oh happy happy damn day. lol

Any holiday that involves people not working is always a nightmare here in house of Gandy. It's always the same pain that is trotting out every time. The only change and it was a good one is I had no involvement in the Memorial Day Blow Out of 2011. (not even close to the Easter massacre) I only knew it went down after some stomping up the hall way went on capped with a slamming of a door than doesn't close all the way (very effective. lol) I ask my mom what was going on while I was gone hesitantly. It mostly involved my selfish , crack and Xanax riddled sister's selfish-self centeredness. I'm not saying she doesn't have real pain, but she was unpleasant and self centered as a child. Deep down , she doesn't like me and I have mostly no feeling for her. Although I have mentioned before, I would make a solid attempt to get her out of a burning house.. Today was different for me because I am different. I don't look for reasons to get my feelings hurt so I can retreat under the bridge and mentally masturbate myself with how wrong everyone else is. Yes, things suck but nothing sucks forever and I am making decisions and changes daily to get me to a different level of living and loving and coping with the people the universe places in my life, or the ones I pull in to allow me to practice being a good human even though they irk me. I hope there is no freaking holiday in the foreseeable future where everyone in the house is here all day. Otherwise, I might break out the "nighty night sandwiches" to serve at lunch and put them all down for a nap. lol I have been changed and it was apparant in my reactions today. I'm a few inches closer to being the me I hope for on birthday candles and stars in the sky.

Suddenly, without notice, things get different.

This was one of those days when all the changing that I am doing caught up with me and suddenly everything including me is different.  I have opportunities landing in my lap that are proof positive that the universe loves me just as much as everyone else. I wasn't as it turns out,  born into a life where I was automatically excluded from all things that make being human so great. I am well thought of by people that matter to me. I'm trusted and I have people believing in my abilities that I didn't know I possessed.  It's really more magical than any movie. Simply by opening my heart and mind up to the truths of the universe, the thick glass wall that kept me from being a participant in life has been removed. The only way that glass goes back up and cuts me off again is if I myself  stop making choices that open me up. I don't want to be closed off from the spirit or the planet again. There are things that I have to do in order for that to happen and the main thing is to stay with people who are spiritually in tune and open. The longer I go without being around a source of life and change, the more and the quicker I forget such a space is available to me. Spiritual amnesia leads to living death. When I can't remember who I am , anyone with any spirituality can give me a jump start. That is why I am always bringing new people into my circle. The odds of us all forgetting who we are at once are next to impossible. I am so thankful for everyone who utters the syllables that form my name and all the people I speak the names of when I count my miracles at night. Thank you for being my friend and thank you for reminding me who I am, but mostly for showing me all the possibility that lies in us all, each of us.

Get me out of here

My sister poked her head in the computer room and said her stomach was growling. She asked if I wanted her to pick up anything for me when she made her breakfast run. I said no. So an hour and 15 minutes later she comes back and is completely serious when she interupts my phone call to ask me if I knew anyone with a litle "Flat Bottom boat". I didn't even try to hide my displeasure as I replied NO. 5 minutes later she is back and asking me where she could find some rocks. Free rocks. She wanted to make a little walk pathway in the backyard where be barely even mow. Next she shows me some baskets she has tried to paint black and I nod my head approvingly. Next she digs through some storage bends and puts on her little skirted swimsuit which she is still wearing. Now we do live near the lake but it is easily 3 blocks from here and she has never been.

I honestly can say, whatever she smoked or swallowed in the75 minutes she was gone does not interest me in the bit. I can't get over how she gets overcome with this creative thinking when she is stoned on whatever but has no talent for reproducing these delusions of artistic, creative endeavors. May that still is always just below her skin but it comes out screwed up when she is stoned. Do you remember the fake leather suitecase she autopsied in the wee hours of the morning?  It could be worse, she could get mean like I did on occasion.lol  I hate that she keeps doing this shit. I really hate it. I wish the universe would step in and intervene in her insanity. But that is my plan for her and not the power all that is.

light

Once you have felt the full impact of enlightenment, it is damn near impossible to find any comfort in returning to the darkness of being. We were built and designed to live in the light. We are not mushrooms that thrive in the dark and love to be covered in waste. Just for today, I don't want to live in an UN-natural state of being. I am light, and I'm "lovin' it.

More insight from Campout.

I am in that place this morning where I have had an experience and I must find a way to process it and get the most out of the effort. I am very disappointed that this weekend failed to move me in the way it seems to move others. Part of me wants to stomp and pout about how yet another time, I don't not fit in the groove that others do, the other part of me knows better. If anything was learned over the last three days is that my journey on the planet is going to always me uniquely my own. I have to find my own way of feeling connected and part of things. The thing I keep learning over and over and over again is that I'm not supposed to be like you. I am suppose to be me. I have to be me in order to get the things done, things the universe wants me to get done. I have to be honest, as I watched out the window of the rv at everyone running about, I was thinking, what is it in me that keeps me from enjoying the things that I am seeing through the plexiglass. So I think I am more assured now that there is nothing wrong with not caring for big functions, dances and campouts. It has nothing do to with me not trying to be "part of". Those just aren't my things and I am confident in that now. I'm not going to feel like I am not trying any longer. I know myself a lot better and I trust myself a lot more thanks to the 13th Annual Campout. Wasn't what I expected to figure out or learn from the weekend but, it's a pretty big shift in understanding and I will happily take it. The parts I did enjoy the most were the parts I could have driven out especially for like others. It is no big surprise that my favorite parts of the weekend were when I got to spend time with the people from the hall that have the "sparkle" I am drawn most. There are people in my recovery that I don't think it would ever be possible for me to get enough of.

Tried tried it , suspectd, but now I know. Camping is not for me.

I followed through with giving camping a try at my recovery groups's annual lakeside 3 day fest. Other than the food being good, and getting to spend some stolen moments with friends, it was difficult for me. If I hadn't got to get away for 2 hours on saturday, I may have just collapsed into a big piled of weeping, anxiety ridden gray haired idiot.
I was very very upset that it was yet another thing that "earth people" that I don't connect with at all. I really wanted to but it just didn't happen. If I could have talkeveryone without having to be at the lake I would have preffered that. My best times were the stolen moments with friends in the camping RV..

I didn't over eat once this weekend. I was afraid if came myself any slack on watching the food intake I would lose momentum. There was a sack fulll of mini-Hershey's on the table in the RV the whole time, and I knew if I even ate one, it was set up a compulsion I would be able to stop until I hated myself. Just like PILLS, one is to many and a thousand not enough.

Comfort from strange places

My whole life I have loved thunder storms. The make me feel small and insignificant  compared to the weather patterns that have gone on for millions of years. My god, I really could be Wiccan. The earth is the source of life, those other planets couldn't sustain us. We make things like the internet, and flat tvs but we never have been smart enough to change the course of the behavior of the earth. I like that i am living on a "LIVING THING" with it's own way of doing things to insure its own survival. We are the expendables. We can suck the crude out of the holes and fell every tree we can find but we will never have the upper hand. The earth can shudder for 15 seconds and do away with entire sea boards when it chooses to. The earth is certainly a power greater than ourselves. I love that my life and my problems are small compared to the vast power of the planet. If the earth is getting hotter, perhaps it's running a fever in a first attempt to rid itself of the parasites called humans.

Yuck

I'm completely disconnected with with the good stuff. I don't feel it today and all week has been me, simply going through the motions. I don't understand where the disconnect is coming through except I have really not been able to do anything but dread speaking tomorrow night at my NA hall. I just can't figure out how to make enough chronological sense about of my life to put it in story form.  People seem to have sort of high expectations for me and of course I hate that.  I'll go and share about it in the meeting today and then try to start interviewing people in my recovering team to figure out how to reconnect.

Alive and Hopeful. Two miracles I will list on the top of ye ole Grattitude List.

I'm telling my story Friday night at my NA group. I did not want to do it because so much of my story confuses me. I could not say no. I will hope that whatever needs to happen happens and I don't offend the christians. I can't not share that not being a christian and being very wary of them didn't keep me from coming back to recovery. I have good friends in NA that are Christian and they no that the place I come from is one of being beaten down by misuse of the bible. I'm 75 percent better already about that. But when I meet someone and that is pretty much there lead line, I usually retreat. I don't want to be around anyone who believes anything without question. I don't think my mom has ever once questioned the validity of the indoctrination she got as a child in the holy roller church.

The best part of 12 step recovery is you are urged to think, and question and find out how the principles can fit into your own life. I have to talk about God, and I have to talk about the 18 years or so I spent in AA. To share in a general way and still get my point across is going to be fucking tricky.  I have no message to deliever, just my little story of what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. Then let go of the results. I was a singer, I was a paid actor and to find myself running from being the center of attention is a real trip. I'm still all in! Doors of opportunity open and today I find a way to walk through them.

had a reality check.

A friend for 18 years , that lives two towns away ask me to pick him up to bring him to an NA meeting which I of course agreed to. He hasn't drank for 18 years, but like me, took the break from alcohol to become a drug addict.  He has such a tender heart and has never, never been treated with any real respect from his family and his friend. I drove up and he was on the porch. I was really horrified because I would have never known it was him. He looked like a homeless person and smelled pretty bad. I talk to him on the phone often and I had no idea he was in this shape. I don't know what frightened me so much except he wasn't my friend, or at least the one I last saw two years ago. I can't imagine people didn't have the same reaction to me when I didn't leave the house for 2 years and dyed my hair orange. I can't believe he was bleeding to death right under my nose. I know very few things for sure but I know beyond all doubt , if he comes to NA, gets welling and honest, he can salvage his life and find a new way to thrive like never before. I've always been in his corner and have never thrown him under the bus. I won't stop now. It just scared me.
Underneath his scare costume, he is a tender hearted man who NEVER not even his parents treated him well and no one ever wanted him to be happy in his life. Their all dead, and he has time for a great life. If he has a desire to stay clean and get honest. I will pull his ass up 80 in a red wagon if he wants to go to a meeting. If not, I'm just going to have to love him from a distance and hope he has a change of heart while there is still time.