Dedication to Today

I have a diabolical plan to enjoy today. I spent yesterday recovering from a stomach bug and Harry Pottering around, and today, I feel much better. There is still cat hair that is knee deep on the carpet, and everything is dusty. The lawn still needs mowing and the dishes need to be washed. But I slept until dawn, and the cats are happy and jump in and out of the window, and the dog snores peacefully.

My diabolical plan? To continue to feel good this morning, and on into the rest of the day. I have an AA meeting to go to tonight, and some things to do today. Everything is good with a plan. I felt so bad, physically and mentally yesterday, that I upped the dose on one of my anti-Evil pills, which I am allowed to do. Don't try that at home, boys and girls, or without your doctor's permission.

I thought about a life time spent drunk yesterday, and it is not good to contemplate those things all by yourself. As Eckhart Tolle has pointed out again and again: the mind is a dangerous neighborhood, and it is not safe to go there by yourself.

I still have a call into my therapist, but I did reach my sponsor. It was a good thing, too. I didn't want to drink yesterday, I didn't feel much of a craving for it, but thought about it, all the way through to the dreadful end. With me mucking my life up, one more time. And then, having to face the blowback from it.

I have come to the conclusion that I am on a downswing in my mood, helped out by a food allergy I have just discovered. It has slowly been making me ill for about a month, and my mood has been following it.

Sometimes, I know I just miss the subtle clues that tell me things, the light in the dark. I always think of myself as a most attuned person to my spiritual life, and to nature. But I miss what people say, and what I say to myself, a good part of the time. Until I get violently ill, or lose a friend, which always catches my attention.

Which is further proof to me that there is always something important to pay attention to in the Now. Even as I think of my life as very boring and everyday, there is something that screams my name. Usually, I am lost somewhere in a dream, or contemplating my will for what happens, instead of listening. I pay for it every time.

That is a good thing to realize. I try not to live in the past, but as a writer, it's difficult not to. Everything that has happened to me is fodder for my work. But it can make me moody, inclined to depression, and more susceptible to pain.  Living in the future provokes anxiety, and gives me a sense of the power of self-will that I do not want. I don't want to wander through my future like an elephant in a ceramics factory, but would like to live it with grace, surrounding myself with positive experiences and friends, until I die. I would like to be of maximum service to myself and others, today.

It took a day of absolute agony to bring that thought to the forefront. And I have reached that point this morning, here with you, without whom I can do nothing.

The dawn is here, now.