Oh yes, Friday night on 127th street in Queens. I took the long walk to a meeting, had the coffee, and heard some things. Generally I take the long walk home, but tonight I accepted the ride back I was offered.
I’m not as ecstatic about life as I was for most of the last month, and it bothers me because naturally I prefer the whole “in love with love” thing. It’s not like i’m unable to feel any joy at all, but the whole childlike wonder I was having is out of phase.
Yesterday at around 5:30 I was walking to the AA meeting that I attend every week, and I just froze on the way. I just stopped and didn’t know what to do, it was like my brain had been presented with too much and I couldn’t operate any of my faculties. I had the usual music going on my headphones, plus the sound of the loud dancehall music going on from a car stereo somewhere. liberty avenue was full of people, and the a train was going above me on the elevated track. I froze.
luckily I called my sponsor, who told me I should just go back home. I went back home, and logged on to a zoom meeting.
the point is not to check some imaginary box of what I did for my recovery that day, that’s not where i’m going. actually I don’t even know where i’m going, which is fine.
all of the physical sensory stuff wasn’t just what froze me. I had spent the whole day just completely livid with the fact that I couldn’t muster any energy in the way I’d like to. I was even doing this checklist trip in my head like: I've taken multivitamins, I eat fruits and vegetables, I get ample sleep, I drink water, i’m not abusing drugs. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Beyond all of this, I also wonder: what Is the deal with my obsession with “me”?
Yesterday, the 14 year old family cat Teenie Monkee passed away from old age. She left this physical plane in the arms of my sister, I was in the group chat, I felt (and still feel) completely unable to adequately show up for people to empathize and relate with them.
This morning, I went to finally get the blood work done that I’ve been putting off to try to understand what physically is preventing me from having any energy and it was annoying because it was needlessly complicated as are all things are in this health care system and what do I do? I take to the family group chat to bitch about it, i’m bitching to people who literally just lost a beloved family pet, last night.
The rest of the day passed, not much to report.
I did what I do and get in bed around this time which is currently 10:00 and I look back at how I have conducted myself, sometimes I’m even stuck with looking way back (which is even worse) and I’m just I think to myself what a bag of shit I am.
I don’t want to be a self obsessed bag of shit. Yet, here I am on what is one of more than 700 entire written chronicles about myself and my experiences.
I mean, you might be self obsessed as a result of normal societal conditioning , but are you 768 written blog posts of it? wow…
Where does one even go from there?
I’m very fortunate, in a lot of ways that defy any logical explanation. I’m not going to make a whole list of them, but if you looked at the ways that I disregarded physical safety completely for nearly 3 decades, and fed all of it to some kind of mathematics matrix of probabilities, it would look very different than where I sit now.
The funny side of this, is that there are in fact over 700 written accounts of the ways in which I have completely disregarded physical safety for nearly 3 decades, so the idea of looking at them is actually not hypothetical, in fact I encourage any and all people to read as many of them as they can.
I wish the reader could see me chuckling.A bit of levity is absolutely crucial to survival, for me.
I am also fortunate in that I actually enjoy relaying my experiences and thoughts through writing. Sometimes, i’m able to do it with what feels like very little effort. I consider this a blessing, or (at the risk of sounding too self assured) a gift.
So, i’m going to go way out on a limb here, in an effort to avoid feeling like a self centered shit bag. this is something I was thinking about when I was riding around Queens on a pink cloud, on the whole trip of childlike wonder with life. This was just days ago, so I can remember.
What if I could find a way to utilize this ability (writing) to be helpful to someone other than myself?
I mean, not in like a douchebaggy life coach fashion, I fucking hate that whole thing.
I listen to Ram Dass lectures every night, and so i’m reminded of a quote of his:
“I can do nothing for you but work on myself…you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!” -Ram Dass
I am working on myself. I happen to go on and on into a keyboard about it, that’s just this weird thing I do because I feel compelled to. It would be wonderful if someone else could find hope in what’s written, when they are working on themselves.
I have a whole lot of shit to sort out, obviously. We all do.
Hey: You can email me: EV.penk7@gmail.com
