My first real AA sponsor used to say "faith is when you reach the edge of everything you know, step off, and either find solid ground or learn to fly." He probably stole that saying from somewhere (maybe here?) but it stuck with me. I think we're often trying to find some fancy kind of definition of what faith is. As with a ton of other spiritual or religious ideas, we try to reify and pin down a lot of ideas that really are just experiential and process oriented. We're in it or we are not in it, and we know or we do not know, and that's that/ The world of language can't capture the feel.
Reflecting on this because I was called to take a risk recently and I'm feeling my way through it. My trust in other people and in myself is at an all time low, and it feels so much safer to just be a hermit and say no and isolate. But someone with whom I've been friends and interested in but keeping my distance from, stepped way out and got vulnerable, and it was a challenge to me from the universe, so to speak. I feel we have negotiated a middle ground that makes practical sense, which involves meeting in person over the winter break, after a fairly long while of being only virtual connections. I have 25 years of background in internet social life, and know that sometimes things work virtually but do not work at all in physical presence. As a step toward grounding the friendship in reality, we did talk on the phone, a rare thing for me. The conversation was great. Yet, I still feel deeply wary. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning convinced that going to visit this person was a huge mistake. But by this morning, I felt better about it. I had been at a total loss regarding how to spend my winter break from my teaching job, and this new opportunity to meet someone feels like a relatively safe and only somewhat risky option. Maybe I'll also visit some old Phoenix friends (several of whom are having variously awful times).
In other news, the ex from 2017 has broken up with the man she got rid of me for. Oddly enough, a former student sent a screenshot of one of the ex's FB posts (the ex and I worked at the same school for a long time, so we have a ton of mutuals who are former students), with the tag "whoa, someone needs CoDA!" It was a humorous if somewhat snarky message for sure, from a student who is herself in recovery. Anyway, it sounds like the ex has had a rough time of things. She and I have been 100% out of touch and she has been 360 degree blocked since about May 2017. I admit to feeling some schadenfreude but with little to no actual freude at all. Just an old bitter cinder of resentment and small-souled gladness that she and her paramour have been suffering. I hate discovering this shitty aspect of my own soul, but it was good to note it well, and realize I still have resentments to work through there.
I went out into the vast Mojave Desert for a few nights, and had a spectacular if lonely and somewhat forlorn time. The person—I'll call her L, just to differentiate—is often present in reminders, memories, thoughts. I wish I enjoyed more freedom, but I do not. The overnight lows dropped precipitously on Thanksgiving day, to the point where it was near freezing that night, and what's worse, incredibly windy. Without wind, my camp setup can handle down to about 30 or so and still be fairly comfortable, but my poor old three season tent is really not able to hold much extra heat when it's freezing and windy. My old sleeping bag, which was originally rated to 10 F, has lost so much loft that it's now really a light bag, maybe comfortable to about 40 or so. So Thanksgiving night I tossed and turned and froze my Irish ass off and was *entirely* ready to bail at 5:30 in the morning during a lull in the wind. It was still gorgeous out, as the sun was just starting to light up the east, and Venus high in the sky.
Talked to my 86 year old mother today. She sounds pretty good. Turns out she is taking Zoloft to help with depression. "It's the tiniest pill I ever saw, and it has a little line through it, for a pill cutter. I told the doctor if I cut it, it would disappear!" She's also experience circulation blockage to her big toe, and the doctor said there's no way to perform surgery safely, given her age. So they put her on blood thinners and cholesterol drugs. Having lost her raison d'etre last May, with the death of my father (at 87), I am quite sure the intervening six months have been very difficult for her, but she has always been pathologically cheerful and stoic, and she rarely talks about her emotions.
Here I go, plunging into the weird part of the school year between Thanksgiving and winter break. I think each class that I have only has six regular meetings between now and the next break. Tons of work to do though. It's always an odd time of year, like the downrush of an elliptical.