March 17, 2005

• No Town Trip Today

  I was ready — as ready as I ever am to leave the comforts of home and
  venture down the valley into the traffic and pollution.  There are
  attractions there, sure.  There’s Greyfox:  that’s a big
  attraction.  And there are stores where I can get the things that
  have been piling up on the shopping list for the last two weeks since
  the last town trip.  This time, there’s also a bonus, a $100 gift
  certificate Greyfox won in a drawing, from Builder’s Bargains. 
  The plan is to use it to get materials to fix the leaky roof — again.

  Still, those attractions are there every day but they don’t get me out
  of here and across those fifty miles to town.  What impels me down
  the valley to Wasilla every two weeks is my commitment to drive that
  van from the rehab ranch to the NA meeting.  I volunteered to do
  it and I mean to keep my commitments.  *sigh*  I blew it
  again.

  This winter, I have missed about as many of those every-other-Thursday
  appointments as I have kept.  On the one hand, it means that when
  I do show up the rehab clients are really glad to see me -there’s
  nobody to take my place when I can’t make it.  The woman who
  drives on those Thursdays between mine has missed her turn a few times
  this winter, too.  When all goes well, the ranchers get two NA
  meetings a week:  one H&I meeting on Monday there in the
  institution, and one outside meeting on Thursday.  This winter,
  they’ve been getting about one outside meeting a month.  AA is
  available more often, but some of them don’t relate to alcoholics as
  well as they do to us dope fiends.  They appreciate it when they
  can get it.

  On the other hand, I have this thing about keeping commitments. 
  For the first thirty years or so of my life, it wasn’t any big
  deal.  Promises were made to be broken, I’d been told.  I cut
  myself a lot of slack.  Then I got involved in that weekly therapy
  group run by the junkies of the Family House program.  They taught
  me the importance of keeping my commitments and the connection between
  that and self-esteem.  My self-image always did take a hit every
  time I broke a promise or made one I knew I couldn’t keep, but I was in
  denial about that for the first half of my lifetime.  I know
  better now.

  That’s why I got that sinking feeling when I turned the key in the
  ignition switch and nothing happened.  And I’d just gotten a warm
  fuzzy feeling because the left front tire that usually goes flat
  between trips hadn’t gone flat this time.  Ups, and downs…
  that’s the way it goes.  I checked wires, cleaned battery posts,
  did every little thing I could think of.  Then while I kept trying
  to call Ray, the neighborhood mechanic, Doug took the voltmeter out and
  determined that the battery is dead.  It’s a new battery, got it
  same time I got the new alternator last fall.  It has gone dead
  before, but never at the same time that the tire goes flat.  They
  take turns, I guess, like my alternate driver and me, and once in a
  while one of them misses a turn, too.

  Greyfox is coming up tomorrow, he said, to bring groceries and
  jump-start the car.  Two weeks from now, I’ll try again to get to
  town.
  

  • 8:17 pm
  • 4 Comments