This Too Shall Pass

This week I've been keeping myself, my thoughts and moods to myself because I haven't felt I've been very good company..... why share the negative stuff here... a little too much time on my own I think. Some struggles with mood swings happening and some of the causes are knowns; others not so much. Trying to muddle through and sort them out best I can. Various pressures are vying to swamp my boat - I ain't gonna let'em.

Seems to be a lot of that going on these days with people I know personally and yes, out there in the ether as well. Broken spirits, broken hearts, grief stricken souls, struggles on the job, with family, in hearts and minds, with past issues, fearful of the future. Stress on stress - bah!

Best advice to self - be patient. be persistent. be kind. be grateful. allow others to be themselves. let go and let God handle the big stuff.

A post of Lea Kelley's got me thinking along more appreciative lines tonight
http://leakelley.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/thank-you-for-someone-else/
so, thank you Lea Kelley for your thought provoking perspective. I'm glad I have my own problems and not anyone else's. Things could, after all, be very much worse than they are.

BTW Lea - I'd like your email address should you drop by.

I should have learned to play the banjo. Ever see someone plucking a banjo that wasn't smiling? Me neither.

Choo Woo - Train of Thought

I took a couple of days away from blogging cuz my mind has been off the rails lately and I simply didn't feel like writing. There had been no news on the work front and there didn't seem to be much point in revisiting that whole situation if there was nothing new to say. My time has been full working around the house, applying for jobs, checking postings online and running around and between towns. I've been fortunate in that some blogmates have reached out with direct messages of hope and encouragement. Many thanks - I appreciate your care and will reply later tonight or tomorrow. Actually, if the time signatures are to be believed, my email accounts received 8 messages within a half hour from bloggers, my workmates and a couple of AA friends. Reading through them made my day. One of them was a reply from my former asst manager who was let go last week. We're keeping our eyes open for positions that might be of interest to one another.

I never did find any 'day' work last week; even registering with these temp agencies isn't straightforward anymore. On Saturday afternoon I went to a job fair for a major U.S. retailer that is expanding here - it was a cattle call; crowded beyond belief. (No Robin - not the Evil Empire.) There was a brief 'pre'interview where a guy reviewed my application. 'Hmmm.... You've been working at a treatment facility. THAT must be interesting.' I think he wanted to be the fly on the wall here for a few hours just to see. I'm supposed to get a call within a week and be told if there will be a call back for another interview.

Had a talk with daughter Sarah one night there and her crew is doing well. Zeph got through some major teething and has a mouthful of teeth to show for his discomfort. 6 new ones? Maybe 8. He looks too little to have so many anyway. He was out for his first Halloween as a spotted puppy dog - cute!

Driving in to work tonight the DJ on the radio was doing a themed show and tonight's first hour happened to be music to do with 'happiness'. As he was wrapping up some thoughts on the subject he mentioned as an afterthought that 'we all have a choice regarding whether we will be happy,.... or not.' Well, after having spent the better part of a week in a funk, happy sounded pretty damned good. I should resist the urge but what the hell.... 'Don't worry... be happy....'

I took in a couple of extra meetings last week - one Thursday night and another Saturday night - and I heard and saw a couple of things that I needed to. The speaker at the first one had some things to say about money - being rich and poor in recovery. Hmmm... timely. Personally I would automatically choose rich but that could also be dangerous, I suppose. At Saturday's meeting, just before it started, a guy I've known since I came to AA sat down beside me. He preceded me to 'the rooms' by a number of months and I run into him occasionally around town either at meetings, in coffee shops or while shopping. Good guy. At the end of the meeting when they present chips for varying lengths of sobriety he shocked me by getting up to receive a 'desire' chip. He had relapsed and it was his first meeting coming back from a 6 week binge. We got talking outside and he said it was the same old story - stop doing the 'do' things like talking with program people, stop attending meetings, let your program lapse, the tools get rusty, you start thinking you can manage one drink, and you get drunk. Thanks John. Your experience might save me from that same thing down the road somewhere.

Time for a break and a walkabout.

Flip-Flop

Ever have an entire post written, re-read it and then drive the editing stake right through it's heart.... killing it dead and hitting the delete button. Just because you didn't like the tone of it?? I just did.

This has been a very strange day for me mood-wise. Started off well and happy, got a little tense, swung down, talked a couple of things out, lightened up.... now I'm dithering about with a sense of foreboding hanging in the air. Odd.

In the past I've found it easy to get caught up in 'big world' issues and allowed myself to be negatively affected by them. Today, briefly, the same thing happened after watching the evening news - gold prices down, fuel prices up, shortages of food, recession in the offing, big layoff locally at GM, politicians mouthing platitudes.......what's going on? where is all this leading? what does the future hold?

I need to do my best imitation of a turtle for awhile in regard to all 'that stuff' if I want to keep a semblance of sanity. Stay away from mainstream media. My circle of influence sometimes extends as far as my line of sight but is usually restricted to arms reach or the range of my voice. The future will be whatever it will be; I need to concentrate on enjoying *now*. I get to choose how I perceive my world; sometimes I need to remind myself of that fact.

Here's The Story .....

......and it isn't a happy one.

I don't intend to repeatedly post about this but some of you have been kind enough to send messages of support and hope, and so, an update.

After a week of unbelievable turmoil we finally had another face-to-face Sunday afternoon and the final verdict is that it's over. Time for the lawyers. She doesn't want to try to work things out, nor get counselling, nor was she able to say that she is making a sane decision. Only that she feels driven to make this move and that her thinking hadn't changed at all over the week.

I feel handcuffed and hopeless; like my life has suddenly been hijacked by a stranger inhabiting Lynda's body. Anything I propose gets a flat 'no' response.

I can't recall a period of time in my life where I've been as single-mindedly consumed by anything for this long. My mind and emotions have been all over the map and I've come up with nothing to persuade / dissuade her. Madness.

Truth be told, I feel like putting all my possessions into storage, getting in the car and going for a very long drive.

So, that's it. An ending. New beginnings..............