Another beginning

I don't like New Year's and all its celebrations.  The point of celebrating another year gone seems like wishing my life away. And at this point that is what it is.  I am becoming more aware with each passing year that time is slipping away.  I am not looking forward to 2014 because I think it's best to just stay in this day and not project all kinds of good or bad things about the future.

I can hope though. And I surely hope that 2014 will be good, because in so many ways this past year was difficult. There is nothing to do but improve on last year.  As they say, there is no where to go but up.

I realize that I can make the most of every day, even though they seem to be slipping away from me at an alarming rate.  I can't make the days slow down or the minutes of our lives stop ticking away.  And each day gone is a day that I can't get back.

Sometimes I think about all the time that I spent being unhappy and filled with self-pity--feeling sorry for myself because of so many years spent with alcoholics, time spent worrying about someone else, days spent wishing I were someone else.  The sad litany of a person out of sorts with themselves--adrift and basically unconscious about so much.

I feel less out of sorts these days. I am able to bounce back from disappointments and despair a lot quicker than I once did. But I still have my moments of sadness and a feeling of unease when the disease of alcoholism comes through at the most unexpected moments.  I still think about what life would have been like if there had been no alcoholism around me.  The "what ifs" are a dead end street.  The past can't be redone, but I don't have to keep living in it and repeating it.

So on this last day of 2013, I am going to look at it as another day to do the next right thing. It isn't a special day because it's New Year's Eve, but one like any other in which I can choose to move forward, say a kind word to others, and practice the principles of love and acceptance.  If I can do that every day, then there is nothing to fear in seeing one year gone and another beginning.

Time for hope and miracles

It's going to be 80 F here today.  The leaves are beautiful, and the weather is great for going to the beach.  We would be out on the boat and anchored off our "secret" island, except for going to a Christmas party tonight.

And my Christmas spirit is not particularly there. So this morning, my wife and I are wrapping presents for a girl at the city orphanage. She filled out a list, and we have all of her items now--the skinny jeans in pink, makeup, the pink Converse shoes, the iPod, the tee shirts, the striped socks, etc.  A lot of things were on her list. I think that she will be a happy kid on Christmas.

We did this last year too.  Giving to a girl from the orphanage made us feel good. We met some of the staff at the wrapping party for the kids. That party is being held on Sunday at the organizer's house, who is a sailing friend. He and his wife have no kids, and so they have organized this gifting to the orphans for two years.

It's clearly apparent that we don't need or want anything for Christmas. Most all of the 90+ boxes of dishes, crystal, porcelain, etc. have gone to the antique auction house.  The big auctions for Mom and Pop's things will be coming up in January.  We have kept a few things that are special to us. But they had so much that we would have to build a 3000 sq. ft. addition on our house to display the things.  How many sets of dishes does a person need?  How many crystal bowls or wine glasses or champagne flutes?  It feels good to have cleared out the storage container.

Our lives are amazingly calm and content at the moment.  I have been going to meetings.  One of the meetings has started a beginner meeting for those newcomers who show up.  I led that the other night.  There is nothing like a newcomer to remind me of where I was.  Her brother is an addict, and she found that she was obsessing and anxious about him and what his addiction was doing to her parents.  These stories are repeated over and over again in the rooms. I'm glad to be there to share the message of hope.  It is the time for that and maybe some miracles too.

Last year's gifts for the orphans ready to be delivered.

Trudging

This has been a trying week in many ways. It started with my MIL being taken to the ER. She weighs about 90 pounds and became dehydrated because she doesn't want to eat or drink. So we spent many hours waiting for her to get processed and into a room. My FIL is also not doing well. This weighs heavily on my wife.

Radar school was postponed until February because there were not enough students to take the class. It's just as well because in view of the horrible events of yesterday, I don't think that I would be able to concentrate. I was saddened by the killings but realized that such occurrences seem to not be surprising which troubles me.

I tossed and turned last night thinking about loss of life, loss of hope and the pain we inflict in a seemingly nonstop way on each other. This morning I met a friend for breakfast, went to the boat, and decided that going to an oyster roast in the afternoon was the best cure for my sad blah feeling. I sat and talked to a couple of old drunks who were knocking back fireball shots. We ate oysters and talked about the benefits of seafood, being married, and having a good dog and a great boat. We did not mention what happened in Connecticut.

I felt better after eating a couple of full buckets of oysters. I am even looking forward to having recovery friends over for a Boxing Day open house. Maybe in the face of tragedy, it's better to put one foot in front of the other and keep trudging. Just keep doing the ordinary, seek out friends, eat some happy food, and don't dwell too much in your head. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

I believe in this

I may be coming down with a cold or something akin to that.  I have felt really tired and my body aches. But then I have been crawling around on the boat and doing a lot of varnish work on it for the last few days.  I will just ride it out and see if the fatigue is just that or if it is something else.

Today, I am staying home.  Yesterday, I was interviewed for a program on ETV.  I enjoyed the producer and the cameraman. They were interesting, asked good questions, got great footage, and made the interview fun.  I have done a lot of interviews over my career.  One of the facts about me is that I was once featured on CBS National News with Dan Rather.  But the interesting part was the research and the interesting critters that I was studying.  I didn't care much about any focus on me.  And the same thing yesterday--we spent over three hours talking about some extremely interesting critters in the salt marsh whose behavior in many ways is more civilized than ours.

I received some sad news about a friend yesterday.  He has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and is undergoing intense chemo therapy.  He was a colleague of mine and one of my running buddies.  We did some research projects together.  I told him that I would be willing to come to where he is and help out in any way.  He said that he knew that, but that it was now up to God and the doctors.  I get that, but that part of me still wants to reach out and make things okay for others.

He was kind to me when I first came to work at the institute.  He put us up in his house while we were looking for a house to buy. And he came to visit my wife when she had her heart attack.  He has done countless other things over the years that are too numerous to mention.   Suffice to say that he is not an alcoholic nor one who has been affected by alcohol or drugs.  He is just a good-hearted, genuine person.  And that is a rare commodity in many ways.

It is odd how one day the world gets turned upside down by something that you didn't expect.  That is when we not only rely on our inner strength but on our friends and on a power greater than ourselves.  What amazing opportunities I have been given and what an amazing life this is.

And finally this:

"I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.


I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.


I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.


I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.


I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.


I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.


I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.


I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.


I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.


I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.


I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." ~Neil Gaiman

Old Year reflections

So it's goodbye to 2011.  I honestly don't know where the time went.  But it has receded in hours, minutes and seconds until there is nothing left, except the memories.  And here are a few of mine:

1. That day last February when my wife said that she was having a heart attack.  She recovered, made life style changes, and is grateful to be alive.  Me too.

2. The passing of some great dogs--Timmi and Stella.  You were here for too short a time.  

3. The aging process and seeing the decline in my wife's parents.  I have learned a lot about compassion for the very old who are sick. And I have learned about my limitations. 

4. The boat, the water, the beach--my own sanctuary which I have come to find as necessary as breathing.  And the island where I live is a place of quiet and peace too. 

5. Saying goodbye to my sponsor who moved away. He was there for me from the beginning.  Poignant but accepting that we all have to move on.  

6.  Growing in recovery and applying the principles to my life.  Al-Anon has taught me about acceptance, love, spirituality, compassion, faith, honesty, and hope. So many positive things given so freely.  And you bloggers were part of that.  Thanks for being here on the journey. 

7. Taking some maritime courses that stretched my mind.  I learned a lot and had fun in the process. Retirement at my relatively young age has definite rewards. 

8. Expanding my culinary and gardening skills.  The garden has become a joy.  And the vegetables have been incredible.  All the foodies that blog have been inspiring. You know who you are. 

9. Enhanced social and political consciousness.  I don't write much about this, but I have become more and more attuned to social and political issues.  This year was memorable for the social pressures that were front and center in my mind. I worked more with kids to teach them about the environment. 

10.  Loving photography and taking steps to sell some photos.  Entering photo competitions may happen soon.  No matter, I carry my camera everywhere.  The artistic part of me provides balance to the scientific part. 

So those are some of the highlights for me.  Not every day was wonderful but each one presented some lesson.  More will be revealed in the coming year.  

“For last year's words belong to last year's language 

And next year's words await another voice.” ~T.S. Eliot

Magical Thinking

We are at the boat until tomorrow. The weather is warm so everyone is out and about in tee shirts.  It feels great to be back on board after a couple of months of sanding and painting.  I have missed spending time on her just relaxing instead of working.  I know that being totally land based is not what I want to do. I am drawn to the water and feel most content here.

Tomorrow we are having the parents and caregivers over for lunch. They seemed happy to be coming over. We will have the Christmas dinner early and have another one on Christmas day. I feel much better knowing that they will be coming over. Somehow it is comforting us to have them be present. This is all the family there is.  But it is okay.

I have been reading a couple of books that by many standards would be sad--The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights by Joan Didion. Neither has been gut wrenching for me because somehow her narrative feels so distant and her writing so emotionless.  Perhaps I could identify most with her desire for seclusion when the apartment was filled with people after the death of her husband. Just knowing someone was there would be enough but having to interact would be difficult.  She writes something here that seemed so true: 

"The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to "get through it," rise to the occasion, exhibit the "strength" that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves then for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief was we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.” --Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

The void is something that I have feared as long as I can remember. But I see that the fear of loss is not something so huge to me at the moment. I lived through my parents deaths. I have gotten through the deaths of friends and beloved animals. There are days when we each are brought to our knees. Yet, something within still seeks the positive, the light, if you will. I feel hopeful that all will be basically okay as long as I am willing to seek that light.