How Is My Book Not Written Yet?

I feel a little guilty that I haven’t learned a second language by now, or learned to play a Rachmaninoff concerto or, I dunno, written a book. I’ve been retired a week, already. 

I recommend.

I had a perfectly lovely time at brunch Friday with my friend Susan S. Like me, she’s a transplant from the metro DC area, where she had also lived and worked for an undisclosed number of decades.  

She finally retired at the urging of her husband, who wanted them to spend their Golden Years doing all the golden things. They moved down here a couple of years ago, but still have their place in Maryland. Remodeling on their property there and some pesky health issues take her back quite often. We like to relive the “old days” from our years in DC, and she keeps me up to date on new developments gong on up there. 

It’s not lost on me though, that Susan is also a volunteer with the program I just resigned retired from. She was the first the only volunteer I successfully onboarded in my two years with the program. Now certified by the state to do program outreach, she’s been helping us them cover the 5 counties in their region, showing up at health fairs, senior centers, churches — wherever she’s needed. 

I had the distinct impression that Susan had called me for lunch now — during my first week away from it all — as an act of tacit kindness: She’s been exactly here. Like most of the happy, well adjusted retirees I’ve encountered (they aren’t all, you know — happy and well adjusted, I mean), Susan has taken proactive steps to fill her days. That's why she’d become a volunteer with my program in the first place, and how two DC refugees came be having brunch on this beautiful Friday morning in SW Florida. 

“Retirement feels weird,” I told her as we finished up. “Like, I’m supposed to be somewhere that I’m forgetting.” 

“That’ll pass,” she said. “And then you’ll be looking for new places to be.” 

* * *

My new home away from home.

I got to the Bayshore Club a few minutes early. It’s the recovery place I had checked out the day before. Wow, big room, pretty full. I’d estimate about 40 people, mostly older. I’ve been touring the rooms enough these last few years to know that every AA venue like this has its old seasoned bulls, and it was no exception here. Each had to take his turn voguing during the open share, but I found the predictability comforting. 

The program itself was run in a calm, professional manner with a structure and a cadence — dare I say a ritual? — that I suppose addicts find soothing. I’ll admit (grudgingly), that I do. Anyway, they managed to keep things moving along nicely while still dedicating a solid 20 minutes for open mic.  

I also appreciated that the program itself wasn’t particularly heavy on the “god talk.” I’m not a big believer in magical beings or supernatural interventions. It’s the main drawback to AA in my opinion. But if there were more than a few true believers in the room, there were also plenty of agnostics like me. It’s their space, their way. If I want atheistic purism I’ll go to SMART Recovery, lulz.

I'm not a huge fan of AA, for reasons I've written about elsewhere. Too godly, too cultish, too this, too that. But at the end of the day, none of that matters. I go to AA for one simple and important reason: To be around people who "get it." People who are wired the same way genetically, who have shared in the specific and unique hell that is untreated addiction.

I'm very lucky to be surrounded by non-addicts. I'm fortunate to somehow be the only one in my inner circle who struggles with this. My friends and family have never struggled with alcohol the way I do. 

They mean well, and I cannot overstate my sincere gratitude for their support and encouragement these last few years. But here's some truth: No matter how well intended, no matter how supportive, no matter how persistent and long-suffering they may be? They still don't get it, and they never really will. 

So: The Bayshore Club it is. I'm glad to have found them, and glad I've started going. They seems like a fine group, as groups go. I’ll start showing up on the regular next week. 

* * *

I make stuff.

On the way home, I decided to stop at Michaels for a quick smash & grab. I was running low on the tiny, microscopic beads I’m currently preoccupied with. I suppose this is where I should take a moment to explain my peculiar bead obsession. 

Listen, I know there’s nothing more boring than listening to someone else drone on about their fucking stamp collection or whatever. I’ll keep it brief: I string beads. I’m not really sure why it brings me peace, but I’m trying not to over think it. 

It started during Covid when everyone was still in lockdown (and my parents died, and I relapsed with alcohol, and my relationship ended, and my job went to shit) and things were tough.  

It was about then, on one particularly dark and shitty day that I stumbled upon a box of old agates I’d tucked away years before and forgotten about. 

I’ve always been captivated by small, sparkly things and on that particularly dark and despairing day, as the walls began to cave in on everything and everyone I’d ever loved or cared about, I absently began to put these little agate beads onto an old length of old cord. And disappeared for awhile.

I fuckin love this thing,

 The rest, as they say, is history. Now there’s a million beads in my house, beads of every size and description, beads in every nook and cranny, including some that are (supposedly) thousands of years old, collected from all over the world. There’s an Etsy shop that I struggle to keep up with, and which maybe, hopefully I’ll now be able to catch up on. 

Anyway, I’m into this bead thing for hundreds of dollars at this point, and I have no intention of stopping.   

Right now, for example, I’m working on a beaded strand to complement a bronze age arrowhead that I recently bought from a guy in Greece. It’s a real show stopper, a two-bladed artifact from the Iron Age, dating anywhere from the 6th - 11th century BC. Made of pure copper, it measures 39 x 10 mm and weighs just over 4 grams. I have several metal arrow heads from the same period, and I’m hoping to have them strung &  listed in the shop this week.