For Today - Pain

The means by which certain pleasures are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.  - Epicurus

I am in tears as I write this.  My pain is unrelenting and I am buckling under the weight of it.  Prayer gives me some relief.  But not enough.  Listening to OA podcasts helps make life seem possible.  But not for long.  The antidepressants help sort of.  But not really.  Eating makes life go away for a little while.  And then I feel worse.  I feel like I am disintegrating and I just have to be here suffering.

FML.

.......................................

Two and a half hours later...

I don't want what I wrote earlier this morning to be my post for the last day of 2015.  In the last while, I have wept.  I have done two loads of laundry.  I cancelled my training for this morning  I baked a white sponge cake for the base layer of the baked Alaska I am making for dessert tonight.  I read about Epicurus.  I spoke to my parents on the phone to wish them a Happy New Year.  And I wept again.  Now, I am making my usual breakfast and thinking I need to get some more rest before tackling more of what I want to get done today.  My eyes are sore.  My head aches.  And I am sad.  But I am still here. 

For Today - Promises

To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.  - Mark Twain

It is cold and dark this morning.  I have been running a mental list of things to do through my head while restless in bed for over an hour in the half-wake of early morning.  Enough.  Today I will do what I can and then I will stop to rest.  I no longer want to live my life like an endless marathon where there is always one more thing to do that is taxing, tiring, and unpleasant.  The runners' high almost never (never?) finds me so I am putting my baton down.  No more beating myself up to achieve the impossible.

The temptation is to promise myself to do all these undone things before the year ends.  Some are old ways to court good luck.  My grandmother taught my mother who taught me that you have all the laundry done before New Year.  That's do-able but I don't know that it brings the promise of good luck.  There is something about endings and beginnings that bring out the hope of a different, brighter path.  But that path is not luck, it is paved in action, with work. 

The OA program teaches "just for today" -- not "as a New Year's Resolution" or "starting on Monday" I'll do xyz.  There is no need to wait for a magic start day.  That magic start is now.  Even part way through a day. 

Today's reading talks about just having the desire to change.  That's enough.  I don't need to make elaborate promises, public or private, to lose weight, to eat right, to clean my house, to practice my creativity... see there, I've started making a list of potential resolutions automatically! 

The contemplative point for action in For Today is "I will allow no one, including myself, to pressure me into promising to lose weight."  The Big Book chapter The Doctor's Opinion talks about those in addiction who are "over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision" [Big Book, p.xxx].  They will not recover so long as they are emotionally unstable.  I am working on my recovery, my spirituality, and my emotional self.

In the chapter There is a Solution it reads:

So he returned to this doctor, whom he admired, and asked him point-blank why he could not recovery.  He wished above all things to regain self-control.  He seemed quite rational and well balanced with respect to other problems.  Yet he had no control whatever over alcohol.  Why was this?

...

The doctor said:  "You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic.  I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you."  Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.

He said to the doctor, "Is there no exception?"

"Yes," replied the doctor, "there is.  Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times.  Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences.  To me these occurrences are phenomena.  They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements.  Ideas, emotions and attitudes are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them."  [Big Book, p.27]

It's a process.  I am working on my thinking, feeling my feelings, and holding myself as I would hold a child who struggles to learn.

Elsewhere in the Big Book, a woman writes of early recovery as a pink cloud (that was my 87 days of abstinence earlier this year when it seemed easy), followed by a year of crying, then a year of rage, followed by a new sense of emotional equilibrium [Big Book, p.346].  I seem to be in the year of crying just now.  So I must be on my path for today.

For fun, I googled Mark Twain and promises after reviewing his quote that started this morning's pages.  I found this as the top result:

I cannot promise you a life of sunshine;

I cannot promise you riches, wealth or gold;

I cannot promise you an easy pathway

That leads away from change or growing old.

But I can promise all my heart’s devotion;

A smile to chase away your tears of sorrow.

A love that’s true and ever growing;

A hand to hold in your’s through each tomorrow.

Those are good promises.

For Today - Joy comes from living now

With the Past as past, I have nothing to do, nor with the Future as future.  I live now and will verify all past history in my own moments.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am home.  I woke up warm in my own bed this morning, with my hand nestled in the cat's fur.  She is happy to be home too. 

M. gave me a new expression last night for meditation.  Watch thoughts go by as if they are cars on the street.  There is just now, this breath, and then this one. 

For Today - Release

I love you. I bless you. I release you to your own indwelling presence of God. - Anonymous

Ah, this.  Today's reading talks about releasing the ones we love as a way of exerting incredible influence on them and us, in relationship together.  "I say and do only what is necessary to attend to my daily responsibilities, showing the love I feel and radiating the calmness and peace that comes from giving up control."

For now, I am giving up the illusion I can do this writing while my Mom keeps talking to me and asking questions.  I love her and I'm letting go of my frustration.  For today.

For Today - facing life

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. - Eleanor Roosevelt

It's almost 11 in the evening and my last night in my parents' house for the holidays. It is exceedingly difficult to carve out any private time at all with family all around, converged like there is but this one opportunity to be all together.  

I had my youngest nephew with me almost all day. He is a wonderful child and also a child. So he won't eat the crust of his sandwiches. He would prefer five cookies and only the girl gingerbread because with their skirts, you get more cookie than with the boy cookies and their bare legs.  I have to remind him to go pee if he needs to.  And then to wash his hands.  I gently help him navigate through parking lots, through stores, and on how not to scare the unfamiliar cat.  I remind him about brushing his teeth.  To say good night to his grandparents.  And I sit with him when he misses his mother and doesn't think he can fall asleep by himself. 

So today's reading about the wonderful virtues of childhood curiosity and enthusiasm is a bit over wrought, I think.  He is curious and asks impossible questions.  He is enthusiastic if he is interested. Otherwise, he is a listless shadow of a child, coming along because he has little choice if the adults in his lives are going one way.  

The reading speaks of living life. And I think living with fear, with uncertainty, and with new experiences is every bit as much of living life as the wonderful, curious, enthusiastic moments.  Both require us to face life on its own terms... the joy, the fear, the excitement, and the banal, without turning our backs. For all of this is to be human.  

Today I saw some of life through an eight year old's eyes and it looked a lot like my life. 

For Today - blech

It's almost 930 at night and I haven't yet done my For Today.  Blech.  Not the kind of day I would have liked. The day has felt long, endless, with very little movement, no fresh air, and plenty of human interaction with family.  I would have preferred a different day. I felt my stress go up several times as my sister had power struggles with her kids, as my mother and sister got into discussions of family sore points, and all.  I just wanted to go home. I found my self either centering my breathing or telling myself, two more sleeps and I can go home.

Vitality shows in not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.  - F. Scott Fitzgerald.  

Today's reading says willingness to make a new beginning is a sign of growth.  Starting over is what creation is all about; it is part of the fabric of success in enterprises ranging from spinning a web to splitting an atom.  

So I will start again tomorrow.

For Today - Gifts

The only gift is a portion of thyself.  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

This morning I awoke to the snap snap snapping of noise makers Santa brought the nephews to use cheering each other at the hockey rink.  6.40 am!  Apparently the little one woke up my brother-in-law at 2.17 am to ask if he could see if Santa had come already...  Um, nope. 

In watching the nephews open their stockings and other gifts, I can see they love the new fun toys.  They also love the surprise of opening gifts and discovering what is inside.  And this year, they really got into figuring out gifts for other people.  Both boys chose hockey cards they thought their Poppa would like and wrapped them up.  He was pretty thrilled.

Last night, I watched my sister and brother-in-law stuff their stockings and felt melancholy.  Christmas is a hard time to be with your family sometimes.  I found myself wishing I had a husband who adored me and worked with me to create a special life.  And wishing I had children to delight, to worry over, to surprise.  My life is rich with family and friends but I wish for the intimacy of everyday life with a soul mate. 

This last year has brought greater intimacy, honesty, and sharing with both M and B.  Different men, different kinds of intimacy.  My heart feels warm thinking of them both.  And both are walking wounded, on a personal path of recovery of self, like I am. 

And my life is rich with friends from OA, also wonderful people on personal journeys of healing, hope, and strength.  I have learned so much in this last year from all these generous people, willing to share of their deepest selves.  And in sharing of myself, I have also learned more, felt more acutely and loved freely.  These are precious gifts indeed.