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Blogs by Bill Brent
on accepting one's limitations 1/5/2005 9:46:13 AM
Wrestling with filling my outdoor hot tub (only in northern California!) while doing other things. Juggling multiple priorities. What I learned from this.
Also, my quoting Lauren Bacall on the self-centeredness of men, and my reaction to it.
(first part, written about 3:40 a.m.:)
I'm in bed after finishing about two hours' more work than I'd intended.
I feel dreadful. I just overflowed the hot tub. For over THREE hours. With the cover off the electronics. I hope the water didn't get them and burn them out.
All I wanted to do was fill up the tub a bit to replace some evaporated water. It was really pretty low, and we're going away for a week. We didn't think the
tub was heating at all, but when I lifted the cover around 11 p.m., the water was hot, to my surprise. Despite my intuition, I promised myself that I'd come back and turn the water off after 5 minutes. I never did. I completely forgot until I left the cabin and heard the loud trickling sound.
So the lesson here is not to do two things at once unless I really have to. The tub could have waited until morning. Ironically, I was afraid I'd forget to do
it then!
Now I've wasted countless gallons of water and possibly paralyzed our tub. I'll have to look at it in the morning.
And I really wanted to soak in the tub as a reward for my hard work. Somehow, strangely, that feels like the greater loss.
I'm still very bad at setting limits on my workaholism and enjoying myself. I wish it weren't so hard to unlearn. And after doing so well with not obsessing
about my bowling tonight and just having a good time. One step forward, two steps back....
I'm trying to remind myself that "even when it's not okay, it's okay ... " that mantra I made up a while back ... acceptance that I can't control things sometimes. But somehow it's really hard to accept this ... I overflowed the damn tub at Thanksgiving, too ... I must remember that I can't do two things at once. And that it doesn't make me a bad person. Just accept that I still have to learn to keep things simple and not overdo them.
It's a really hard lesson to learn.
- - - - -
(part 2, written within the past hour:)
I just had a dream that put this all into perspective.
For the time being, I must learn not to let myself get trapped inside "nested DO loops." Again, to quote my sponsor quoting 12-step, "Keep it simple." Balance,
balance, balance. I function best when I am not juggling multiple priorities. Work in serial, not parallel. I have learned to set boundaries about this with others, particularly Doug (my partner), since I am so easily distracted. It saves a lot of resentment.
I'm still working on this with myself, though.
I just have to remember to tell myself, "I can't" when I doubt my abilities, particularly when they involve my short-term memory.
On the plus side, no one was hurt. And I had the water set fairly low, so no, not as expensive as it could have been. Mostly I'm angry with myself because I hadn't learned from my mistake at Thanksgiving. But now I will let it go.
And maybe I will invest in a portable kitchen timer.
The dream? (which is still puny compared to the tsunami headlines I see when I start this computer every morning to work at my craft) ... I loaned my minivan to one of my best friends in NA. Somehow it got away from her and began rolling slowly down the road. She could not keep up with it and somewhat lackadaisically came to tell me so. Then the van came rolling by the house, but by then she was on a phone call and couldn't be bothered to end it to go chasing after the van, when she could have easily caught up to it. I shouted and shouted at her. For some reason, I couldn't move and chase it myself. (paralyzed, helpless ... one of THOSE dreams)
Later I walk through the neighborhood and interrupt an old salt in mid-conversation with his companion and ask if he has seen my van. He has, and tells me its general direction of travel, informing me that it didn't look too good. Finally, thanks to his help, I find the van, which is so totaled that the frame is bent. I burst into tears and cry, cry, cry.
I wake up and am relieved to realize it is still safely parked in the driveway.
I had a body shop give me an estimate on some minor repair work during my rounds yesterday. That was the trigger. The hot tub incident triggered the out-of-control helplessness.
- - - - -
(BONUS ENTRY! excerpts from my email correspondence to a good friend:)
Thank you for clarifying the "intentionality" point. I remarked in my NA meeting on Monday that we can always find an excuse to use. So I think that asking
myself about my intention before getting high, which I have always used as a safeguard for checking myself gradually deteriorated into finding an excuse. And I
knew it.
Thank you for your observations regarding my character. While I was waiting in the lobby yesterday for the estimator to finish his calculations on my van, I
read Lauren Bacall in *People* magazine saying that men are by nature more self-centered than women. (Of course, she is also speaking from a generational
perspective that affects her perspective on this.) I've been feeling some guilt since then in reflecting upon that assessment, particularly with regard to my
communication with you. If this is true, I hope I can either learn to accept it, or learn to change in a way that does not inhibit my generosity of spirit.
