Str8edge !

Today is Wednesday May Nineteenth Two Thousand Ten. I have not written in a while because I was in a serious funk. Not a funk like, yay funky time but rather fuck you & leave me the fuck alone type of funk. I don't know why really, there hasn't been anything terrible thats happened to me and life his been cruising along but I just didn't feel like myself. I've only been to the gym a couple of times over the past two weeks and while I had good weekends they didn't seem to carry over to the rest of the week. It was like I felt ill and couldn't find the medicine to cure me. I went to meetings and talked to people but this was something I just needed to get out of my system myself. Its weird because I am normally a very happy person and this is the first time that I've been aware of having the blues. And it was a two and a half or so week blues jam in my life and I don't know why. I guess that I should be happy that for the first time in over two weeks I walked out my door and felt happy and ok with where I am in the world.

Humans are a bunch of weird motherfuckers. That much I know. We can convince and rationalize all sorts of stuff that isn't good for us and we can lie to ourselves and pretend that everything is A-OK. Its only when we are honest with ourselves and admit that something is wrong can we get better. I don't know what I did to make me feel better all I know is that there is a marked difference in how I feel today and I better fucking continue this train of feelings. That is one bonus of sobriety I guess, when I feel like ass I don't have anything else to blame it on because its not like I am hungover or coming down off something. Whatever feel good chemicals my body stopped producing have begun production again and I'm pretty relieved. Not to say that I'd drink over something as pedestrian as feeling crappy but it was a new experience for me. I hope I've learned something from this experience and will move on to bigger and better things without lingering on the past. In some book I read somewhere there is a line, "We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it." and thats pretty much in line with my beliefs.

So, onward and upward right ? I am psyched for this weekend as we are launching the mighty sailing vessel up in Maine and I can actually go sailing on Saturday. The shakedown cruise is always interesting and I want to see how the new halyard works and what else looks like it wants to break. I've decided that is the way to go with a sailboat, constantly look for shit that looks like its about to break and replace it as soon as you can so that you are one up on murphy's law. Its also always a pleasure to see the old man out and about sailing around as he really enjoys himself on the water. He is a awesome sailor as well, the bastard can sail right up to the dock or the mooring and is able to do it solo as well. I would need to outboard and would probably fuck that up as well. He really knows the boat well and is getting to understand the waters around Rockland so everything looks easy peasy even when its not. I don't think you ever perfect the art of sailing, the boat you are commanding just gets used to you and decides to cooperate once in a while. I am hoping that its not blowing too much out or my mom won't go which kinda sucks. She had an incident a few years ago where the coast guard was involved and she it shit scared of something like that happening again.

I went to a commitment at St. Elizabeth's hospital last nite and it was interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is that it wasn't a lock down ward, you could def escape if you wanted to and second because I got a wicked case of deja-vu when I was sitting there. I had some sort of vision of me sitting there with my sponsor and some other folks and it seemed so real. I don't think I have ever been there before and had never met the patients that showed up. What was interesting is that a bunch of people left during the meeting and I don't get that. Here you are in detox and there isn't much else to do but sit there and work on your problems and you can't sit still for an hour ? I dunno, I guess you can't reach everyone and not everyone can be helped by AA but it saddens me when stuff like that happens. There was a woman there who was pregnant, and I had to think how much it would suck to be active and then have someone tell you that you can't do any sort of drug for nine months at the very least. I think that would be enough to terminate the pregnancy for some people and for others to ignore the orders of their docs. Anyway, going to the unit and sharing made me feel better so some sort of mission was accomplished.

I was walking to the MBTA the other day thinking like I usually do and it occurred to me that I am str8edge now. Str8edge was a skater/music movement in the early nineteen eighties that preached not using drugs. The followers would sharpie giant "X"s on the tops of their hands and would always feel superior. I don't feel superior and nor do I draw an "X" on my hands but I don't put anything in my bod that doesn't belong there. Some people would disagree with me but fuck them. We used to make fun at the str8edge folks and wondered why they were like they were. Most of those folks had never even used drugs and certainly were not in AA or any other program like that. They just thought that life was worth living sober and that drugs just added complications that they didn't need. Sounds sorta familiar to me. I often wonder if I am going to look back at this period of my life and giggle at the naivete that I must be experiencing. Everyone is new sometime. Giggle.