Five Months!

Yesterday I started going to meetings again after six weeks of spotty-to-non-existent attendance.  I managed to remain sober the whole time, continuously and contiguously, one day at a time.  But it was hard.  Harder than going to meetings and trying to make genuine connections with people even though I feel like a fake and an asshole the whole time.  Harder than trying to scrape along on my own.  Harder than dealing with the foibles and incongruities of real, flawed people who are also trying to figure out this life thing and do it without mind-altering chemicals.  Harder than it had to be, which we all know is my favorite flavor.  Oh, how very much I love and live making things harder than they have to be.  How I love how much it complicates my life and makes me tired and keeps me from facing the things I need to know and do.  I wish I knew how to quit you, making things harder than they have to be.  I have a sick, excited feeling in my stomach that means it probably involves working on steps and letting it be simple.  I'm going to give it a try.

So, I'm five months.  AA doesn't give out 5 months chips, you get nothing between 3 months and 6 months.  I made my own 4 month chip out of shrinky-dinks, because apparently the theme of my fourth month was, "an' I can DO IT ALL BY MYSELF!"  Yesterday night, in the middle of tornado warnings and massive thunderstorm, I watched a lady in my group get her 11-year chip.  Part of what she said when she went up to get it was, "and don't do it by yourself, you don't have to do it by yourself.  Make some friends.  Make some memories.  Make some connections."  After the meeting she gave me a 'five-month chip'--a two month and a three month glued together back to back.  I love my group and all the wonderful, batshit, amazing, bug-fucking-crazy, inspiring, annoying, loving, messed-up assholes in it.  Welcome me home, because I'm back, possibly for the first time, if that makes any sense.  And everybody get a helmet on, because I'm going to attempt to be myself.  I haven't done it in a long time, because I thought it was really unsafe.  It turns out it isn't any more unsafe than anything else, and it may hurt me just a little bit less than being whoever it is I think I'm supposed to be.  Relax and breathe into it, this may hurt you more than it hurts me.