Trudging along

So moving. It's stressful. Things happen you don't foresee, both good & bad. I realized I hadn't been going to enough meetings before I left because I got a little crazed during the move. So the minute I got here, ok, the next day, I started going to meetings. I haven't been in California quite 2 months yet but I already have a great group of AA girlfriends, a new sponsor and am working on my 4th step. I KNEW I needed to get to working on steps quickly because I needed to work thru the crazy.
See I've been struggling because besides the stress of moving there is the stress of no money and looking for a job. I hate looking for a job. I hate the whole "pick me, pick me" mentality and feeling like the girl on the playground again. I hate selling myself and trying to make my spotty job history from my drinking days not look so spotty or irresponsible or undependable, especially now that I'm not that girl. Cause I'm not THAT girl anymore. And while I'm running around applying for this, that and the other job, I'm stuffing the fear and homesickness I'm feeling because I'm scared to feel them right now because I worry about teetering on the edge of 'darkness'. I keep thinking I'll deal with those feelings when I'm in a good i've-got-a-job place. Well guess what? I don't think that is the way it's going to happen. I think I need to deal with them now. Partly because they are being blatantly thrown in my face this week.
See one of my new friends here just lost her husband this weekend. I truly believe that one of the reasons I'm not gainfully employed yet is so I can help her thru this time. But helping her means that I also have to face my own past because the memories are flooding in. But I've faced this past before so I know it won't consume me. Just like I know that I don't have the luxury of being depressed or homesickness consume me anymore. I don't know why I try to stuff it, but I do. Old habits maybe. Fear definitely. And then I get mad at myself for having fear of the unknown when it's all new because I'm doing it all sober now. And do you see how I've turned what's happening to my friend into how it's affecting ME? LOL! Hi. I'm Susan and I'm an alcoholic. A SELFISH alcoholic. It is all about me right?
Anyway, what I wanted to say was how much I LOVE this program because I had the greatest conversation with her this morning about how she didn't feel like drinking because she KNEW that wouldn't make it better and that was the same feeling I had when my mom died when I was 2 months sober. How these things really are easier to just walk thru than stuff down deep inside. So while I have incredible sympathy for her and what she will be going thru in the next few months, I'm incredibly proud of her and her actions in this moment. And I miss my mom, my sister, my nana, my old routine and that's OK! I realized a while ago that homesickness is really just not wanting to walk thru whatever you are going thru at the time. It's wanting to go back to a place of certainty and familiarity. And someday THIS moment might be what is familiar.