging out with a cousin well into our 50’s.   Well I have a lot of thoughts about doing a lot of things well into my 50’s lately.   I don’t think it’s a bad thing and they all seem to like me when we get together.   You know that expression ...

Today I did a thirty minute sit.   I felt some pain meander in and I thought I will treat this with meditation.   My readings say sit with the pain, embrace the pain.   Don’t avoid, avoid aversion.   I think my whole life has been aversion to pain, so much so, that I don’t know exactly when I’m in it and when I’m not.   Ok there are lots of instances when I know but those are symptoms of a much deeper pain.   That’s what I’ve been working on these past few years.   First with pill popping and we all know how well that works.   It just makes the pain BIGGER!   Hah!   But I lied to myself that it felt good on that train to derail the pain.   Of course with the AA head I would always feel guilty because everyone knows I’m an addict and everyone knows I’m supposed to stay clean.   I would take on that guilt and increase it by multitudes of degrees until I got to loser stage.   Every fucking time.   And the original pa...

10   days before I go on vacation.   10 days before I get to spend some time with my cousins from the East Coast.   The right side of the country.   I will get up at 3:45AM on the morning of the 23 rd and be ready to catch the Super Shuttle to the airport.   My first flight is the weakest link in the whole trip.   It is a leg to Las Vegas and when I went this time last year my flight was cancelled because of terrific wind surrounding Vegas.   I swore I wouldn’t do that again but here I am, next year doing the same thing.   My memory, God bless it.   It needs a lot more than God’s blessings.   It needs a complete overhaul. Hah!   But other than that I will be in DC at 530 PM EST and will be sitting down for chow with my cousins that night.   Halina Dabrowski is who I’ll be staying with.   David King, her by law now, husband and their 3 boys, Noah, Joe and Matthew.   At least I think that’s where I’m staying. ...

I had an interesting hour with my therapist.   I was spun out by my head exhausting all possibilities between a and b without knowing any facts.   I was guessing but I based it on old history.   Of course it has to do with a woman I went out on a date with.   It was a great date, we had dinner, frozen yogurt, we held hands and we even kissed ever so lightly on the lips as our night ended.   There was no problem with the date, it was after the date that my trouble began.   I wanted to see her again.   Of course I did.   But it was the when that was driving my anxiety.   I felt I had to have more control over the when.   She has kids so there are automatic certain days that are out and then there are vacations coming up for the both of us so that leaves a very thin window of opportunity.   In fact there is a Wednesday coming up that would be ideal but it’s a work night for her so it would be a short night if it were to be a night at...