Unfortunately, the car saga I spoke of last month was not over. My check engine light came on a week after the 2nd shop fixed what the first shop broke, but wouldn’t you know that there was more that needed to be fixed. My belt started making a rather embarrassing high pitched squeal so I took it back over to Bell’s Automotive. Unfortunately, Bell’s was super busy or super unorganized and after two attempts to bring in my car to get it fixed and having to listen to a song and dance about the repair industry I decided to take my chances on a third shop and I am glad I did. I called All Pro Automotive and they were able to see me the same day so I drove over with a choking engine. Earlier in the day a smoke cloud the size of Texas came out of my tail pipe, which is one of the reasons I decided to check out another shop. Bell’s wanted to give me a new sensor, but I knew that giant smoke clouds and hesitating engines meant something else was happening under my hood. Would you believe that wonderful Monument Road Tire and Service forgot to put the PVC Pipe in my Upper Intake, which caused a vacuum situation where air and oil was being sucked out of my engine at an insane rate! What’s more worrisome is that Bell’s did not pick up on the fact that my Upper Intake was actually on wrong, which is why I am glad I took it to All Pro Automotive. I have been driving all over Jacksonville for over three weeks and I am happy to report that my car is finally back to normal. If I have any more car issues, I will be taking my business to All Pro Automotive.
So while I was going through all of this car trouble with a very limited access to cash or credit cards, I was continuing my search for a church home here in Jacksonville. I am about halfway through my list of churches to visit and getting more and more impatient everyday. I miss my church in Los Angeles and I miss my friends even more. I do not yet have a community here and while I am a part of the quiet revolution I also relish my social time and have a giant need for community and a sense of belonging. It was during one of these church visits that God shot me one between the eyes. I believe I was in a week - long period of really seeking God’s will because I am honestly confused about how things are going here in Jax. I know God led me here and I know that the why has nothing to do with my day job, but you would think He would still have something nice in mind, right? Well, as has happened many a time before, I was seeking God for a very specific situation and He had an entirely different topic in mind. The preacher at RiverTown was speaking on spiritual family trees and how important it is for each of us to be intentional in how we impact the people who have been placed in our lives. I think Tim Tebow said it best when he said, “…you’re either leading people somewhere good or you’re leading people somewhere bad… Where are you leading the people in your life? …Is their life better or worse for having known you?” Ultimately, the pastor at RiverTown was speaking on the importance of leading people in the direction of Jesus Christ and the importance of creating our own spiritual family trees and it was in this sermon that God finally spoke to me, but it was not about my dire situation. He simply asked me a question that has haunted me ever since. He asked, “Why are you acting like a rookie, when you’re a veteran of the faith?” Later that same day, God reminded me that whenever I have had spurts of sobriety in my life, I have always moved towards ministry. I mean that thought could probably encompass another entire blog or two, but for now I am just going to focus on the fact that when I am the real me and not the drunk me, Christian ministry becomes a major part of my life. In my first bout of sobriety I was a high school girls Bible Study leader and mission tripper. In my 2nd bout of sobriety I was a 1st grade Sunday school teacher and a regular volunteer with the Urban ministry at the church I was attending at the time. My third and final bout of sobriety has had me working in church service production along side the pastor and worship leader and now I am finding my way into Celebrate Recovery and am looking to go through a CR step program so I can lead others to the same freedom I have found. I really feel like God is calling me up and out. I feel like He thinks I have enough sobriety at this point to step back into my destiny (which apparently involves ministry) and it starts with taking on a more leadership role with the people in my life, the programs I am involved in and whatever church I make my home. For me this means putting the focus on the people around me instead of myself. It also means being aware of how my words and actions impact how others view me and in turn how others view God. Not everyone is called to ministry or even lay ministry for that matter, but each of us does have a responsibility to the people God has placed in our lives. If you think about it, we’re all looking at someone who is at the level we are about to step into. Take a church body for example: the ministry leaders are looking at the pastor; the Bible study leaders are looking at the ministry leaders; the Bible study participants are looking at the Bible study leaders and church volunteers; regular church attendees are looking at the church volunteers and the Bible study participants; the non-regular church attendees and looking at the regular church attendees and the once, twice or never church goers are looking at the non-regular attendees and thinking ‘I really need to start going more like Jenny does.’ So in all actuality, we all have someone looking up from where they are at to where we are. So, I am going to ask all of you: Is God calling you to step up your game for Him? If so, what does stepping up for Christ look like for you? Does it mean becoming more involved in your church? Being more strategic with the impact you have on those around you? Maybe it means giving something up that is confusing and distorting the message you are trying to send…
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“So the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials…” 2nd Peter 2:9 It has been rather stressful to say the least. Word to the wise: If the first word out of a man’s mouth is “I’m not a crook” or “I try to sleep well at night by doing everyone right” guess what? That man is a crook and he is ripping you off. It all started when I took my car to a repair shop to get yet another coolant leak checked. The shop easily found the leak, but the recommended repairs were around $700.00. This was not great news since I am running on empty and without employment so I looked at my available credit cards and reluctantly decided to make the repairs putting one of my cards near its limit. I was told the job would only take half a day, so I was surprised to find out that the job is “ a big job” and the shop would need my car for another whole day. I called again the following day for these wonderful men to tell me that while they were able to fix the leak, my head gasket blew during testing for more leaks. The only recommended option was a re-manufactured engine, which would cost $4,500.00! Needless to say, I hung up the phone and called my brother. He immediately called bull honky on the situation and told me that if my car was not running hot then there was no feasible way for my head gasket to have just blown. I continued to talk to the men at this repair shop for the next three days. They were adamant that I needed a new engine. I was adamant that they had messed up my engine. It took this guy three days to “find” a shop that would take the job because he claimed no one would do a head job on an engine that had over 100,000 miles on it. I think he was really trying to find someone that he could refer me to that wouldn’t out his shop as having bent the connector to the fuel injector, which is what really happened. I did not need an engine. My actual cost for this additional repair was $294.00 including the tow truck. There was a good week where I was thinking that it was game over Jessica. I could not afford $4,500 in repairs, but I also had to fix my car. I was in a major mess; I knew I was being taken advantage of, but I did not have the proof or the knowledge to combat my offender and I was terrified. Then God dinged me yet again with the phrase “you haven’t asked me to turn this around for you yet”. God, as usual, was right. I had been praying all the way through this ordeal for the techs working on my car, but I had just accepted the situation as is and assumed I was doomed. Just like I just accepted the fact that I was feeling all of that fear and anxiety last month and would continue to do so until I started a new step study. While sharing in Celebrate Recovery, God made me acutely aware that I hadn’t asked Him to remove the fear and anxiety that was plaguing me and in the very same second He removed it from my life. I’ve been back to the real Jessica ever since. This time I took heed and immediately apologized to God for accepting this current situation as is and asked for His help, for Him to turn this situation around and He did. At my brother’s advice, I called some other machine shops in the area and a man at Automotive Block Head and Welder agreed that there was no way my head gasket had blown and referred me to Bell’s Automotive, which is the BBB shop that found out what was really wrong with my car. I do plan to confront Monument Road Tire and Service now that I know they bent my connector while putting my engine back together. While I am not entirely out of the storm yet, the rain has stopped and the clouds are thinning. I have some 2nd interviews lined up and I hope to accept an offer very soon which will allow me to finally exhale and turn my focus onto the reason God brought me to Jacksonville in the first place. I have been plagued with sickness this past month. My mind, body and soul have been rather weary and the heat isn’t helping. I am also not getting enough rest, which is something I have struggled with my whole life. I am really good about sleeping on the weekends, but the weekdays are an entirely different story. I guess I am feeling pressure in regards to getting a new career going, but I can only do so much and I really need to listen to my body more often. On a positive note, for what is sadly the first time in my life, I recognized a player for being a player. It took three months and constant prayer for discernment before I realized that I was completely being played, but I was able to see the truth in the situation before any strings got attached if you know what I mean. What’s even more amazing is the fact that I was able to realize that I do not want someone who has the qualities I see in this guy. I actually want a good guy who will treat me right. I am actually looking for someone who is honest, kind, gameless and has an active relationship with Jesus instead of the normal slap-me-in-the-face carnal attraction player types for which I usually fall victim. Now, hold your excitement, because while I want a guy with these characteristics – I am obviously not yet attracted to this type of guy. But, I can say that I have turned onto the road that will lead to my being attracted to someone who is actually a decent human being. So there is growth happening in this 34 year old who is sometimes going on three and a half. Another positive from this past month is the confirmation that I definitely want to make a career transition to a non-profit ministry. I know I shared that I was giving this idea serious thought last month and can confirm this month that I am now concentrating my job search efforts in this direction. I feel that my writing is faith based, my stories are faith base, that everything I create is faith based so I might as well transition to a career that aligns with where my heart apparently resides. I actually had an opportunity to interview for one of the few faith based non-profits in the San Fernando Valley. I cannot lie and say I was not crushed when I literally slept through the interview, was able to reschedule only to get lost beyond belief and still able to reschedule a third time only to not check my email in time to confirm the appointment! However, I can say without a doubt that it was not I who sabotaged this opportunity. After the events of this past week, I feel that God slammed that door in my face so that I could have closure regarding the player mentioned above. I guess I needed to tie up some loose ends and receive some confirmations before moving forward. Sometimes receiving clarity is best gift one can receive. I apologize for this being a short and not at all poignant post. I set aside an entire weekend to focus on this post, but ended up in bed the entire weekend with a fever and extreme fatigue. While I am better, some healing thoughts my way are definitely welcomed as the Southern California inland heat is not making things any easier. I am definitely better, but I am either suffering greatly from the heat due to lack of air conditioning or I am experiencing a drop in my potassium. Both cause one to be fatigued, have a low-grade fever, muscle weakness, shortness of breath and an all around feeling of blah. May you and yours have a lovely end to the summer season and I will catch you in September. Last month I shared my inability to create a community around me here in Los Angeles. I also shared how this inability to create a community was eating away at my soul. As it turns out, this simple longing in my soul led me to cling to the only person available to me, My Lord, Jesus. As everyone and everything appeared to be taken from me, it became clear that I needed to cling to Jesus, that I needed to spend time with Him and ask Him what He wants from me and for me. He did not hesitate to respond. His main priorities concern the proper care of my spiritual body through spending time in His Word and in prayer, the proper care of my physical body through moderate exercise and healthy eating (something I’ve been struggling with as of late) and of course, my writing. It was through spending time in His Word, that He has slowly revealed to me what I believe to be a portion of His plan for me. His plan starts with my growing up. He gently told me that I have been an infant Christian for over 15 years and that it is time for some growth. I have found myself back at the very first church I crossed off my list when I started church hunting a few months back. I started going to this church for the sole purpose of spending time with a spiritual friend who happens to attend this church. My intent was to spend time with my friend and endure this church, but this church is where my growth appears to be beginning. To be frankly honest, the plan God has laid before me starts with taking part in several learning and growth opportunities available through this church, which means I will be remaining in LA for quite some time. This plan also laid out a new career track and I have begun the exhausting work of job hunting. I know I would like to work in a non-profit or ministry related non-profit, but I do not have any further definite direction. I feel like God is taking me all the way back to my beginning. I thought I had already come full circle, but it turns out I wasn’t quite there yet. As each month of sobriety passes, I get a little more clarity on who I am and an equal amount of clarity on how much confusion alcohol brought into my life. In August, I will be celebrating my second year of sobriety and with this celebration; I am recommitting myself to the AA program. I have to admit that I have not been to a meeting in months. I had to leave my home group due to a bleeding deacon and some issues relating to the male variety. While I have been searching for a new meeting that easily fits into my schedule, there are semi-convenient meetings available and I am just going to have to make one of them my new AA home. On a recent hike, a friend and I planned on following a local hiking group to a southern Cali waterfall that actually had water. We kept a decent distance until we got lost in our cameras and completely lost sight of the group. Since we were following a group, we did not bother looking at the map at the park entrance so we had to pick a trail and hope for the best. And so we hiked and hiked and hiked until we found a stream. It was easy to tell which way the current was running so we stayed close to this stream and headed up towards its source. We had no idea where we were, but we knew we were headed in the right direction. We followed the stream for over an hour and were about to give up when we heard the sound of rushing water and laughter. We pressed forward and found this stream’s source, a beautiful and somewhat rare, southern California waterfall. Sometimes, God only reveals which way His current is flowing and leaves it up to us to take on the adventure of following His stream wherever it may lead. It’s what I am doing right now and if you find yourself in a similar circumstance, I hope you will choose to follow the stream because if you don’t – you just might miss the beauty and wonder of a magnificent waterfall. There are times in life where everything seems so unfair. Whether it is treatment from co-workers or so-called friends, an inability to build a community around one’s self or a constant financial struggle. Life can, at times, seem very unfair. I feel like I am on a rollercoaster of emotions these days. I have somehow gone from supreme happiness and contentment to the deep seeded need of belonging to a community. I feel more alone than I have ever felt and I do not understand where this feeling is coming from. While it is true that I have had a hard time building a community in Los Angeles, I have also stayed very busy so it has not been a bother until now. For a woman, feeling alone equals feeling unloved and you would think that my Father in Heaven would be very sensitive to me at this time. That He would gently remind me of His love and that He has great plans for me. Instead, my Heavenly Father is in full on DAD mode. He has made me acutely aware of the fact that while I may feel like He is not taking care of me, He actually is doing that and so much more. It started with my learning of a gentleman who had a car accident very similar to the one I had several years back. The only difference being that I landed upright and he landed upside down. That one difference means I walked away with lesions and a life long case of whip lash, whereas, he has endured multiple surgeries to fix an internal problem that has yet to be fixed. He remains in constant misery, unable to work and lives on the verge of suicide due to excruciating pain from an internal problem that cannot be found much less cured. I could have been him, but I was not. I function normally, have no pain other than the reactivation of whip lash which means I cannot rock climb or do any thrill riding. What a difference in our lives! Favor was definitely bestowed on my indignant soul. My Heavenly Father went on to remind me of all of the favor He has bestowed upon me in all those paying the bill jobs that I routinely tell Him I could do without. The only reason I even landed my first job was due to the fact that my boss just liked me and felt like I could be a friend and a co-worker. It was a similar situation in the second full-time job I acquired. The woman who was doing the hiring, wanted someone closer to her age that could be an accountable co-worker and friend and that is exactly what I was to her. I also received favor in the form of the president of the company taking a liking to me. This man was a ferocious human being, but when he saw me, his whole demeanor changed. Not once, did he ever accost me like he did everyone else. Moreover, once I had put in my notice to move to Los Angeles, I found out that he only kept me on the payroll for the previous year because he liked me. Work was very slow and there really hadn’t been a need for me at the company, but I was able to keep my job and my paychecks, which allowed me to save money to move to Los Angeles all because favor had been bestowed upon my indignant soul. Once in Los Angeles, I was able to find a job in what I thought took eons but according to LA locals, I was “so blessed to get a job that quick because it can take up to a year or more to get a job in LA”. Again, a man at my company just took a liking to me from the start. If you ask me, I think I remind him of a younger version of his wife, but he has been on my side since day one and has also managed to get me two raises in a company where no one is getting raises even when they get un-asked for promotions. This last raise is what has finally moved me out of living paycheck to paycheck and allowed me to create a plan to get out of debt over the next year. Even though I tend to see nothing but what is wrong and missing in my life, God has yet again bestowed favor upon my indignant soul. While I am not completely content with life as I know it, I guess I need to stop complaining and start thanking my Heavenly Father for being my DAD and making sure I have everything I need to live a decent life. Los Angeles is both great and horrible at the same time with the main issue being that I have not found a place to truly belong. It is this inability to belong that has me wondering if I only came LA to get clean and sober. The aloneness I constantly feel is eating away at my soul and it has me thinking about that job in Nashville that I so rudely kicked back to God while screaming “Hell No”. The very unfunny truth is that clean and sober Jessica would absolutely love that job! Go figure, right? I have also been thinking about the fact that if there were one other city in America that has the same self-publishing and writing community as Los Angeles, it would be Nashville. While Nashville has a few too many rednecks and no ocean, it is close to family and boasts a great city where I can afford to buy a single-family home. I guess I can say it is on my radar as a possibility in the next couple of years, but even as I type this, I am reminded of my mother who was bound and determined to get out of Tennessee and back to California – she never made it back because love has a way of happening when you are making other plans. So here’s to staying up in the air, keeping an open mind, making choices that keep my writing a priority, having a thankful heart instead of a complaining one and most importantly… Here’s to a great summer full of whatever blessings God has in store for this indignant soul. I am a Rom-Com geek if there ever was one. When I say Rom-Com, I am referring to the film genre of Romantic Comedy. In fact, if a movie is not a romantic comedy, then I most likely have not seen it. What can I say? I just love romantic comedies. If you are not familiar with this genre, I can enlighten you on the main plot points. (Note: men can be leads in this genre, but to simplify things I am using the common female lead) We usually meet the lead character in a low point in her life. She is usually single or in a bad relationship and she is usually battling some sort of career dilemma. She almost always has some character flaws that need to be tweaked as well. More often than not, the lead character will go through a small metamorphosis brought about by an external situation, whether it be a new job, a break-up, the marriage of a friend, the death of someone close, etc. This small change usually brings about a determination to focus on what can be controlled in life, like a career or a long-standing passion that has been ignored. Once the lead character is on this new journey, we see her begin to change on a deeper level as she struggles to make her dream a reality. Sometimes the main character struggles so much, that she wants to give up, but she usually preservers thinking that this undertaking is all that she has left in life. I pause here because God recently made it very clear to me that this is where I am. I feel lost. I do not see anything changing on the career front or the personal front. And so I have done the one thing I can do, and that is put my writing back on the front burner. I mean, if God keeps telling me that my job is to write and that He will handle everything else; then I should write, right? I cannot lie and say it has been all roses because it has been anything other than roses. I have not been able to open a door much less a window and I cannot give an answer as to why this is the case. I am trying to count my blessings, but I am facing the grim fact that I might be spending a very hot summer in a condo without air conditioning. I have been tossing around the idea of getting my own place, but after crunching numbers, I have come to realize that I can actually afford to be in the exact neighborhood I want to be in provided that I wait one year and pay off all of my debt. Insert sad face here. I can say that I do have a decent day job with a laid-back company that has the high-class problem of growing by leaps and bounds. This company also allows for flexibility as long as I am getting my job done and that is a major plus too. I know there are many more pluses in my life, but this whole not being fulfilled at work and wanting my own place and needing to make more friends and not being in a relationship and turning 34 in a couple of weeks and watching my chance to have my own family fade away and missing the family that claim me as their own and wanting a reason to be 2800 miles away other than the fact that I like it better than the South… all of it has really had me beat down this past month. There were days I did not even get out of bed. I was just in a deep depression. Nothing in my life makes sense and on top of that, I have felt that I am in an answerless season. A season where I just have to trust that everything I am doing right now is going to lead me somewhere good. During a recent bawling session, my Creator finally spoke. His words were few, but they were powerful. My Creator, the ultimate screenwriter, simply wanted to remind me that I have not arrived at the twist. No, I am not talking about Chubby Checkers. I am talking about the twist in plot that comes in every Romantic Comedy on the market. You see just after loosing hope for the upteenth time and somehow finding a way to continue in some form an existence, the lead character encounters a twist of fate. This twist of fate usually happens after the lead character has cleaned up some of her character flaws and started chasing whatever dream is in her heart. This twist of fate can come in the form of a person, an opportunity or both. The main thing you need to know about this twist of fate, this chance meeting, this divine appointment… is that it changes everything and instantly connects all of the dots. God was revealing my place in the movie that is my life. He was letting me know that once I arrive at the twist, everything will make sense. And I have to say that judging by my own decisions (the decision to get clean and sober, the decision to come back to God, the decision to make my writing a priority, the decision to be more aware of my attitude and make a moment by moment effort to be a light to those around me) all of these personal transformations point to one thing – the twist is on the horizon. I know where I am in the script of my own romantic comedy and I have a peace and a joy that I cannot even explain. Might I dare say, that I am HAPPY. So the question I leave you with is where are you in your life script? Wherever you believe you are, please do not forget that while you cannot control everything that happens, you can control the overall theme, tone and message of the script that is your life. I feel like I am in the middle of an uprooting. Just how much of an uprooting I do not yet know, but I am definitely being pulled up and out to something, someone and somewhere new. Over the past month I have had some mind bursting revelations in regards to promptings. It seems that I may have been confusing certain promptings for panic attacks or crazy and unfounded fears. It all started a few weeks ago. I started having intense panic while driving to church. My muscles would tighten, my breath would shorten and my mind would desperately search for the “why”. Nothing was causing this reaction. There was not any beliefs or bad thoughts or fears. It all just seemed irrational. It got to the point that when I would step back into my car afterwards that my mind would utter “Whew. I got in, I got out and they didn’t get me.” Who is “they”? I wasn’t sure and I did not know why this was happening. This same strange phenomenon was also happening at a mission class I was involved in at this same church and it was beginning to happen at my long-time home AA group. The question as to why remained. I can recall having panic attacks prior to my decent into alcohol absurdity so my natural inclination was to think that I was right back to my starting point and had to figure out how to handle this panic without alcohol. The problem was that I only had this phenomenon in certain situations. So, why these situations? I for one did not have an answer. Here is where it gets interesting. One night God was pulling me to the computer to write. He does this often. It is a particular pulling in my soul and I know exactly what it is when I feel it. The only other time I have felt something similar was that day in the hospital when my soul was set on fire and I knew I had to kick everybody out because it was time for my family to say goodbye to my father. That fire in my soul feeling was not instantly understood. I remember just knowing that it was now, it was urgent, it was time to say goodbye. I did not understand it, but I had to act. I have only experienced this one other time in my life and that also centered on an earthly departing. It was in the recalling of these experiences that a key piece of information hit my brain. All of these promptings centered in that area near the heart that I refer to as my soul-self. Anyone who has experienced these soul promptings knows that you just can’t put these experiences into words. They are not readily explainable, but you somehow know what they heed and in that moment you realize that you really are much more than this existence. That key piece of information was this: These so-called panic attacks center in the soul. The same place I get pulled to sit down in front of the computer and the same place that got lit on fire that day it was time to say goodbye. In this same instance my mind went back to the previous “panic attacks” and I realized that every place I had experienced this phenomenon something very bad ended up happening to me. It was in this moment that I realized these are not panic attacks. These are warnings. God, Himself is sounding the warning alarms in my soul and my body is responding. The tightening of my muscles which make it hard to drive and walk, the shortness of breath, the inexplicable uneasiness in my soul pulling me up and out of the situation – trying to prevent me from even being in the situation. I am not having panic attacks, people. My soul’s alarm is sounding because impending doom is ahead if I continue in these situations! Now I don’t know about you, but that is what I call a mind-bending revelation. All I can do at this point is acknowledge and heed these warnings and see where they lead me. As a result of this new information, I am taking a step back from my current church and from my AA meeting. These two places and the people in them have been my LA home for the past year and a half, but I am heeding the warning and letting go. I know you have to be willing to let go of what does not completely serve you in order to receive what does, but that does not make the letting go any easier. So here’s to seeing where this Wind is blowing as I march into the month known for its changing of the seasons. As I approach the end of this year, I am hopeful for many changes in the year to come. Namely, my job, my place of residence (I want my own pad!) and I really need to show some people currently in my life, the door. Just because someone has a good heart, does not mean you have to keep that person around. Good heart or not, if they drive you insane to the point that you want to set them on fire – perhaps you need to let their good heart be good to someone else.
They say the only way to change where you are at, is to change the actions that got you there in the first place. A lot of people like to use this line, but they never stop to think what it actually means. It means going against your own grain, it means doing the exact opposite of whatever your instinct might be, it means not being you – at least that’s how it feels. This uncomfortable existence of going against my own grain has been the bulk of my reality for 2013. I am beginning to think that getting sober was the easy part in that all of things I was evading with the alcohol are coming to light in a succession similar to that of a hundred clowns exiting a Beetle. It’s fast, it’s quick and it’s confusing. Walking through this new circus, I feel like I am doing more damage in sobriety than I did while drinking. The good news is that I am starting to have fleeting moments of feeling like myself again – albeit a different version of myself and I am hopeful for a complete resurrection in the year to come. They say that as long as you stay in the program, things will get better and I am counting on this testimony from those who have already been here and done this and have moved on to a life they couldn’t even dream of having, yet they do. I must apologize as this post is not well put together, but neither am I at the moment. I actually thought about not even posting anything at all. The only thing I can say is that whatever changes are flowing into my life – I am ready and I hope to be able to share them with you soon. I am going to try to have a better plan for this blog next year, but I do still want my life and the lessons I learn to drive its direction. Maybe that is the issue I am facing this month. Maybe I am in the middle of a lesson right now and having not yet learned it, I cannot yet share its wisdom. But I can share this morsel of truth: If there is one thing you do this holiday season, make it this – do something nice for someone else, hell, go a step further and do it anonymously and then do it again! You will be the one with the present in the end. I don’t know much folks, but I do know this to be true: it is only by helping others, that we truly help ourselves. To you and yours… May you have a wonderfully Happy New Year! I find myself walking up to a fork in the road. I am not there yet, but I can feel it coming. It has been both a blessed and a cursed year with the curse being extreme financial lacking and it has weakened my resolve. I am exhausted from the strain of not being able to cover my basic needs much less attend outings to which I have been invited. I am also finding that I hate the hectic pace of my current career. I swear I do nothing but bend over and take it in the rear all day long and for absolutely no reason at that. But this is the glory of being in the distribution world…Not. The fork that I see coming is the decision to stay in the entertainment industry… albeit in a completely different part or jump ship to a stable, slower paced and financially rewarding private sector institution. There are pros and cons to both roads. Road 1 (the industry) has definite advantages for writers: creative environment; networking with agents, actors and producers; and privy to the inside scoop on everything Hollywood. The down side of the industry would be the long hours, high stress and hectic work environments often supporting projects you don’t support or believe in and until you make it past a certain milestone – very not great pay or benefits. Meanwhile, Road 2 (the private institution) has its own pluses and minuses. Pluses would be the slower pace and non-neurotic managers, the better pay, hours and benefits, as well as better job growth and job security and a better possibility of actually supporting that for which you toil. The only minus on this road is the simple fact that I would be out of the creative scope for a majority of my day. No doubt to many of you it seems like the simplest decision on the planet. Road 2 clearly has more advantages than Road 1, but Road 1 still has my heart or at least some of it. Considering the fact that I am known for making bad decisions and passing up opportunities like they number the stars in the sky, I have thought about partaking in an experiment of sorts: Do whatever it is that I do not want to do. In other words, if I want to go left – go right. But I struggle with this decision. You see even with all of the hardship I have endured out here in LA, I still feel I am supposed to be here. I still feel that I am right where I am supposed to be; I still feel that it was the right decision – It’s just not making complete sense yet. And so I continue to make my way towards this fork in the road, hoping with each step, that the decision will somehow be made for me, that perhaps circumstance will force me onto one road versus the other. If not, I will have to decide whether I should go with my gut like I have always done or try something new and do the exact opposite. TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood This past month I made it to one year of sobriety for the third time. This trip on the carousel has definitely been different in that I brought absolutely nothing to the table other than a willingness to change. I have to say that my life is remarkably different and that I am becoming a believer in the notion that there is magic in the twelve steps. Prior to quitting this time around, I now realize that I was walking up to a very dangerous fork in the road that would have cost me my life. Now while I’m not the tiniest of ladies, I’m not a big girl either, yet I was consuming a large bottle of vodka a day, sometimes two large bottles of wine, but mainly the vodka. Why I thought this was normal behavior I will never know. Anyways, my days were spent consuming vast amounts of vodka followed by popping migraine pills. I began to spend more and more time in bed. Not only was I completely dehydrated and malnourished but my drinking also made my potassium plummet and I suffered from constant heart palpitations and muscle spasms. This once runner and soccer player could now barely walk down the hall, much less down the street. Any sort of physical exertion was just out of the question. Frankly, I was at the point where I was about to exchange the long time love of my life for a harder and faster fix and it would have killed me due to my weakened state. I guess I can say that I never really decided to get clean. It was more like I was out of options. I had no money and I couldn’t get a job to save my life. God had me cornered and I began to desperately seek His help, but the only response He kept giving me was to give up alcohol. I told Him that I didn’t understand because my seeking was for a job. I told Him that He did not understand what He was asking of me. I told Him that alcohol had nothing to do with my problems. I also told Him that alcohol is the love of my life, that it is my everything. He refused to budge. It would be months before I would realize why getting sober was the key to everything else unfolding in my life, much less the fact that it was the key to me staying alive. And so I very reluctantly, quit drinking. It was horrible. Oh my God, was it horrible. I literally did nothing, but scream into a pillow for the first sixty days. I did not realize how dependent I was until I no longer had my magic potion in my cup. I was scared of everyone and everything. I was paralyzed with fear and mundane tasks brought about serious panic attacks to the point that I was retreating from places more than I was going to them. I was literally a dear caught in headlights for the first three to four months of my sobriety. It was during this time, that God placed me into a church. Mind you, I had previously made a solemn vow to never be a part of a church again, to never get close to any Christians ever again and to certainly never ever get close to any pastors ever again. God obviously had other plans and decided that my being completely upside down was the perfect time to place me into a new church. He knew that by the time I realized that I had become an integral part of a church again that it would be too late and He was right. I also have to hand it to these people as they have done a good job caring for the crazed lunatic that is/was myself though I do keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I do keep wondering why they haven’t thrown me away yet and wondering when they finally will, but this is one of my character defects and I am working on changing these thoughts as I come to terms with the events that created them. As I sit here typing on this last day of August, I can say that life is very different in a very good way. Yes, I have my list of character defects, but I am aware of them. I no longer crave alcohol either. I do still spin, but I am starting to catch myself earlier and earlier and am able to stop that spinning almost immediately. I am told that this is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in action. I am told that my ability to catch my spin before I actually spin out of control and do something stupid is proof that the AA program works. I am learning how to deal with life, something I apparently never really learned and I thankfully, no longer resemble a deer caught in headlights. I guess you can say I am getting my chutzpah back. I have great friends and really good, solid people around me; people that really do care and I know that I am loved. I am in the process of obtaining a new career position and have plans to begin publishing some of my fiction works in the next year or two. I guess the biggest difference is that all of these struggles have walked me across that bridge to where God is my everything and for this I am most grateful. |
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