When Wishes Come True...

I’m grateful for a Friday morning. I’m grateful for a really good week. I’m grateful for adventure and the unexpected. I’m grateful for what is. I’m grateful letting things come to me. I’m grateful for quiet and peace and coffee. I’m grateful to be sober today.

song of the week:

Officially, the first piece of recorded music I was able to call my own, was by the Monkees: “Last Train to Clarksville,” which I carefully cut off the back of a Honeycombs cereal box and actually played on the record player. My favorite Monkee’s song would be “Stepping Stone,” which is a really dark song for a TV band conceived to appeal to ten year-olds on Saturday mornings:

Of course I love it very much for exactly that reason. It applied perfectly to my very ephemeral and mostly imaginary junior high relationships. I’m no one’s stepping stone, not even you, Jamie S., reading all them high-fashion magazines and going on bowling dates with my now ex-best friend, Kent K.

Now, perhaps you’re wondering, why is that first song, “I’m a Believer,” the song of the week when you just said that “Stepping Stone” is really a much better song? If you want to know the truth, it’s the same reason that I also didn’t choose this song:

Because it’s not clear what I’m going to write about then. By the way, “Say Anything,” is one of my favorite movies and features one of my favorite scenes from any movie ever:

I’m going to ask you a personal favor here, please watch that scene. Even if you never click on anything, which is a lot of you, you should. But back to the song of the week, “I’m a Believer,” actually resides on my main, everyday playlist and I like it much better than the Smashmouth/Shrek version, which is noticeably not posted here.

Am I vamping here? Maybe. I know there’s a lot of inner drama and self-realization uncorked on these pages and even I need a break from all that meaningfulness sometimes. At the same time, things are really, really good in TBD-land. I vaguely make mention of the people who very mysteriously have come into my life and helped me get where I needed to go. I was talking to one of those people yesterday about what happens when the universe grants wishes.

2023 was, in retrospect, a very hard year for me. As I reach the end of 2024, I see even more clearly how hard it was and how much there was to cope with. Anyway, one particularly dark day, I was sitting at my desk and had been writing or something. I was tired and stressed and pretty fearful about where things were going, or not going.

I’m not a frequent prayer. I never really understood the concept of prayer. I do try to say thank you to the great force in the universe, whatever it is, on a pretty regular basis and there are occasionally semi-mysterious, direct communications. But I don’t do the get on my knees and pray thing, unless I’m in church and everyone else is. That day, I definitely did one of those foxhole prayers; we alcoholics are pretty famous for those. Here was a typical example of one of mine from the olden days:

“Please don’t let X find out Y.”

It was never really clear what was owed (or to whom) when those prayers were answered. For sure, I was pretty grateful.¹ That particular day, on that dark morning, I stared out the window in front of my desk, at the island that I believe could be named for me, and I just thought this:

If I can please just stay here and keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t need much else and I could be very happy.

I wasn’t trying to manifest the accoutrements of the old life, I wasn’t wishing for transformation or fame or power or wealth. I just wanted to keep sitting at my desk in my lovely den and write and listen to music, take long walks and play basketball in the park, and work on things I think are interesting, love my kids and their kids, and so on² —and let the life I was meant to lead come to me, a piece at a time, a day at a time. At the moment, even making that pretty spartan ask, seemed pretty f****** extravagant.

I don’t think it was even all that detailed, it might have just been,

“Please let me keep what I’ve found.”

Here I am. I’m not sure of the exact date of that prayer, sometime last October-ish or maybe November. But here I am. Sitting in the same chair, looking at the same view (although a plant I’m sponsoring is now part of the view) and realizing I got exactly what I prayed for.

This is what my friend and I were talking about yesterday. She said that she realized her simple (maybe too simple) prayer had been answered as well, leading to that “now what?” moment that sometimes attends the granting of wishes and prayers.³ We both laughed, maybe we should have asked for more. But that was exactly the problem. As long as I was compiling a list of things I wanted and including those in my “prayers,” well, even when I get some of the requested items, I found I ended up getting even more resentment as part of the package. In the olden days, I spent my time seething about the wishes that went ungranted, instead of appreciating the beauty and meaning of the ones that were.

The Big Book talks about living a life beyond our wildest dreams; I’m not sure my dreams are all that wild anymore. During the dark days, I dreamed about living a life that I didn’t have to hide, being a person I didn’t need to obscure or alter, doing the simple things that produced joy in my own life and helping others when I could.

My friend and I realized that the universe had granted our respective petitions and we both had the sense that maybe we should have asked for a little more? The thing is, it’s hard for me to imagine what “a little more” would even be. I have finally built a home for myself, perhaps it’s a cocoon, but it’s all mine.

A Caterpillar Year

I guess it’s true, the life I’m leading is one that was beyond my wildest dreams when I was drinking. I found a life of purpose and meaning and happiness and sadness and love and loneliness and kindness and disappointment and connection and excitement and mystery.

I’m not sure what I would even use the other three wishes for.

Happy Friday.

1. Imagine an honest gratitude list during the big drinking years…

2. Yes, that’’s a very subtle announcement.

3. Hopefully, I started by asking for 3 more wishes/prayers.