It’s been a week since my last post, and I think this is the
only chance I’ve had to actually sit down and write in a coffee shop since.
This week has had a theme, and it isn’t letting up: Go Go Go.
I now have 157 weeks of continuous sobriety, that’s three
years and one week for those of you for whom math is an obstacle. In 51 weeks I
will have four years. In two months, I will have been out of prison for two
years, and I will have less than one year left on parole. Now that the math
portion of this post is complete, I can move on, although it’s nice to devote
some writing to a subject as innocent as math, since I have written so much on
meth in the past.
Work has been going well. It’s chaotic, but I seem to be
able to handle it. The station I was intimidated by just a few short weeks ago
is now second nature. More and more, I look down the line toward grill and garde
manger (‘food keeper’ (desserts and salads)) and I wonder if they will come to
me as quickly. Of course they will, my head is clear, and my mind is straight.
I haven’t lost my cool yet. I haven’t lost my cool since I’ve been sober. Weird…
In my home group in A.A., I am the sponsorship
representative. This means that I stand up in front of nearly a hundred people
every week and give a little speech along with a female counterpart about the
necessity and benefits of having somebody assist you in reading the first 164
pages of the Big Book. The first 164 is where the 12-steps reside, and it’s not
a task that should be done alone, and it’s probably impossible to completely
understand without some assistance from somebody who has been through it
before. I always end my speech by asking people if their relationship with
their sponsor is the best they’ve ever had. You see, if you aren’t getting the
most out of your sponsor: if you are getting away with old behaviors, if you
have resentment, or you’re getting angry with the daily grind, you are doing
something wrong and a new sponsor might be the key.
I say that to say this: that theory can be used anywhere in
life. And although I may be typing this paragraph to a very particular person
this time, (yes, you from The Depot) the logic holds for anybody anywhere. If everything
in your life isn’t the best it possibly can be, if something or somebody is
holding you back from being the happiest you have ever been, if you can’t be in
the moment wherever you are because your thoughts are taken away to something
darker, then something needs to change. And every time, deep down, we know what
that change needs to be. YOU have the power within you to shake things up and
even though stuffs might quiver awhile afterwards, eventually you will find
happiness when the toxic thing is removed from your life. Every day you have
one less day on this planet and you cannot afford to cry and worry when there
is so much out there to experience. Never give up. Never stop trying to find
what makes you live inside, because if you do then you truly die.
It’s a beautiful day out there, I need to get out and love
it. I will be going to the Twins game tonight with my friends from down in
Fillmore County, I will put pictures up on FB. That’s all for now.
