Let me tell you about my Saturday.
I had made plans.
Now, I have been sober long enough to know that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with making plans. In fact, one often needs to plan their day in order to get the stuff done that needs to get done. If one is the busy little bee that I am, this is often very important.
SO....(stop laughing) I made my plans.
Saturday was going to be my day to get all the Christmas shopping done. I was going to go to my ladies meeting, go to a memorial service for the father of a sponsee, get my pedicure and manicure (because I have fake knees I sometimes cannot reach my feet so have to have someone else cut my toenails before I ruin stocking and stocking), get my shopping done, go to Confession, go to Mass and then get all my Christmas cards to my sponsees and my sponsor DONE. Sunday was going to be plain old hang out day...watch my Niners play the Rams and just have a do nothing day.
Saturday began exactly as planned. Then, as I was about to leave for the meeting I got a call from a family member who needed some help with something. I figured out I could do this by stopping by the memorial service, giving a hug, signing the book and then going to her house....which would have worked except when I got into my car at the memorial service the light that means "go get your oil changed" popped on....so I went to the family member's home and did what I could (which was mostly listen), stopped and made an appointment for later for the mani/pedi and then headed out to the Honda place to get the hybrid serviced. An hour later I was making a stop to check out the Goodwill store for possible presents (none were available) when the phone rang. No big deal - it was one of us, struggling with five days of sobriety after a relapse. I sat in the car and we talked for about an hour. At which time it was off to get the mani/pedi done...and it was there my day went completely goofy.
I was holding my iPhone, getting into the mani/pedi chair and kerPLUNK....I dropped the phone into the water.
Yes. You read that right. The phone, with all the information, went into the drink.
Now...I was not really worried about the information. I have that iCloud/MobileMe thing and new I could recover everything....however, that was NOT what I wanted to have to deal with instead of going shopping.
I sat in that chair, seriously wondering if I would be justified in a) threw a tantrum and made everyone in the shop right then suffer along with me the pain of dropping a perfectly good smartphone into a bucket of scented water filled with my feet or b) bursting into tears at the unfairness of life because I was not going to have time to go shopping.
Guess what I choose to do?
I sat there with my fingers in acetone and my feet in bubbly water and prayed.
My 12 step program has taught me the importance of giving my life to a power greater than myself. My Catholic Faith has confirmed that importance over the years, for without the power of the Sacraments, the Love of Christ for His Church and the protection of Our Lady I would have imploded long ago under the pressure of trying to be a sober, dignified woman of grace.
Tonight I spoke with a sponsee about the importance of the Traditions in our lives, in particular the use of Tradition 4. It was that Tradition that taught me that I mattered - what I say matters, what I do matters and how I present myself to the world matters. I impact those around me and I can choose today whether that impact will be positive or negative.
So today I chose to be a positive impact on those around me. I know I cannot do it alone and so I chose to rely upon the grace of the loving and powerful God who created me, who knows me better than I know myself, and who died for me so that the gates of heaven could swing open for all eternity. I chose to be a woman of dignity, a woman of grace and a sober drunk rather than a drinking drunk.
Oh and by the way - I upgraded to an iPhone 4. Not the iPhone 4s (too expensive) but at least now I have FaceTime....of course, I don't know anyone else who has face time but I have face time.
And the Niners won their division for the first time in 9 years.
Life is good.
And the weekend? It is almost OVER.
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