Black Coffee

I love black coffee. I hate it in paper cups.

Today I went to an al-anon meeting on the 2nd step, and I instantly felt overwhelmed. Twelve steps in twelve months, and yet another January has gone by without me admitting my powerlessness... I found myself getting rageful toward my sponsor. She doesn't make time for me, she doesn't go to the meetings I was supposed to go to with her, she hangs up on me and doesn't return my calls, she says she's too busy skiing to talk to me, or too busy with her kids, she doesn't linger after meetings to say hello and never invites me to do things with her. I like her, but all of these things make it impossible for me to trust her and feel like I can call her daily with "the good, the bad and the ugly." I feel hopeless in my program because E___ didn't work out either, and she wasn't exactly the warm, nurturing, generous woman I was looking for. Instead, she was the opposite. E___ the loving ice queen. Her life was falling apart, and she didn't understand my need to have someone there on the other end of the line. Still, I am grateful for her. I love E____ so much more so now for all of her flaws.

One part of me wonders if I am letting go of this sponsor because I don't want to work the program, because she is threatening to make me commit and hold me accountable for my actions. Another part of me acknowledges the reality - this woman has yet to show up for me AND I haven't been pulling my side either. I am terrified to call her. She doesn't pick up and sounds busy. It's terrifying to call a complete stranger with your problems- just opening yourself up for judgement. At the same time, my own issues are cunning and sly. They will evade help, as they always have and always will. My issues run from the call of health, retreating into me, hiding and protecting the ego which is only a facade.

I am envious of the other women in Al Anon who meet with their sponsors for hours at a time, who go on hikes with their sponsors, whose sponsors invite them over for tea while they cry their eyes out. I'm also aware that I have prevented myself from finding someone who is fully in the program because I am not willing to do what it takes, to heed their advice. It feels so confining and I instantly shut down, and start running. And more time goes by...

No, I don't like anyone telling me what to do. Even if it's the right thing to do. I'm stubborn. I assume they don't know what I need and I don't want to listen. They don't know the order of things like I do. And yet, I have to wonder, am I shutting God out?

Another part of me knows I am choosing sponsors who will participate in my lackadaisical participation in Al Anon. Yes, I go to meetings, but I won't follow the simple orders. No major changes. Don't go see M___. Don't move. Don't travel. Get a job. Be self-sufficient. Stay in the same place.

Why? It goes against my instincts entirely. What do my instincts say? Well, they say, don't worry, we'll take care of you. But they don't, and here I am, alone, day after day after day, trying to guide my family, trying to let go, but clinging on like a mother fucker. Why? What am I getting rather. Someone recently told me, don't ask why, ask what and where....

What do I want? I want to be left alone and I want to be surrounded by friends. I want to work but I want my time to be my own. I want black coffee, but I want it in a glass mug with a perfect lid that keeps the heat in (great invention). I want to feel free in my heart, head and mind to let go and to take care of myself. I want to be organized, efficient and a great planner... I want to do what I said I was going to do when I said I was going to do it. I want to use my buddy pass.... LORD I WANT TO USE MY BUDDY PASS TO TRAVEL THE WORLD LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!o1i18-4481-5 Does that make sense to you Lord? What do I need to do to get there? Where do I need to go? Where is my heart? What is holding me back, day after day? I am choosing days of pain and where is my strength? Where is my support? Am I alone here? Do I have faith in God? or don't I.... Clearly my sponsor and all of these helpful people are only speaking the words of my own heart. Get out. Get out of here. Stop living in pain. Stop choosing pain just because you are afraid. What would you do if fear was not an issue... I'm banging my keys so hard I might just break them. I have never typed so freaking furiously in my life, as though my life depends on the answers to these questions, and I can feel myself about to give up, I can feel myself about to get up and walk away, instead of finding the answers.

This is hard, this is boring, your hot coffee is getting cold, something even more distasteful in a paper cup... yuck. Where is Tomas, where are my guides? I can't do this anymore and I don't want to do this for another moment, but like someone hanging from a cliff, I can't let go to find out the ground was only an inch beneath me the whole time. I will learn and I will change. Like A___ who kept putting the same things down the garbage disposal! I don't want to put my freaking life down the garbage disposal, my opportunities, my beauty, my youth, my vision, my GIFTS from god, because that's  not what's meant to go down there... and yet...

This intensity cannot be sustained... It is exhausting to pound and pound and pound and pound. It gets things done, but only in spontaneous spurts, and can any problem worth solving be solved in a day? Or must it just be chipped and chipped away. I see myself skating on an ice rink, around a pond, just skating at the bottom. No money, no friends, no home, no car, no happiness, no freedom, no hope, no joy, no place to go but round and round and round. I keep looking up into the sky, hoping some hand or helicopter will finally find me and lift me out of this place, take me somewhere warm, someplace I understand, some place I can move, some place with fluidity. But, instead, I see myself taking off a skate, kneeling on the ice and chipping away at it, hacking my way through the cold, old layers bit by little bit, chip by chip by chip. It's exhausting. My hands hurt from the cold, my knees ache. I need to take breaks, but eventually I can see the thinnest layer, the fish swimming beneath, the life that's been under my feet the whole time. I break it away, and plunge into the depths. It's bracingly cold, and shocking to the senses, but I'm alive, and I will be warm soon. I feel the truth of life surround me. I've made it to a nourishing place... and maybe I don't need to jump in. Maybe I'll do that later. Maybe now I just need to grab a line and bait, to catch some fish and bring them in.

What a dream.