New Year, New Thoughts...

Yes, I've been away for a while - apologies. Like everyone else, got busy with the holidays, working my way through the career transition, and in the last several weeks dealing with the health issues of aging parental units. Things are moving along tolerably on all fronts, and I've been appropriately chastised by a few friends for falling down on my blogging, so here goes...

I will start by stating that I am in a much different place this January than I was last. I just reread my first post of 2010, and realize just how far from that place I've come. I am still not meditating, which disturbs me a little, but am in pretty much all other ways much more settled in my mental and spiritual outlook. I am in mid-transition career wise, and not a transition I ever would have imagined a year ago. I am going to be developing a piece of real estate on the Sea of Cortez in Baja Mexico for an old client - traveling back and forth with some regularity, relearning Spanish and utilizing it on a regular basis for the first time in my life. At the same time, I will be able to keep a toe in the recruiting game, handling special projects for my better clients as time and circumstances allow. So, from a career standpoint, a whole lot of new and a little bit of old. Yes, I'm pretty excited.

On the health and fitness front I have taken up cycling with something of a vengeance, continue to work out regularly and eat moderately well. I am about to add swimming to my repertoire, as I don't get enough cardio work in my routine and want to be able to go for long ocean swims without endangering myself. I am probably in the best physical shape of my adult life, which speaks less of the great place I'm in now than about the sorry state I allowed myself to fall into during my earlier working years. I am probably too much like most Americans in this respect, am glad I figured it out early enough to do something about it, and encourage any of you who are feeling a bit weary and listless and out of sorts to strongly consider adding a major dose of exercise to your regimen. I can tell you first-hand that it will improve all aspects of your life. But remember, moderation in all things...

On the recovery front, I still attend AA on my regular schedule. I'll be honest in saying I've not made significant progress in the program this year. It's true, you know, that you only get out of something what you put into it, and I've not really worked it very hard this year. I've stayed sober, which is the main objective, made and strengthened some friendships within the two groups I meet with, and am more comfortable every day admitting to myself and to others that I'm an alcoholic, can't drink like "normal" people, and will never be able to. And I'm actually pretty happy about that. I spent a lot of my life drinking like normal people and on occasion like really abnormal people. Too much of those decades is a blur, and a lot of it wasn't pretty. Not really a big sacrifice to let it go. AA is not a program with an ending - its something you keep doing if you really have the problem and you really want to beat it. So, I'm not beating myself up over not having made any great strides on this front last year. I've got another thirty or forty years to work on it, and its not like there's a finish line...

On that note, one of the things I've noticed about myself this past year is that I've really developed a good deal patience, a notion that I now realize was sorely lacking previously. I've developed patience with myself, patience with others, even patience with our screwed up political system. This isn't the same as apathy, mind you. I still care about a lot of things, and care deeply. But I also have come to recognize that I can't save the world from itself, I can't change others, and I can't change the past or even the present. I can only change the future, and for the most part even then, only for myself, in a very limited way, with the decisions I make and actions I take. That's a pretty finite target on which to focus. I reckon that's what we mean when we say, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." It's a simple, yet liberating, realization.

I suppose the biggest change has been in my marriage, which is in a far better place than it was a year ago. We went through some very dark times last spring and summer - when my wife and I both had to come to grips with what an asshole I'd been, along with other major challenges in our relationship. We were at that place too many marriages come to, and which as often as not wind up in divorce. Instead of becoming another grim statistic, we both sought individual counseling and later couples counseling, and developed a level of trust, respect, and open communication that never really existed in our almost three decades together. I don't know if its ever safe to say you're out of the woods, but I think it is safe to say that the forest umbrella is thinning significantly, we see more sunshine and blue sky than shadows these days, and we're holding hands on our journey. Its a good feeling, and one I don't want to lose again.

I'm sorry to disappoint you - know you were hoping upon my belated return for some political zealotry or religious controversy, hellfire and brimstone and whatnot. Not going to happen. I will reveal that I'm communicating with some friends on the inside to see if we can't arrange a rousing welcome party for Mr. Delay, but that's another story for another day...