Birmingham, AL: After our show in Biloxi last night, I hoisted myself into my bunk, stretched out my legs as far as I could (while avoiding the computer and toiletries bags shoved at the end of my feet) and let out a deep sigh. This has been a long week.
I took a quick inventory of my activities over the last few days:
*the hurry-up-and-wait of the CMA rehearsals and show (including running into some old friends and seeing some others I’d like to forget)
*missing my final painting class… not for any other reason except that I just forgot!
*an emotionally charged and, sadly, seemingly final dinner with a sweet friend
*sifting through two months of hotel bills and other company credit card charges in anticipation for my FIVE PAGE amex bill. Oh... and preparing for the final two weekends of shows.
*pre-holiday family tension which I praying will dissipate by the time I purchase my pre-cooked Thanksgiving meals
*a night on the town where I somehow forgot that mixing alcohol was NOT a good idea (though rescued by a there-when-you-need-me / no-questions-asked friend) and following it up with an all day self-deprecating recovery period
*and, of course, the typical lay-in-bunk-and-think self inventory: confused, doubtful, embarrassed…. but incredibly grateful
Yeah, I’m exhausted. And I’m also preparing for the biggest (as in, biggest guest list that I handle) show on the tour – in Birmingham, a mere 3 hours from Nashville.
So I scrolled through my email on my iPhone, searching for the final goodnight kiss to send me off to sleep and retrived my “Just For Today” daily meditation. This is what we read on Wednesday mornings at Thistle Farms. It’s drawn from Narcotics Anonymous and though I’m not directly involved with that organization, I feel that most of the lessons covered by it resonate closely with my own personal struggles.
This is a snippet from today's meditation that touched close to home:
“We are not going to be perfect. If we were perfect, we would not be human.
All of us had expectations about life in recovery. When we stop and think, we realize that we expected recovery would make us perfect. We didn’t expect to continue making many mistakes. But we do. That’s not the addict side of us showing through; that’s being human.
Perfection is not an attainable state for human beings; it’s not a realistic goal. What we often seek in perfection is freedom from the discomfort of making mistakes. In return for that freedom from discomfort, we trade our curiosity, our flexibility, and the room to grow."
With that last thought lingering in my head, I took another deep breath and thanked God for my incredibly long week.