Grace

I went to my favorite meeting last night - it's my home group. It's a candlelight meeting. We have a reading, a silent meditation, a lead and then comments. There is just something about this particular meeting - there is a peacefulness to it - maybe it's the candlelight. There is a calm when you walk in the room, an intensity, an intimacy. Last night we were talking about grace. The grace of God - what it looks like and how easy it is to miss it, or to convince yourself that you deserve the bad things that happen and don't deserve the good things. How to open yourself up to it, or receive it, or tune into it.

My understanding of it has changed in the time I've been in AA. I have heard it defined all sorts of ways - that grace is an unexpected and undeserved reprieve for which you owe nothing in return. It is a gift. It is as huge as the fact that I am sitting here writing this, and as small as not having to sit in an airport bar with the head of my group while traveling back from a client meeting last Friday. It is as monumental as the ability to surrender, and as insignificant as having patience while waiting in the slow line at the grocery store. It is everything. It is all around you, if you know what to look for.

I have these days sometimes, like lately - these past few days, where my level of peace and serenity is so much higher than what I consider to be my best days, my average days. It's like being on some other plane of spirituality or something. It's hard to describe. There are just days like this - when I have faith, for no other reason except that I just have faith, and it's powerful, it's stronger than normal and it's pretty strong to begin with. There are days when I just believe that it will be okay - that it is okay and that it's right and that belief is based on nothing other than a feeling of connectedness. It's just a feeling.

On days like today, when I feel such serenity, such peace, I know it is because I have achieved real acceptance - real surrender, however fleeting that may be. And it is fleeing. On the days that I accept everything as it is, just exactly as it is, and I believe that it will be okay, no matter what that means, I am able to see the grace all around me.

Just an update

I feel a bit better than I did the other day - quite a bit actually. I didn't work at all this weekend, which was good. It really allowed me to reconnect with reality (i.e., my feelings) - and granted it didn't feel great the entire time, but it's good to feel human and now I feel better. I don't enjoy those times of feeling numb the way I used to. I always think it is appealing, but I didn't really enjoy it. It's kind of scary actually to just be able to turn everything off like that. Anyway, it's going to be another couple of weeks of working crazy hours - but I think I can handle it. I just feel a little better about it in general. I feel more serenity than I have over the past couple of weeks about it. I'm not really sure why, I just feel differently about it - it's all in perspective I guess.

I have decided to do an experiment with my higher power. My sponsor is currently engaging in such an experiment so I am going to do this on the theory - what have I got to lose? This is the same theory on which I got sober. The same theory on which I started praying to a higher power. The same theory on which I have tried anything in this program. I actually think it might already have worked - but I was going to give it 30 days of trying it. So I guess I will see if it's different in 29 more days. I'll report back on that one.

My mind is pretty clear surprisingly - I don't have much to say. I feel calm, content, connected to my higher power. No complaints really. I was thinking about progress today, about how it happens for me. When I change - it isn't subtle. It doesn't happen slowly over time. It isn't a gradual process. It isn't like I try and try to stop engaging in character defects and slowly my behavior improves. Instead I just keep blatantly doing the same stupid shit over and over again, and then one day I just wake up and I don't do it anymore. I literally just wake up a different person. It's like I just feel different - something is different and I can't always put my finger on it. It just feels like what once was a character defect is gone - it just vanishes - poof - it's like magic. I know I've posted about this phenomenon before. It's step 6 and 7. Became entirely ready to have God remove all our defects of character, and humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

I think this is what happens at the exact moment that you become entirely ready and then asked to be freed. Poof.

Two days ago, I had just such a moment. I woke up different.

My higher power, times seven thousand

The strongest thing that I can think of is my higher power. Imagine the strength of that, times seven thousand. What could be cooler than sitting in a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous with 7,000 people - nothing that I can think of. 7,000 people saying the serenity prayer and the Lords Prayer. Years and years and years of sobriety. All I could think was - the strength in this room is amazing - indescribable. The power in the room - the spirituality - palpable. Talk about a great way to witness how it works.

I went to the big annual Chicago AA meeting tonight. I had never been to a meeting like that. I contemplated lying my way out of going (tsk tsk)...but a friend convinced me that it is actually cool to be in the presence of something so amazing and see the fellowship on another level.

I actually left there feeling renewed hope for myself. Maybe I am not destined to be miserable. I left there wanting to do service work - which is odd - cause I don't do a ton of it and seem to be unwilling these days. I thought - what am I doing whining and complaining about my life when I could help someone? I want to be one of those people who have what people want. I want to be happy, joyous and free as we say. I want peace, serenity and contentment. Those are really the only things that I want.

9:26 and one second

The past few days have brought renewed meaning to the phrase "one day at a time." I am acutely aware of what this means, but sometimes lack appreciation of the power of this concept in practice. Sometimes it is an hour at a time, 5 minutes, a minute, a second. How do you do anything - stay sober, survive breast cancer, deal with unrelenting and inconsolable fear - you do it moment to moment. I don't have to figure out how to deal for the rest of my life with this overpowering fear of dying of cancer. I just have to deal with it, right now, this second.

These past few days I have tried to sit in the feeling - and it is indescribable. It feels one way to have your life yanked out from underneath you with no notice, like when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It feels like something else when you have a chance to prepare and think about what that would be like to have it yanked out from underneath you all over again. I can't really think of the words to describe it, I've tried - but only someone who has been through this can understand what this fear is like. It is a fear unlike any other fear and there just aren't words to capture it.

I have tried to sit in the feeling and actually experience it and process it, while at the same time maintaining a kind of distance, more like perspective, to enable me to stay present in the very moment I am sitting in and have a true appreciation of every teeny tiny detail. It is more like being in the solution than being in the problem, but it still doesn't feel good. It feels horrible on the one hand but at the same time it is the most amazing thing to be right here, right now, which is the place I find myself least often. I have focused on only one thing these past few days and that is seeing my nephew on Friday. He is the greatest reminder to me of what it is like to be present in the moment. To watch him laugh and learn and look at something in amazement fills me with a kind of happiness that is unparalleled in my life.

To my complete astonishment, even though I am caught up in the worst fear and anxiety I've ever had in my life, I have been more present these past few days than I have been in a very long time. I have enjoyed these days and I have most importantly remembered to be grateful, not sometimes, but constantly. I have felt peaceful and content. I have had powerful moments of surrender - because to deal with what I am dealing with requires surrender on a different level than what I experienced before. I have had meaningful conversations with my higher power.

This situation is a true test of my faith, of my ability to apply the program to all my affairs. You know sometimes how you wake up from an experience and things are different - you are changed somehow and it wasn't a process, it just happened in a moment? These days, changing is like that. It is sudden and unpredictable. It happens in those moments I spend talking to my higher power about the purpose of all of this that I am too human to even begin to understand. These past few days have changed me.

Tomorrow I have a follow-up mammogram. Until then, it is moment by moment. To those of you who are so inclined, please pray for me.

Coincidence, I think not

My higher power played a dirty trick on me tonight. Last night I had this moment of surrender - I mean, a real moment of surrender (as opposed to the fake ones, ha ha). By a real moment of surrender - I just mean that, you can tell - when you really let go of something. When you are really free of it, it feels different. There is a distinct difference between the moment when you surrender something and the moment when you want to surrender it, but can't quite get there. When you come out of that moment, nothing looks the same or feels the same. You have this sudden shift in perspective.

I had such a moment last night, and while I won't go into detail, I will say that it involved my mortality, my relationship situation, my fertility, everything I ever thought I wanted in life and the very thing that I want the most, right now, at this moment, which is very simply to get to continue to live. So there was this guy - he pursued me back in May and then turned out to be an ass. Unfortunately, I really liked this guy. Unfortunately, he is the only guy I've met that I've liked. Well his sponsor didn't want him dating anyone so he called me up and basically told me he is an asshole and preys upon women and he has been avoiding me ever since - in other words, he stopped going to meetings that I go to and no one saw him for quite a while.

Now first of all - this guy is a self-professed asshole therefore I should not want to to be with him (because if a guy tells you he is an asshole, you should believe him). However, I am me, and if at any point he had shown back up and said okay, my sponsor gives me permission to date you now, I would have walked right into it, in a heartbeat. I probably would have regretted it. I probably would have known better, you know, hello, red flag, a giant one, waving at me, but I would have done it anyway. That is my lack of self-esteem making the decisions for me.

But I had this moment last night with my higher power. And then guess who walked into the meeting tonight? Coincidence, doubt it. My higher power's way of testing me, probably. My higher power has this funny way of showing up very quickly after such moments of surrender and acceptance. Something always changes instantly or happens immediately. So, he showed up, and how did I feel? This is my sponsor's definition of a spiritual experience, the ability to choose that which you could not choose before. The question is, just how well did I surrender last night? I am more than a little annoyed at my higher power for this.

I say this all the time - that I love the fact that you never know when you walk into a meeting who is going to say the thing that saves your life that day, or changes your life that day, or changes your perspective. It is often someone you don't expect and it is often so simple. This woman said tonight - don't give up on yourself, whatever you do, don't give up on yourself. All of these other things that I've tried not to give up on - but I wasn't even on the list. Myself being the one thing that I need to not give up on. Everything else can go. And this other woman said that if she had settled for the life that she thought she wanted before she came into Alcoholics Anonymous, she would have sold herself short. That says it all.

That might be the most true thing that I've heard in a while. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had settled for the the life I thought I wanted when I came into this program, or even for the life I had during my first year of sobriety, I would have sold myself short. Expect the unexpected. That is what AA has taught me, to expect the unexpected.

A word for a lack of words

I am suffering from an inability to post. I don't know if it is a lack of words, or a lack of the right words. I suspect the latter because I have actually sent enough content in emails to a friend of mine to post for the entire month of June probably - it's just nothing that I feel like talking to all of you about. I did a little searching around on the Internet, thesaurus.com, to find a word for a lack of words to title this post, and I couldn't find one that seemed fitting. It feels like there is a big hole where the words should be. I have wanted to post, but just can't.

The truth is, there is a lot on my mind, but again, nothing I feel like sharing with the rest of you - so I have limited myself to dumping it all out in email after email to the one friend who is privy to the crazy workings of my mind. I am in a bit of a strange place honestly. A lot was going on just before I left town, and it has now been 10 days since the last AA meeting I went to. To my unfortunate surprise, I can't get to any of the English speaking meetings where I am at because they are all located on a US military base that I am unable to enter.

Not only that, but my higher power seems to have missed the plane and neglected to stand by for a later flight. I feel a complete disconnection over here. Like my HP is not present. I asked it today if it could show up please, just show me it's here. I am still waiting for a sign. So, what happens when you don't go to AA meetings? You start to go crazy in your own head frankly - and any of us would tell you that any of our heads is a dangerous place to be by yourself. I know this is meaningless to those of you non AAers, and I have tried many times and failed at trying to explain why this happens or what this is like. I assure you it is not that I feel like drinking - that rarely, if ever, has anything to do with it.

So, here I have been hanging out in my own screwed up head for 10 days now. The result, honestly, is scary. When I don't go to meetings I suffer from a serious lack of perspective. My once seemingly, or sometimes seemingly amazing life (and yes, I will even tell you from time to time that my life is incredible, outstanding, I wouldn't have it any other way etc. and blah blah blah - was that really me giving that "open talk?"), suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, doesn't seem worth living (don't anyone freak out or call me regarding this statement, there is no reason to be alarmed). My negative attitude comes back, every thing sucks, nothing is right, nothing will ever be right, nothing will ever work out, I complain and complain, boo hoo, poor me, why me, why this, I give up, I'll never get what I want, I hate myself, I hate my life, I don't want to live it, I am not going to make it, I can't do this, I don't want to do this, or anything for that matter, I'm done, I'm not trying, I don't care, it's too painful (in other words, I revert to the me I used to be in many ways).

Truthfully, I might be having somewhat of a depression/anxiety/unidentified problem - something I am trying to work out outside of meetings and everything else going on in my life. I can say for sure that I am suffering a bit over here, but I was suffering before I got here. Also - I had come here with a mission - to figure some things out. I thought I would post about that, but I have decided not to. Sometimes I decide to keep something only in my head - never to write about it - never to distort it with imperfect words that can't accurately describe it anyway. Did I figure it out - you'll never know. I will tell you though that it is hard to accomplish much of anything when my HP is MIA.

My trip has been fun, relaxing, very enjoyable, my nephew is the cutest thing ever - that's all I am going to say. I will post photos though when I get back!

I have a few things yet to get done over here in the next week - I need to finish completely re-writing my 4th step inventory, finish a novel so I can leave it for my sister-in-law to read, mostly, I need to finish that inventory....

The Day in Between

Today is the day in between. The day in between the day I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, and my 30th birthday. It is the day after everything changed. The day after nothing made sense anymore. The day after I and my life would never be the same. It is the day I didn't kill myself, even though I had planned to.

It is the day, every year, that I question everything and accept nothing. The day that I wonder how I got here, right here, to this moment and I am always amazed, no matter where I find myself. It is the day that I recount the ways I wish my life were different and that I analyze the ways that my life does not meet my expectations. But unlike other years, I will not forget that I am grateful.

The gratitude though is colored with what I can only describe as doubt and a feeling of unworthiness. That I, of all people, for whom God has performed multiple miracles, did not deserve it.

There is this woman - and I don't know her, but a friend told me about her. We share the same name. She is 35 and dying of cancer. She has a family and small children. I pray for her. This morning I thought, why, God, would you take her away from so many people who love her, when I have no one to leave behind?

And though I can't say I know exactly what it would be like to go through what she is going through, to die, as I sit here, living, I feel for her a pain that is almost intolerable. It is ripping my heart out. I have tried to imagine it - in order to prepare myself for the slim, though very real possibility that I may one day be sitting where she is sitting. And today, right now, I think I know what that would feel like. It is indescribable.

When I pray for her - I pray for the things that I pray for myself. For God's will above all other things and that she can go on, unafraid - that she has peace, that her children can find some way to understand what there is simply no explanation for, and that she has the strength that I have. Mostly I pray that she is not afraid, because I would be terrified.

If you are reading this, and you know me - so you know my name, please pray for her. I do believe in miracles.

"I have a pain under my arm." "Do you want to talk to a psychologist?"

So I went to the doctor for the pain I have under my right arm today - my medical oncologist. Because they tell you that pain is the indicator of cancer spread - bone cancer that is. But pain seems pretty vague to me - and although I have asked for the specifics of what this pain would feel like - no one seems to be able to describe it satisfactorily. At least - not so that I feel comfortable judging whether every little pain may qualify. Though she keeps reminding me that I have odds on my side - overwhelmingly. The fact is though the anxiety that I wrote about yesterday, it is affecting my ability to live - sort of, lately anyway. I mean, I have called her like 4 times in the past month, unable to decide whether the pain under my arm is surgical related or something else. So today, she told me to come see her. The exchange literally went like this:

Doctor: "How are you?"
Me: "Paranoid apparently."
Doctor: What's going on?"
Me: "There is pain under my right arm."
Doctor: "Do you want to see a psychologist?"

Ha ha ha. I just have to laugh. I mean, it is kind of funny. But the fact is, if you were me, you would be paranoid too and you wouldn't be sleeping either, or able to concentrate, at all. Anyway, I said sure, and the guy she referred me to who took my insurance happened to be available one hour later so I went and bought pants and went back. It all happened to so fast - here I was resisting the whole thing, claiming I couldn't find anyone who took my insurance with the proper background - that being cancer survivors and alcoholism - I figured well, this guy has the cancer survivor stuff covered - my doctor has referred people to him before. She tells me he is great and he won't need to refer me to anyone else. I think yeah right.

Anyway, this is a testament to just how responsive my higher power actually is - like I frequently say God puts people in my life for a reason. I start talking - telling my story, of getting sober, anxiety, OCD, moving, marriage, divorce, surviving cancer, my childhood, my parents. Well, he spends his life exclusively counseling cancer survivors, turns out he's been sober 18 years, works a program, has a sponsor etc. and OCD - he has that too. Actually, he is from my home town also. Before I even knew it, he was scheduling another appointment with the psychiatrist in that office to talk to him about whether I would consider taking something very short term for this anxiety and OCD problem I am having. I suppose now I have to go and explore this one - but I have to say, I am still leaning strongly against it - though my higher power is apparently pushing me in that direction.

"Whatever is Contained in This Box IS..."

Courage
joy
serenity
faith
comfort
recovery
warmth
health
abundance
family
love
life
contentment
caring
open
relief
career
success
action
ease
calm
peace
friendship
giving
warmth
acceptance
harmony
happiness
trust
strength
wisdom
purpose
willingness
opportunity

authentic

gratitude

GRACE

Mmmm Tasty (and I Get the Hint)

So I just got back from spending time with my brother and sister-in-law at my sister-in-law's parents house in Indiana - lovingly referred to as "down on the farm." I haven't really taken the time to post about it or about spending time with my nephew, but I had a great time and it was hard to leave knowing that I won't see them again until probably mid May. I got to eat my all time favorite thing for breakfast, twice. Biscuits and sausage gravy. I have no idea why I love this so much. In fact, I had never eaten it before until visiting the farm years ago. Actually, I've only ever eaten it at the farm - I think I might have eaten one other person's poor attempt at making this. It's like eating pure fat. I love it. It even looks like pure fat. You know when you cook something that is greasy and then put the leftovers in the fridge and the fat congeals into that whitish color when it gets cold. That's what it looks like - it's that color. My second favorite thing to eat for breakfast - grapefruit.

Anyway, this post is an attempt at sitting still. I got back to Chicago today and immediately began to tear the house apart like a crazy person. Now it is a disaster and I am going to have to put it back together, but a friend suggested that I try sitting still for a while. No need to tear the entire house apart in one day. So I decided to pull out these cards from my friend Claire and select one to meditate on. They are self-care cards and there are 52 of them. They say different things like "boundaries," "relaxation," "goals," "progress" etc. There is a phrase on the back of each one - "Set boundaries." "Protect your precious time and energy."

When Claire gave me these cards, I decided to pull one out twice a day when I pray, once in the morning and once at night. The first time I pulled "retreat." "Listen to the voice of your soul." That night, I shuffled the cards and I pulled "retreat." The next morning, I shuffled the cards and I pulled "retreat." That night, I shuffled the cards and I pulled "retreat." What are the odds of this? Okay, I get it, I am supposed to retreat! Finally, I pulled two different cards, "playfulness" and "goals." It's been a few days since I've pulled one because I did not take them to Indiana with me. I just sat down, I shuffled them and I pulled "retreat." Okay, seriously, I get the hint.

Anyway, I promise I'll post about the past two weeks that I spent with family later tonight and I will include some pictures!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

AFGO (Another Fucking Growth Opportunity)

Pardon my French. It's been too long since I've written. So of course, I choose right now to write, the worst possible time - busy at work. I can tell it has been too long because when I don't post for a while, people stop checking. When I post, they check. Funny how that works. I haven't posted because I've been too busy. Too busy at work and too busy to think about what to write about. Not to mention - not sure whether to write about what is really going on. I mean, I don't want to freak anyone out - I have enough to deal with and last thing I need is to freak anyone out. The truth though, is that I am not doing very well and haven't been for a while. Let's just say that I would be lying if I said that I haven't recently thought about what it would be like for this to all be over. You can take that however you want, but please don't call me freaking out.

Anyway, I can't seem to figure out why I have suffered so much and so much of the pain that I feel is a longing for the suffering to be over. I feel the need for the end of so many things to come in a desperate kind of way. There is no answer to the question why. This pain, that people so affectionately call "another fucking growth opportunity," feels bad enough to kill me. I know some of you AAers can relate to that. It feels intolerable, it feels permanent and it feels unfair - which is the grossest understatement I have ever heard. I had a shitty childhood, again, an understatement. I've had nothing but bad and unhealthy relationships, to put it mildly. I've been nothing but miserable my entire life. I have struggled to say the least and much of the reason I have gotten as far as I have is reliance on self will and my tremendous strength in an effort to prove that I am worth something.

Just at the moment when I finally thought I had found happiness, or the potential for happiness in my life, my entire life was shattered by breast cancer. The pieces that are left don't fit together and don't resemble anything like a life that I think I can find happiness in. I just can't put the pieces together in a way that looks even tolerable to me. Just as I approach the end of the treatment process, my relationship is falling apart. I said to a friend that I don't understand why. To her it is simple, there is something I am not getting. Growing up with an alcoholic parent in hell, raising myself basically, working my ass off to get where I am in my career and all on my own, being an adult child of an alcoholic, an alcoholic, being sober, surviving breast cancer - as my relationship is about to crumble and I face the greatest lesson in patience that there could ever be for me, she tells me it is just "another fucking growth opportunity."

Clearly, I have missed the point of something. So I get to try again, through the end of my relationship, to learn what was apparently lost on me by surviving breast cancer or getting sober or any of the other things I have been through. I resist reliance on my higher power and my higher power has really been in my face a lot the past few days. Blatantly and obviously trying to tell me something. People keep asking me whether I believe in miracles. Of course I do. Maybe the point is simply to have faith. Have faith, trust God. I have heard that when you have faith and trust God, you don't get what you want, but what you do get is even better than you could have imagined. But you have to have faith. Is it really all so simple? I don't know.

My higher power, I think, is trying to tell me that is that simple. Have faith, trust God, have faith, trust God. I've been walking around saying this all day. One thing I do know, is that you have to do something different to get a different result. And have I tried this? Have I really tried to have faith and trust God - when God is so clearly right in front of me - have I tried to give it away? Have I tried to hand it to him, the control, the pain, any of it? He's trying to take it out of my hands and I don't even have very far to reach. But how much pain does it take to give it up? Enough to kill me?

In the intervening moments, those moments when my mind wanders away from what I am doing at work, to thoughts of how much pain I am in, both physically and emotionally, to worries about my fertility never coming back, stress about money, anger and resentment, the end of yet another relationship, the impact of my childhood, the desperation that I am trying not to give into, I am directing myself instead towards God - at least for today, or the next two days. I will remember, in every moment possible, to have faith and trust God.

God Takes Up Residence in Chicago

I used to think that my higher power resided only in Ann Arbor, where I got sober, amongst all of the people that I got sober around. My higher power shows up for me regularly when I am there - I have those "God moments" that I wrote about before - all the time. My higher power constantly reminds me of his or her presence when I am there. That hasn't been my experience since I have lived in Chicago. Very rarely do I feel God in my life - but then again, praying hasn't exactly been easy since I got here given the circumstances. It's hard to see sometimes how God is going to get me out of this. Lately I have been doubting the presence of my higher power completely.

Every once in a while I get desperate enough to ask for help. These are the most amazing types of "God moments," when you ask for help and you receive it very immediately and very obviously. It restores your faith completely. So last month, I wrote about being in Ann Arbor and really needing to run into this woman who was a cancer survivor. When I met her she had been sober about a month and I had just been diagnosed with cancer. There isn't even a way to describe how much she helped me in a single conversation. Of course I never got her name or phone number. When I was in Ann Arbor a month ago I was feeling very strongly that I just couldn't get through the last part of the cancer treatment. I needed to talk to this woman but I didn't know how to find her. She had the strength that I thought I was lacking. Well, I found her, at a meeting, just as I sat there and thought about how much I needed to borrow her strength, she walked in. That time we exchanged names and phone numbers. Even though I haven't called her, it is a relief to know I can talk to her any time I need to.

Anyway, today I had a perfect moment of - ask God for help and you will be given it - in such a way that it almost makes you say - now I will trust that my higher power will come through for me. Now I have faith. Now I'll let go and believe that if I hand this over, it will be okay. Lately I spend hours a day crying. So it was no surprise that today, while at the hospital, lying on the table as they lined up my body to do the daily radiation treatment, I started crying. I said please God help me. You have to help me. You have to do something cause I'm not going to make it. You just have to do something. You have to help me. As I came up off the elevator from the basement of the hospital, my cell phone signal kicked back in and it was ringing. It was her - the answer to my prayer, the woman who has given me the strenth to keep going.

A "God Thing"

I have always believed that certain things happen for a reason. I have a hard time believing that nothing happens by mistake, but I do think that at least some things happen for very specific reasons. Certain people enter our lives at just the right time. There are some coincidences that just aren’t coincidental at all – an event that we in AA refer to as a “God thing.” Ever since coming into Alcoholics Anonymous – even before actually – I have experienced a number of these events. Usually these experiences involve walking into a meeting and hearing just exactly the thing that I need to hear, but often these experiences also involve just the right person unexpectedly stepping into my path.

In May of 2005, before I got sober, I used to attend ACOA meetings (Adult Children of Alcoholics). In May of last year I was having a particularly difficult time – things were happening that led up to my eventually making it into AA. Anyway, for two months I had been driving around in my car crying, sinking deeper and deeper into depression. One Tuesday night at the ACOA meeting, I finally broke down – which is something I very rarely do in front of anyone. I finally lost it in front of the group, talking about how I didn’t know if I could continue to live and that I didn’t know what to do. A visitor to the meeting who was visiting from the northern lower peninsula of Michigan asked for my phone number. She called me the next day and saved my life. She talked to me for 4 hours that day and over the next couple of days we talked for several more hours. She went home and we lost touch.

This past February, I walked into an AA meeting, on what was the most difficult day I had had in sobriety up until that point. I lost it at the meeting, talking about how I might be moving and my brother was leaving in a couple of days to move out of the country. She was sitting across from me but we didn’t recognize each other at first. In fact, I had sat down at one table and then moved to another. She followed me – telling me later that although she hadn’t recognized me until I started talking, she knew when I moved tables that she was supposed to follow me. If she hadn’t, we wouldn’t have reconnected that day. We talked later that day – I had a chance to thank her and tell her just how much she had helped me the May before – and I found great comfort in the things that she had to say to me. She went back up north and we again lost touch.

I went home to Michigan last weekend and while I was there, I went to a bunch of AA meetings – my old meetings that I used to go to. As I was talking about my visit to Michigan and that I had come home because I was having an extremely difficult time in Chicago – a hard time staying sober, a hard time living life, a hard time with everything – she walked into the meeting. This woman who had saved my life, who had helped me tremendously in just a few conversations, who has shown up, coincidentally, at all three of the hardest times I have had in the past year and a half – walked right in and reminded me in a moment that can only be described as a “God thing,” that my higher power is watching out for me even when I don’t ask, or can’t ask or don’t want to ask. Those little God things are just the kind of reminders I need sometimes and they always happen when I find myself the most mistrustful of the process and doubtful of my higher power’s presence in my life. Over and over again I experience such coincidences that are just too perfectly planned to be coincidences at all.

This actually happened twice this weekend – I was reconnected with a different person this morning who helped me tremendously when I found out I had breast cancer. Although she had told me how to get through chemo and how to survive cancer (herself a fellow survivor), she never told me her name and I didn’t really know how to track her down or if she was even still in the program. Just this morning as I sat at a meeting and thought about how much I wanted to see her, how much I needed her help and her positive energy right now, how much I wanted to thank her, she walked into the meeting – a not so subtle reminder that in any given moment my higher power hands me exactly what is needed.