Well I hope this helps.
As many of you know, i'm in cali. san clemente to be exact. and for those of you basking in even furthur ignorance, san clemente is a beach town just south of laguna. i came down here to do half of the rehab program at pacific hills, after a full 28 days in arlington heights. i graduated bout 4 months ago. pac-hills is a lot more laid back and it's an adult program, so as of late, my dearest friends and general acquaintences range from about 21 to 65. the younger guys that graduated from pachills anywhere from a year ago to a month ago have sort of formed a clique of guys in recovery that basically moved out here and stayed(not unlike myself). apparently that's what most of california's residents have done. once you're out here (for some) there just isn't anything worth going back to. but for me, I am enjoying the change and I intend to spend atleast a year here if not more to gain an experience that I can deem satisfactory. if i could postpone my aging and travel the globe living in every environment in existance, my head would be a lot clearer. there are just so many different lives completely independant from one another that we could never possibly meet everyone. i worked out the math. according to the U.S.Census Bureau, there are 6,539,962,471 people in the world as of 7:29 GMT on Aug 26, 2006. if we had every person in the world lined up infront of us, we didn't have to eat or sleep, and we spent every second from the age 13-85 shaking the hand of each human and exchanging names, then that would leave 2.88 seconds per person. that's about enough time to look them in the eye, shake their hand, say:
"Hi my name's Ian."
"Hi my name's Rozelle."
"Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too."
*next*
And so. my conclusion is that we need not worry about how many people we know or how popular we are, nor whether we'll find the perfect mate, nor whether there are better friends out there, nor whether there is someone who completely understands us. we will stumble upon the people that we will stumble upon. the future is set in stone just like the past, and the present is simply the merger. what will be, will be, and it will not be anything else.(que sera) it's in the merger that we live, and it's in the present that we can think. you can't think in yesterday, you can only think today, "what/why/how/when was yesterday?" you can speculate the future, but it will come sure enough and before you know it, the things that once troubled us are fossilized in time. there is no furthur speculation about what the present will be, the present has come and gone and you have an understanding of it (be it weak or strong - it makes no difference).
and yet still i spend my days wondering what college is best and which career to pursue, why I've done what i've done and what i'll do if i do it. they say an alcoholic is someone that has one foot in the future, one foot in the past, and he's pissing on the present. and so i try oh so hard to live in the now. it's the strangest thing... for some reason i've taken consolation in what a good friend of mine told me yesterday. i confronted him with these words:
"Steven. I need you to tell me that I don't need to worry about my future."
"Whaddyou mean? Like what?"
"Like what i'm gonna do with my life and how well i'll be able to do it, if i'll ever find serenity or inner peace, what college i'm going to attend...(and then I trailed off because I sensed the mutual understanding of "those kinds of questions")
and he responded by calling over another of his friends:
"Hey Jeff! Let me ask you something."
"Sure."
"Since you've been sober(7 years), have you ever gone a day without a roof over your head?"
"No."
"Ever missed a meal?"
"No."
"Ever not had someone to talk to?"
"No."
"Would it be safe to say that you've been pretty well taken care of?"
"Yeah."
"Would it also be safe to say that -in general- you've gotten everything you've needed?"
"Yup."
"Any regrets?"
"None."
"Thanks, you can go now."
"Any time."
Steven then turned to me and spoke:
"Ian, God's gonna do for you whatever he's got planned. Do you think God's got plans for you to be homeless?"
"Naw probly not."
"No neither do I. As long as you work this program there's gonna be a plan for you. a destiny - if you will. And God will put you into the right college and give you the right wife and give you everything that you were always meant to be given. He's pretty fucking cool like that."
And with that he patted me on the back and walked away.
Now my mind's still trying to decide about the whole God-faith-religion thing, but atleast for now, I'm pretty damned okay with just accepting that what will be will be, and existance is eternal.
So that's where I'm at right now. I'll update again soon enough. I've got over a year's worth of livejournal entries to catch up on. your lives are mysterious books that i'm about to power-read.
much love and give me a jingle 219-510-7141 (phone really is the best way to talk excluding face2face)
keep well
ian
"Hi my name's Ian."
"Hi my name's Rozelle."
"Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too."
*next*
And so. my conclusion is that we need not worry about how many people we know or how popular we are, nor whether we'll find the perfect mate, nor whether there are better friends out there, nor whether there is someone who completely understands us. we will stumble upon the people that we will stumble upon. the future is set in stone just like the past, and the present is simply the merger. what will be, will be, and it will not be anything else.(que sera) it's in the merger that we live, and it's in the present that we can think. you can't think in yesterday, you can only think today, "what/why/how/when was yesterday?" you can speculate the future, but it will come sure enough and before you know it, the things that once troubled us are fossilized in time. there is no furthur speculation about what the present will be, the present has come and gone and you have an understanding of it (be it weak or strong - it makes no difference).
and yet still i spend my days wondering what college is best and which career to pursue, why I've done what i've done and what i'll do if i do it. they say an alcoholic is someone that has one foot in the future, one foot in the past, and he's pissing on the present. and so i try oh so hard to live in the now. it's the strangest thing... for some reason i've taken consolation in what a good friend of mine told me yesterday. i confronted him with these words:
"Steven. I need you to tell me that I don't need to worry about my future."
"Whaddyou mean? Like what?"
"Like what i'm gonna do with my life and how well i'll be able to do it, if i'll ever find serenity or inner peace, what college i'm going to attend...(and then I trailed off because I sensed the mutual understanding of "those kinds of questions")
and he responded by calling over another of his friends:
"Hey Jeff! Let me ask you something."
"Sure."
"Since you've been sober(7 years), have you ever gone a day without a roof over your head?"
"No."
"Ever missed a meal?"
"No."
"Ever not had someone to talk to?"
"No."
"Would it be safe to say that you've been pretty well taken care of?"
"Yeah."
"Would it also be safe to say that -in general- you've gotten everything you've needed?"
"Yup."
"Any regrets?"
"None."
"Thanks, you can go now."
"Any time."
Steven then turned to me and spoke:
"Ian, God's gonna do for you whatever he's got planned. Do you think God's got plans for you to be homeless?"
"Naw probly not."
"No neither do I. As long as you work this program there's gonna be a plan for you. a destiny - if you will. And God will put you into the right college and give you the right wife and give you everything that you were always meant to be given. He's pretty fucking cool like that."
And with that he patted me on the back and walked away.
Now my mind's still trying to decide about the whole God-faith-religion thing, but atleast for now, I'm pretty damned okay with just accepting that what will be will be, and existance is eternal.
So that's where I'm at right now. I'll update again soon enough. I've got over a year's worth of livejournal entries to catch up on. your lives are mysterious books that i'm about to power-read.
much love and give me a jingle 219-510-7141 (phone really is the best way to talk excluding face2face)
keep well
ian