"Life Keeps Happening"

Stay sober, work the steps, call your sponsor, blah blah blah ;-) I'm kidding, of course. A little silliness over here for various reasons.

It's a Monday and I'm at the evil job place. There is all kinds of drama going on, but I'm keeping strong boundaries. I was thinking earlier that strong boundaries can be really tough sometimes. If your neighbor's house gets bombed, your house might not have been touched but the foundation might be shaken; there might not be any broken windows, but the explosion sure can rattle them. This is all a very metaphorical way of trying to say that I'm still working, but matters surrounding my job are highly chaotic. One day at a time is how I'm doing it. I'm working this week; that's what I know. The future is something I can't control. So I stay in the moment, offer a listening ear to those affected, and try to be compassionate towards the spiritually sick.

But even the insanity of this place and the boredom of my job on a Monday of all days is not enough to dampen my spirits. I had an amazing weekend, full of working with others. Two of my sponsees did ther fifth steps this weekend. Wow. My sponsor had warned me that I'd be pretty drained by the time it was all over. I was, a bit, but mostly I was exhilarated. Yes, active listening for an extended period of time can be tiring. But for me, the healing power of being on the receiving end of a fifth step was a spiritual rush. My sponsor gave me big props for doing the deal. He says I really walk the walk, and I appreciate the support. To me, most of the credit goes to my sponsees. They're the ones who stuck with it and did the work of pushing through their fourth steps.

I heard from a third sponsee, too. He's reached that place so many of us do where the newness of sobriety is wearing off. He's feeling some fear and frustration. It was clear right away that what's going on is he's coming down off his pink cloud. I talked to him about it, let him know that it's something we all go through, and that he's right where he's supposed to be. By end of the conversation, he was feeling much better.

I had a few phone conversations with some friends, and each of them commented to me about how good I sounded. One of them was particularly concerned with the difficulty I'd had in my personal life (yes, there was that happening through all of this this weekend, too) and the other had been concerned about my dealing with so much life stuff in general. But I felt good because I had accomplished so much and because of how things had gone with my sponsees. There was some time, too, to work on my music this weekend, and that makes me happy more often than not, as well. Since I went back to work, that's been a difficult thing to find time for.

It's kind of funny. I was unemployed for just long enough to figure out how to fill up my life. Since going back to work, it's been a major restructuring process. How to fit in everything I had going in my life, now that I had significantly less time in the day. And also a few new very good things on top of it. It's working itself out. The key, as always, seems to be to keep putting Recovery first. Keep going to meetings, keep on being of service and working with others. Take care of myself, live according to the spiritual principles of the program to the best of my abilities and the rest of it takes care of itself. No, that's not right, because it doesn't give credit where credit is due. I do my part, and God takes care of the rest.

Keep moving forward. Keep doing the next right thing. Keep on keepin' on.