Sober since April 6, 2006

That's
days

Monday, April 09, 2007

the sense of impending doom

I remember watching TV with my dad when I was a kid. Sometimes in a suspenseful movie, scary music would start to play. The creepy music always meant that something bad was going to happen.

Dad would make fun of the scary music and playfully chant: "Something's gonna happen; something's gonna happen; something's gonna hA----!" And then choke, play dead, or something. It always made me laugh.

I thought about that today. All day long, I've been struggling with an irrational sense of impending doom. It's as if the imaginary creepy music has started, and I'm just waiting for the sudden crash to happen any second.

I'm not sure what caused it, but there may be several contributing factors ...

  • I've come up with more to list on my 4th step, but I'm nearing the point where I'm running out of things to add. I feel comfortable with my sponsor and I'm actually looking forward to the 5th step. Yeah, something is fundamentally wrong here -- I'm supposed to be scared to death about that.
  • My job has been running smoothly ... suspiciously smoothly. I was called in to my boss's office today for an informal review with my boss and my supervisor. They had very nice things to say and were very impressed with a few things I did. So when are they going to take my red stapler, move my workstation to the basement, and stop paying me?
  • I've been blissfully enjoying a relationship with a wonderful guy, and things are going great. But my past has taught me that relationships in such seemingly good condition usually end abruptly and unexpectedly for reasons that take years to understand. In this case, is it a matter of "if" or "when" it all comes crashing down?
  • My new car (which I wrecked already) was inspected by the insurance adjuster last week and put into the body shop today. The insurance company is miraculously going to pay for the damage. I'm taking tomorrow morning off work to apply for the registration at the DMV. I have all the paperwork -- but it just seems that something should go wrong ... it has to.
  • I feel totally useless at meetings. We're supposed to share experience, strength, and hope. But I have no relevant experience to help people with their problems, my strength comes from sadistic sarcasm (which I keep to myself because it would offend most people), and my hope is made up of childish fairy-tale faith at which most people would either laugh or become jealous. I never know the right thing to say and I'm scared to say something harmful or stupid. So I shut up during the meetings and usually stick around to chat & clean coffee pots ... I guess that's better than nothing ... or maybe it's worse?

It all comes down to the third step ... when we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him, these kinds of concerns lose their power.

Regardless, I'm glad to be sober for one trip around the sun. Orbit #2 has begun :)

2 comments:

Anonypus said...

I am too familiar with waiting for it all to crash. That's what happened in the past. That's what I know.

Things are different now, though. I remind myself that I am doing work that will sustain the good stuff. Once upon a drinking time, the only work I did was lift a bottle and say to hell with the rest.

Don't forget...we are just babies in this program. Learning to trust this process.

Khakra said...

Office is always suspicious isn't it? There's a saying... love your job, but don't love your company. But I tend to enjoy informal reviews, just one set of goals for one long year gets kinda tacky after a while. and so boring. you really have a red stapler??? but you don't wear big, big glasses!!