Connecting with others is the pathway to sanity. . .

My husband and I just returned to our winter residence in Florida.  Each time we have made this trek south, I have done so with mixed feelings.  I love MN.  I feel very attached to both family and friends there.  I got sober there. Met my husband there.  My sponsor is there.  But now I am here.  For 21 years we have moved between the two locations.  It’s not that the move is fraught with problems.  Not at all.  It’s just that until I get reconnected on this end, I am like a fish out of water.  Slightly depressed.  A bit lost.  Not entirely comfortable in my own skin.

And then I go to a meeting.  Home.  Home once again.  How lucky we are that home is truly where the heart is and my heart is in 12 step rooms.  I’ve concluded that the ennui, the discontent, is because of being out of my routine for a few days.  I think I conclude this every year, actually, but then I “disremember” it.  Disremembering is different from forgetting, I think.  Disremembering is what the ego causes to happen.  When I reconnect with friends on this end, it’s like reopening a gift that I have put away for awhile because I treasure it so much.

That’s how I felt at the Monday Al-Anon meeting.  There they were.  All my southern friends in their chairs just as I had left them.  The discussion was focused on the gifts of the fellowship because there were some newcomers.  I was so pleased, as always, to remember for myself and recount for others all that I have received from filling a chair in Al-Anon.  My life was headed to a miserable dead-end before discovering the gifts of connecting with others who understood my pain and were able to share their experiences for living the better life.  Connection.  It’s all about connection.

I so appreciate that connection isn’t reserved just for the 12 step rooms.  It’s a behavior, a state of mind, a spiritual philosophy.  I know that when I connect with others in meetings or in the grocery store, I am honoring the spirit each of us has been born with.  When we isolate ourselves, when we look down rather than at the others on our path, we disengage from all that it means to be alive.  I’m not sure I knew any of this before coming into the rooms of the fellowship, but it know it now.  And I am so grateful that I have been shown the value of connection.  It makes every moment of living sizzle with excitement.