Home Alone

Today has been a day that I typically would have reveled in alcohol. Its a beautiful summer day. My daughter has gone to NYC to see a ballet. My husband is up at bike week in Laconia. My son did community service all morning and left again for work at 3pm. I would have loved this time. Guilt free drinking. I would have probably started early or maybe I would have waited until 3. Noone will be here for most of the night. J may or may not spend the night but if she comes home it will be in the wee hours of the morning. E will be working until 11 and my husband likely won't be home until tomorrow. I would have started drinking and relished the fact that noone was here to witness my gluttony and nag at me for drinking during the day, having another, opening another or interfering with my drinking by making demands like dinner or a ride or a conversation. I would have wandered around the house. Probably I would be drinking my usual tumbler of red wine but I might have started with gin & tonic given its the first day of summer. Maybe done some chores so I could rationalize the drinking. When they would get home all the laundry might be done and the house might be immaculate. Or I could have blown the whole thing off. They're all having fun so I might as well sit on the porch sipping and reading, or watching a movie. Ultimately I would pass out and would be found "sleeping" on the couch because I was "waiting up". Usually I was unawakable and would be startled into awakeness sometime in the middle of the night. Mouth full of cotton, a pounding headache and disoriented. Then I would have tiptoed around the house and maybe looked out the window to see whose car was here. Gone up to bed to see who was home. The next morning I would say why didn't you wake me when you came home and would be told either that they had tried and couldn't or that I WAS awake, don't I remember? Or I might not have said anything to avoid just that scenario.

Thank you God that is over.

Instead I went to a new meeting this morning a bit away. I liked it and my go again. Then I came home and had a centering prayer sit. Then I took care of some business. Picked up my son and decided it was way too nice to work so sat on my porch in the sun, getting some color, reading a wonderful book by Thomas Keating entitled Invitation to Love in preparation for the conference next weekend. More on that later. Talked to my brother on the phone and set up what we call Teti Camp, when my niece and nephew will come and stay with us for a week. Talked to my son about planning some college visits in New York. Then brought him to work. Read some more and watched the robin feed her babies. Tried not to take a picture and succeeded. Then off to my 11th step meeting. Now I'm back and reveling in the freedom and decided to write about it a bit here. I think I may revisit my first meeting tonight. I haven't been back since and I believe I owe them a thank you. That particular meeting has asked for support from the district so while I cannot make it a regular meeting tonight would be a good night to visit. I think that would be nice.

Here's a bit of what I've been reading today from Invitation to Love by Thomas Keating:

By consenting to God's creation, to our basic goodness as human beings, and to the letting go of what we love in this world we are brought to the final surrender, which is to allow the false self to die and the true self to emerge. the true self might be described as our participation in the divine life manifesting in our uniqueness. God has more that one way of bringing us to this point. It can happen early in adult life, but if it does not, the ongaoing stages of natural life may contribute to bringing it about. In the midlife crisis, even very successful people wonder whether they have accomplished anything. Later we experience physical decline, illness, and the infirmities of old age. What happens in the process of dying may be God's way of correcting all the mistakes we made and all the opportunities we missed in the earlier part of our lives. It may also provide the greatest chance of all to consent to God's gift of ourselves." pg. 48

I believe this is what happened to my father in the last nine months of his life. An agnostic most of his life yet a seeker as well, he came to know God and shared it with me in the last week of his life as did the pastor at the hospital. He worried that he was too late but I think it is clear that we are never too late.

"Consenting to God's will does not mean that we reject the values of any period of life as we pass through it; we simple leave behind its limitations." pg. 47