Day 73, Be Brave Project; Hummous and Heartache

Yesterday I did something that I've done only once or twice before--I went out for a meal after the women's meeting. Socializing with fellow lushes from AA is something that I never, ever thought I would go in for; thought they'd all be so busy tucking their toes into the torn cloth of their shoes, or going down to the soup kitchen for seconds on that dishwater minestrone. Of course, sadly, there are homeless people in AA, and people who have hit extremely low bottoms.

But the majority of people, of course, have jobs. Have homes that they live in and a sufficiency of shoes. . .it's still not a festival of mental health, but neither are most crowded subway cars nor, now I think of it, were the social events in my graduate school. I have a great fondness for Columbia University, but there's no denying that the School of the Arts is a breeding ground for the high-strung. Someone once dropped a plate at an end-of-semester party, and you had to crowbar my colleagues off the ceiling.

Anyway, my lunch yesterday was with two women who work in the media, both as writers for very successful television shows and magazines. They own their own houses (ooh I'm jealous of that), they dress beautifully and have the sort of resumes that most people can only dream of. . .but both are very funny, and occasionally rattled by anxieties and insecurities. It was such an enjoyable afternoon--from the outside we looked like successful Manhattan career women, swathed in camel hair coats with high wedge shoes and expensively angled haircuts--but it felt like junior high school. We sat and ate bowls of hummous and thick yogurt, and kept ordering more and more of the warm fresh thick pita bread. Laughed over Jessica's husband having to put his foot down over the amount of lame ducks she brings home ("No more Virgins or refugees!"), and over Maya's attempts to get her cat to lose weight.

I left afterwards feeling very good because a) it was the first sugar free meal I'd eaten since Friday, and b) it's just healing to laugh with women friends.

Then, when I got home last night, I received an email from my father--a weighty and worrying thing. Very kindly inviting me down for Christmas, but also filled with anxiety and dread over his financial state and reflecting his wife's anxieties about the future, after he dies. She likes to talk about that alot. Now she is 'justifiably' doubtful that my brothers and I will be there for her. . .and she and my older brother's wife are quarreling over Catholicism, mutual insecurities, and a well-intentioned party last summer that went horribly wrong when it was decided we were insulting my step-mother.

Which we weren't. I always liked her--but now insecurities and rage and resentments are simmering on low boil and things don't seem to be cooling down. Resentments are very damaging things for alcoholics--for anyone, really--and everyone is throwing shit and blaming others for their dirty hands.

I want to stay out of it, but don't see how I can. My interests are being threatened by people who aren't quite balanced, and my happiness is dampened by how hurt everyone is and how willing to throw blame around. Why not just give it time and assume things will work out well?

Why not, indeed.

Wish I had some more hummous.