The End of the Zealot (pt 2, definitely)

way more than the next day, I know.  but I figured it would be, to be honest. but I didn't think I'd get back to it quickly, because I knew I was feeling this shit from the inside out.  and the need to understand has a much greater weight than the need to finish a thought. 

so, i became a zealot for the 12 step program. i'd say that's accurate.  i really started that process from the moment i met my sponsor, but once i got back from Parkside, i saw things in myself, things in the process of discovery, that could help people find truths that were otherwise elusive.  i began to feel that we, in CA, had answers that none of the other fellowships had, because we went deeper into the emotional content of the sick and suffering individual.  and that's what a zealot does, doesn't he?  he believes, with no room for doubt.  and maybe that was part of the waiting as well, because i know the first thing that filled me with Zeal was my sponsor. and i can acknowledge that now.  Johnny Copeland was the most dynamic individual i'd met in my 20 year old life at that point, and he immediately became what i wanted to be if i ever grew up.  were it not for the program of CA, i would have worshipped him. but the program gave me an outlet for the emotions i experienced.  i mean, Johnny believed, and so therefore I believed.  and i poured my energy into the fellowship.  but not into growing and changing.  i was content to work below the radar, because it was safer there. so even as a Zealot, i was still timid. that didn't change until much later. 

the Fellowship grew, and my conviction grew along with it. and the attention it garnered, positive and negative, was fortifying to my ego.  i knew people were paying attention because i was on the side of (johnny) right, I was telling truths and breaking down steps and digging into the dark places to find where individuals got hurt and endeavoring to help them find their way from their darkness...in most cases, whether they wanted to come out or not.  and eventually, the price tag for one's arrogance must be paid, even if one didn't know that is what they were purchasing.  

when it started to turn was when I got with the woman who was to be my wife and is now my only ex-wife.  I tried to FIX her, and found that I couldn't fix a woman I was fucking, and once I opened those doors I wasn't able to close them again.  like Mickey and the brooms in Fantasia.  and it turned on me and became my first significant failure, which was also just ego manifestation.  I fucked up someone's progress, skewed them from their path of recovery, 13th stepped them for my own very selfish purposes, but the failure of the marriage was my first significant failure IN THE PROGRAM.  that's what Zeal does, though.  I'm right, though all my actions may SEEM wrong. and because I'M Right, all my actions must've been right as well.  twisted.  

but that took some starch out of me.  and taking my daughter's mother as a hostage and having that also bite me in the ass took more out.  and in both cases, having the individuals of CA stand in judgement over me took a lot of my Zeal right out of the equation.  it was like, "AFTER ALL I'VE DONE FOR YOU PEOPLE!", that kinda bullshit.  but it was enough to make me want to not be bothered with the program for a couple years.  

part 3 soon enough...

The End of the Zealot (pt 1, possibly)

zeal

[zēl]

NOUN

1. great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.

zealot

[ˈzelət]

NOUN

1. a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.

...question becomes, 'is that the picture of a zealot?  given the definitions, I would have to answer 'not at this time, no'.  someone else might say, 'yeah, pretty much', depending on the subject matter. but if you were to go back about 20 or 30 years, I'd have answered, "Fuck Yeah, I'm a goddamned zealot, and you need to be one too."

I am being honest, but i'm not close to the core of that change in parameters in my own life at this time.  nowhere near.  but i'm starting, because 'when the student is ready, the teacher will appear', and the student being ready is when the mind is receptive to the ideas espoused that could likely bring about a change. and the student, in this case, is me.  and who is the teacher?

this is what The Journey is all about, though it hasn't seemed that way lately, has it?

okay, so go back with me. I talked about the documentary 'Who Killed Malcolm X', that I watched last week.  it has stayed on my mind, impacted me, and I knew it would. but I didn't know it would take me inside my own soul.  never can really tell with Malcolm, regardless of the time or occasion.  but in brief, the documentary made me question religion, period.  made me question whether any religions have ever had a sincere start, or whether it was they all started out as hustles, by charlatans looking for quick cash and doing seeming miracles to augment their bullshit, until some ZEALOT finally showed through with enough belief to power the engine of the small amount of truth any good hustle needs to be imbued with.  definitely made me wonder that about the Black Muslims, but it was mostly a questioning of all modern religions.  same as watching 'Messiah' had me thinking, but that didn't take me there as deeply.  thing is, Malcolm believed, 150%.  He believed in the ability of their organization to make a positive change in the lives of black people in America.  and he put his entire soul into it, and in the end, the bullshitters and those who profited from the hustle the most set him up to be ostracized, then killed.  and that, sadly, is not a new tale at all.

once upon a time, I was a newcomer in the program.  the fall of '88, to be exact. one year younger than my daughter is now.  I was terrified, ashamed of everything about me and wanted nothing more than one massive high and then to stop breathing forever.  these guys came up on our unit, the Care Unit at Salem Hospital in Salem, Ohio.  they came up to bring us down to a meeting.  i'd been to 12 step meetings before.  been to them with my father, as a guest, a dumb fat kid scarfing donuts and choking on thick cigarette smoke.  i'd been there as an occupant as well, Al-Anon, Alateen, Alatot, all those good offshoots of AA that my father took myself and my immediately older and younger brother to.  so we could 'understand', I guess would be the goal.  but understand what?  my father turning out to be a drunk?  didn't even honestly know he was at that point.  it was being forced into proximity with a bunch of white kids, being asked to talk about things that shame and guilt had already taught us we weren't going to talk about.  they didn't last long, either.  how could they?  there was no grounds for change if there's no dialog and no honesty.  at this point, I realize that I was destined for Cocaine Anonymous, because the 12 Steps were instilled in me like sleeper cell agents, just waiting to be activated.

and in '88, they were.  and I met Johnny, my sponsor to be.  and I met so many other people, some whom I considered friends, some whom I came to consider loathsome creatures.  but one and all, recovering addicts who had far more on the ball than I felt I ever would. but Johnny...ah, different creature.  enthralled me.  a black man who was articulate, commanding, assured, clean, successful, decisive, empowered, powerful.  and he came to my room after my first meeting, and he sat and talked to me, and he looked at my drawings.  and he made me feel, as a fat, ugly, unloved 20 year old nigger from Youngstown, Ohio, that maybe there was some worth to me.  maybe...there was purpose.  how much more did it need to take?

I didn't believe in the people for long, because they turned out to be just as hurtful as the ones from my school days.  but I believed in Jehovah, I trusted Johnnie to have my best interest at heart, and I believed the Steps would help me be someone who could help other people. and I put 150% of myself into that, more into being a help than I put into not gaining the weight back that smoking cocaine had taken off me, more than I put into getting a good further education and getting into a good career, more than I put into learning (at that time) how to be a better brother, better son, better friend, better man.  I was a spoiled brat with an active, caring mind and a core of pure shame.  after 2 years, I was back up to around what I weigh now, I guess, and I ended up in treatment, at Parkside in Gahanna, Ohio, for eating disorder treatment.  but I still helped addicts and alcoholics, and I went deeper, and I didn't lose my ZEAL.  yeah, these are truths.  and I can say with no real hesitation, this is when I became a Zealot.

gonna do some more of this tomorrow.

Continuity

well, it's Sunday.  tomorrow is work.  Work has become a heavier word than i'm comfortable with, but i'm dealing with it.  honestly.  today is Sunday.  Tomorrow is conjecture.  if it doesn't come, i'll have spent today worrying for nothing, so I choose not to.  that simple.  but not.

Friday I didn't go to work.  I decided I'd call off because I HAVE A COLD. Even typing that, even knowing the sarcasm that is implied in the allcap typing, doesn't make it seem less ridiculous to me.  but it is what I did, because on Tuesday the Welcome Coordinator felt it her responsibility to query from her superior whether I should be at work with a cold.  And, trust me, I understand, I drive mostly elderly patients.  but.  BUT.  As we utilize one driver at a time, me not coming to work for a cold, or being chastised for coming with a cold and sent home, would have left that facility without a driver, period.  

Truth is, I have a fairly good work ethic.  And it took me a lot of years to get here.  once I certainly did not have a good work ethic.  once I would gladly have called off with a cold, a sprain, an errant thought.  and I would have tried to stay gone for as long as I possibly could.  But i'm not that person anymore.  The man I am today, the man I like being, wouldn't miss work for some bullshit reason.  And that man has been compromised by this silly woman.  and I am not sexist, she is a silly person who happens to be a woman.  I've encountered silly men as well.  But the gender doesn't matter.  I have to reset my mind around my tasks going in to work tomorrow.  I have to put myself in the frame of going to serve the patients and being cordial towards ALL the staff.  that's the only way I'll get through this.  And the compromise, the attack against my integrity, the constant sniping that resolves nothing at all, is chipping away at my good feelings about this job.  My resume on Indeed.com has been updated. I'm going to see what's out there, I'm going to see what else is available.  trouble is, I don't believe things are going to get better.  I just believe I am being led toward a confrontation that I really don't want, and I don't want the resentment that will come from being put in that position in the first place.

enough of that, though.  no adventure should be singularly focused.  last weekend, I think it was, I went to Walmart and got my headlight changed, finally. actually got both changed, because if one goes the likelihood of the other going is pretty high.  so, on Thursday, I'm pretty sure, I was home, just chilling.  I was going to bring Syd by for dinner but the snow made me change my mind.  wanted to see my progeny and her offspring, but I knew I didn't want to be in the snow for an extended time if it wasn't absolutely necessary.  just one of those days.  but they had nothing to eat, so I went to get them some KFC.  in so doing, I tried to use my windshield wipers to clear the snow from my car and they broke.  the wipers, that is.  KLUNK.  and I was dumbfounded.  I was talking to Lonnie when it happened, and I finally got off the phone, just drove to take Syd and Timothy some food and I came home.  called my brother the next day to see if he had a mechanic, and he referred someone I haven't used because of not being contacted back about the Grand Marquis.  but this was sort of dire, so I contacted the dude.  he was at work, and he said he would call me back and he didn't.  so I was ready to write him off again, but not having anyone else, I sent him a text yesterday, and he called back and said to bring the car out, which I did.  and he checked, found the bushings that snug the control arm to the wiper transmission unit were gone.  Today he found the bushings at the flea market, came by just before the meeting and finished fixing my car.  and i'm so happy, because no wipers ends a whole lot of things in a state like Ohio.  when you can only get around on clear days, you take your chance every damn day.  and that's a fact.

so the car is running.  and I realize i'm big as hell again, have swollen up, and don't know what the fuck, though a significant part of it is physical inactivity.  I got to get motivated, but it's not there at the moment.  I was speaking to my counselor about the ZEAL I once felt for so many things, a zeal that is not here now.  I can't say what has changed, other than I just look at the world with eyes that don't hold much hope for anything better and a part of myself is saying, 'Why the fuck should I bother?"  And that's a good question.  but I can't live in that.  I've got to find something to fire this shit back up.  But I'll be damned if I know what that is.

So, fat.  Bored.  Lonely.  Apprehensive about and at work.  Impatient.  some of the baggage i'm carrying in the medulla oblongatta carrying case.  time to clean house again, maybe?  work through the steps, get a 4th and 5th done?  can't really afford the prolonged session with VF anymore, though.  we'll see how it all works out.  meanwhile..

Sunday.  about to put a sweet potato in the oven.  gonna shave and shower.  gonna hang up clothes. gotta get my coffee pot ready for the morning.  and then I can relax, eat and crash when it's time, ready for work tomorrow.  

regardless of my personal negative baggage, thank you, Jehovah, for blessing me with breath and movement, for peace in my day and the ability to sleep.  that's enough for today.  

Before Work Tomorrow... (thoughts)

it is Sunday, almost 3:30pm.  I've had a pretty good weekend, so far.  I say so far because you can't really count it until you wake up and it's Monday, and around here anything is apt to change in a moment.  but for the moment, i'm pretty happy, definitely okay.  

I was just thinking, sometimes you find your wisdom  in the oddest places.  this pic is from a bathroom stall at the Hubbard truck stop.  I believe all these things, including the fact that beer is good.  I don't drink it, but I loved it when I did.  I share things like this on Facebook; it rarely gets a response, but I don't share for that.  I share because I honestly believe a small thing like this, even some bathroom scrawl, has to possibility in God's hands to save someone's life.  like, it helps to know that i'm not the only one who thinks this way.  gives me another day to keep the legs moving, you know?  I come out of the theater in Boardman yesterday (an entirely NEW experience, that i'll go into shortly) and listen to some very funny little white guy haranguing his wife about his support of Trump.  I think to myself, we're all here for the cheap seats, we're none of us driving brand new cars, living in mansions, eating caviar and prime rib every day.  we're none of us at that theater setting the world on fire with our pure influencer acumen or our inherited riches.  but it's funny, harass your wife with this tragedy. and that's the world now, you know?  it's a joke, every single bit of it.  and if you lose your mind to it, the joke was on you.  wouldn't that be the case?  I mean, I drive down streets and I see cars, every day, driving down the middle of the road, riding straddling lines.  go into any store, just about, and you get the sociopathic displays of selfishness and greed regardless of the season.  people COVET, like it's a participant sport.  they are callous toward each other's suffering, and thanks to social media platforms, they are whiners about their own plight.  and I don't say 'whiners' without a sense of irony, I mean, isn't that what i'm doing also?  but when I say it, it's the contrast.  you don't care about me, but you go through the same thing and lament that no one seems to care about you.  how does that work?  everywhere you go, you smell weed.  and i'm not against weed. but I truly wonder about the lack of vision that allows people to smoke and celebrate the slow legalization of marijuana when this government never does anything that it doesn't have both a hidden agenda about and a profit motive in place.  but brothers are in jail serving double digit sentences for struggling to pay bills with weed sales while white men are becoming next-level millionaires selling the same shit.  now it's the coronavirus, before that was SARS, and before that was ebola, and each one came as there was some form of political bullshitting going on.  just like a war that is started to get a president out of the public eye long enough to rebury the skeletons that have been unearthed from his closet.  I can't keep going, because bullshit uncovered uncovers more bullshit, and I don't want to just keep scribbling about this.  i'm saying, it's all a joke, and the joke's on you if you lose your mind.  and for that reason, I don't feel bad about not being as plugged in as I could be. and I know that's the truth.

see, last week I picked up a brother from the east side, bringing him to the clinic I drive for.  and we passed through the bottom of Liberty.  and he loves looking at houses, it's a thing he does. it's one of the things that's in my turned off area (for my couinselor, a bookmark here. Have to remember to tell her that the gray area I was after for so many years seems now to be something I deliberately constructed, to separate myself from everyone else, to keep from having to become things I don't necessarily want to be, and it may be that I built it a bit too well.  but that's neither here nor there at the moment). we were talking about some racism, and I told him about the time a friend and I were driving through that part of Liberty when a panel van began to follow us, turn for turn, until we turned out of Liberty on Logan Avenue heading back to the east side.  that's real.  and the brother one-upped me easily by recalling how his family, when he was a child, lived in Liberty, mother, father, siblings, and how they had went to the movies one day, he was single digits then, and came back to find their house burned to the ground.  they had insurance, were able to BUY OUTRIGHT a house on the southside and still had some money to boot, but the principle, and the fact that someone could have gotten killed, easily.  reminds me of my sponsor's house being burned down in the early 80's when he lived in Austintown, and how he spoke of sitting in his yard, in a lawn chair, and watched them rebuild his house, in full sight of his neighbors.  I hear these things, and I realize, racism just walks right alongside us, just get in step and comes along and we stop paying attention because it sounds just like the things that are echoing in our hearts already.  strange, huh?

anyway, I need to put this shit away for now, as i'm getting a bit perturbed about some of this.  but i'm still going to keep it moving, keep doing what I've got to do, so that I can get to the clear road one day.  I thank my Father in heaven, for the love and the kindness I've experienced today.    

dream note 1

dreams of hanging out with Robert Downey Jr in the wreckage of the old Columbus, Ohio that I loved so much, speaking of the abuses people do to each other while my daughter, an infant again, plays in the rubble of a favorite memory. Another friend has bought the old building that used to be Tradewinds, but it's tore down and he has no inventory but he has customers. Finding an old Hollywood hotel in the hills that is under renovation and is a tourist trap, half remodeled now. When I woke up, the dream continued running in my head...going to this hotel specifically because my son wanted to get a tattoo removed, a tattoo that i'd gotten for him as a youth (in my dream), feeling like he hated me but just wouldn't tell me to spare my feelings...

Compromise

why is it taking a week before I update here?  couldn't tell you, honestly.  I only know that I started an entry on Tuesday, and now it's Saturday.  but I know also that i'm going to update at this point, get some thoughts out and get on with a day that I've designated as a Tim-day, because there's nothing wrong with that at all.  

To begin, my days off last week weren't especially eventful.  I did a bunch of running, and I didn't get my cleaning done until Wednesday and Thursday.  I prefer Saturday for my cleaning day, but last weekend was the squirrel event, so I didn't really feel the urge to stay in the house and hope that the squirrel would deal with itself.  however, a prayer later and the squirrel has not been seen, but there is still the work that has to be done in keeping squirrels out of the house.  so, we're going to have to get on with that soon.  but I digress.  I spent quite a bit of time with my parents over the past week.  it's never something I mind doing, but at times it gets hard, and it gets hard for different reasons with each parent.  with my mom, it's seeing how compromised she is now.  she doesn't hear well, and she always seems on the verge of massive confusion.  she's having a hard time being in the house since the 'infestation' was dealt with, and I knew she would.  but there's a part of it, I believe, that has to do simply with the ongoing war with my father, because i'm sure there's a part of his own thing is part of their war on his end as well.  what's hard to deal with as far as my father goes is how there is very little honesty in his dealings with us anymore.  my father goes to the Austintown emergency room and calls it an Urgent Care, while there's now an urgent care right up the street from him that he won't go to because they're not set up as an emergency room.  my dad knows that when he goes to the Austintown ER, um...'Urgent Care', he may be out there after dark, at which point he can't drive.  then he wants someone to come pick him up, and to make arrangements for his car to be brought home.  he refuses to read the memo from me that I am not a valet, his or anyone else's.  and, when he calls me and says he may need a ride, I tell him to call me when he knows for sure, and he never bothers to call and say he DOESN'T need a ride.  so I put things on hold, waiting to see if i'm going to have to pick him up and take him home.  and I can wait forever by his concern because he doesn't feel it necessary to call back.  it's cool though, as I have taken to just calling my mom and asking her to let me know if/when he comes in.  then I can get on with the things i'm doing.  

I have friends in distressing situations, and there's nothing I can do about them.  Lonnie's daughter is extremely sick and he is not doing well with it.  SH, from the meetings, is not attending and is in the grips of her own depression.  an old friend from way back that I reunited with through doing my job has not been in touch at all, and I am afraid of why she is still incognito after coming back to her home town months and months ago.  I pray for them, for  so many others as well, but there's nothing I can do.  there's nothing physically I can do to alter the trajectory of these events.  and that makes me sad, but I know that going in.  

I am personally compromised.  I am still having troubles getting out what i'm consuming.  I am trying to catch up financially, but that's hard as hell and I keep falling behind in things.  some of it is purely my fault, I forget to make payments.  others, I have notes with passwords for sites where I make my payments and from month to month the passwords don't work, and I get frustrated because my mind is not doing what I need it to in the way I need it to all the time anyway, and the humbugs just make me feel stupider sometimes.  I have calls to make though, get some payment arrangements made, straighten out my affairs, become willing to allow monthly auto-pay from my bank, so that I can get right.  always funny; this year my utilities aren't a problem at all.  I have the money to pay my primary bills and keep it moving.  but I have to be careful with the car notes, with the credit situations.  you get on better footing in the stream just to find you're deeper in the rapids.  that's life though.

work is cool.  the issues continue but I've gotten, by Jehovah's blessing, a perspective and a grip on myself in them.  there is only the job to do.  there's no reason to take anything personally, because there's no one there who pays my rent or signs my check.  so I have no one to answer to except my professionalism, as my boss is in Chicago.  and I am doing a good job, or he would have heard about it.  just got my headlight changed, got to make arrangements to get my brakes done.  I've  finished my short stories/poetry collection, but i'm having a devil of a time figuring out the formatting on Amazon's new publishing platform.  I will, but it is not easy and my brain is not working as it was two years ago.  acknowledging that doesn't scare me, just shows me that I have to pray for help and be ready when it arrives.  

that's enough for now.  i'm going to get out of this cold kitchen and wait for my day to officially begin.  thank you, Father, for faith and provisions for this day.  

Saturday Morning

well.  I made it through the week.  it's the weekend again, Yay!  that's way more enthusiasm than I actually feel, but still I feel good, and that's what matters most.  currently i'm in my kitchen, preparing breakfast for my brother and myself.  I enjoy time with my brother. conversation is never boring, and there is always the sharing of the emotion that our parents evoke in us, being able to give voice to those things that only someone going through them would understand.  it's very cathartic, I can say.  plus, BREAKFAST.  y'know?

so, the week has gone from tumultuous to serene.  I feel good.  I;m working on finishing touches on my new book, BRITTLE MIND. I should have it ready by the end of the week, at least ready to be approved by Amazon. it's been so long since I did any writing toward self-publication that the platform I was using, CreateSpace, is no longer a platform.  it's been absorbed into the Bezos empire fully.  but the replacement is slightly easier to use, and I can appreciate that.  I will finish uploading my book to the template which is already formatted with the appropriate borders within the next couple days, and we'll see how it all turns out.  meanwhile, back at the ranch...

the parents are home.  my mom is still uneasy about being there.  and of course, her comfy chair has been replaced by a wooden rocking chair, which is no kind of comfortable for her to sleep in.  but, given the circumstances, I can understand her apprehension. some things, when they push our 'freak out' buttons, don't just retreat back into a safe distance once they're 'dealt with'.  but all you can do is try to adjust as best you can.  it's not ideal.  and no one understands someone else's freak out, but everyone wants their own freak out to be paramount in someone else's value system.  strange how that happens...

today is a cleaning day.  it's also a day to start catching up to some neglected business.  and I want to get my shit in gear for Monday morning.  not too many runs slated at this moment, but it still requires a bit of awareness and preparedness.  so I want to do both.  got to get back to the store, after I figure what I want for dinner today.  gonna be a lot of insanity, as the most important event happening in America right now is not the fact that a man who has been trying his best to strong arm the democratic process of the united states of America is about to be exonorated, but that the Super Bowl will be played on Sunday.  yay.  so I want to beat the crazy people, grab some supplies for this evening and tomorrow, and get the hell out.  meeting tomorrow, I guess.  and as I sit here typing, I remember it's the pot luck this Sunday, which sucks even worse.  have to really decide if I want to be there tomorrow, good day to rest.  well, I think that's about it for now.  waiting to hear from my brother so I can finish cooking breakfast and we can eat.  have a good weekend.