Lea left an hour early this morning walking to the clinic and the
meeting this morning. She read our usual
morning meditation reading and then was on her way. I had a wonderfully pleasant period of
meditation enjoying a nice sense of bliss that my day was off to a good start
and looking forward to the day ahead.
Our meeting went well. Danica’s
baby is due today. We gave her a little
monkey pendant to let her know how happy we are for her. We also gave the meeting secretary, E, a
fancy coin for his 6 years sober although that will not happen for two more
days on Sunday. It felt good to help
others celebrate their success.
After that, I went to my doctor
and then lunch with Dan. I have a
problem with blood clots and so need to be tested for clotting time every
month. The range is supposed to be
between 2 – 2.5. Today it was a
2.2. Practically perfect.
Lunch with Dan was a bit troubling.
We started lunch once a month 16 years ago. Most times we met regularly. Sometimes he fell out due to problems with
not taking his schizophrenia medication.
He missed meeting with me the last two months. He was having problems with his PC and asked
me to help him with it. I have seven
years experience providing tech support in a call center. I can’t help Dan over the phone with his PC
problems. I spent an hour removing and
deleting crapware that had slowed his PC to a crawl.
We went to lunch at Ivar’s on Aurora.
Dan ordered far more than he could eat.
When I called him on it, he assured me that he would eat it all. When he was trying pocket his side order of
shrimp I called him on that. Dan does
not have the social skills to be sly. I
don’t mind spending a few extra dollars on food. My problem is that I am striving to be his
friend and not his foodbank. It changes
our relationship when he is trying to work me instead of simply enjoying our
time together. Last year, I gave him a
pound of tobacco for his birthday. This
year when he blew me off, he got “happy birthday” on his Facebook page.
I am troubled by his admission that he is smoking pot. His mental health is fragile enough without weed.
Buying him extra food feels like
subsidizing his pot use. Granted, you
can’t get much pot for the price of a side order of shrimp and a couple extra
pieces of fish at Ivar’s. My big problem
is it feels like spending time with an addict in active addiction seeking what
they can get instead of being present in the relationship. That is an undesirable way to spend my time
in relationship with others. This will have to change. There, I just took a blogging timeout to send
him an email addressing my concerns. Now
I feel better.
I am grateful for a blissful morning meditation, a great meeting, a
wonderful doctor and a warm sunny June day in Seattle.
No comments:
Post a Comment