Commitment

This picture is totally unrelated to the blog.

I need to make a solid commitment to and at this blog. Just like I bring the literature in one of my women’s meetings each week, it’s important that I begin updating this space regularly. Not simply because it is good to regularly update a regularly updated blog, but because I know this kind of commitment, the kind where I say I’m going to do something and then I do it, is the kind of thing that builds esteem.

Jill would call it an esteemable act.

I often feel guilty when I don’t update this space. I had been feeling guilty that I hadn’t approved all the comments, and I’d told myself that I had to respond to each comment before I approved and posted it. I feel guilty because in my mind I have millions of hours to do any and everything I want to do and in my mind I am not choosing to take care of this, one of the things that has provided me with so much. Finally, I had to approve without responding, though I read and appreciate each word. The truth is that I do not have millions of hours in which to do any and everything and for the past week and a half, I have not chose to update this blog. Doing the priorities thing. Which to me, means that recovery is working in my life because I am able to put the things that must come first, first, and the things that can wait, will and did wait.

Now that all that is out, I need to write a list of priorities here so that I can stick with it and be held accountable.

1. Recovery.

• Recovery, sobriety and the anonymous programs in which I take part must always come first. Though those programs will continue to remain anonymous at the levels of press, radio and film, my participation in 12-step will not.

2. Relationships/Self-care

• The solid relationships I’ve built (or that *** has placed in my life) must come in right behind recovery and sobriety. I’m speaking in a much more general way than the relationship with Mr. Man, although that is a relationship I must tend and nurture. I’m talking every relationship I have, from Mr. Man to my yoga teacher to my boss to my teachers. I must take care to treat the people in my life today, as I wish to be treated tomorrow (heard that in a meeting… awesome…). This priority is something I will manage throughout all the rest, it falls into the first priority and will fall into the last.

3. School/Internship (yay I passed the exam!)

• Being that I have a year left before my undergrad is finished, and a year left before I begin applying for grad schools, I must keep in mind the scope of ticking time that may or may not feel like impending doom. I need to make time for my studies. I need to make time to research schools so that I do not chose the “best” school in terms of money, property and prestige and instead chose the “best school for me.”

4. Career: To Write, To Speak, To Sit a Table

Over the past three and a half years I’ve been blessed with the bounty of great jobs and this year is proving to be no less bountiful than the rest.

• Writing: With the publication of the book now (out of the way?), it’s important for me to tend to the thing that I’d like to go on doing forevers. I want to write, and in order to do that, I must actually write. Like, all the time. I’m working on the script version of IAJ with my friend, colleague and mentor, Sarah Tomlinson. I am writing a short story about a small town girl from Hackensack MN who gives up her dreams of big city diamonds to pursue Land of Lakes love. I am keeping with this space, Huffington, and have been speaking with the people over at Renew about becoming a blogger there. The problem is that I am only focusing on 2 of those 5. With the inevitable approaching normalcy of my school schedule, I need to take some time and rework my day. Summer has been a whahooo, let’s do it all, all the time, time. With school approaching, I need to schedule a day to write for BecomingJennie, for Huffington, and for Renew, if I am blessed enough to write for them as well, a regular day there. Clockwork. I need these things to be regular and like clockwork. Like my meeting commitment. Which I may need to take another!
• Speaking: I spoke last week at the Pasadena Recovery Center and man, was it freaking awesome. It was incredible to be able to stand with a group of my peers, their family and friends, and share my experience, strength and hope. It was incredible to be honest with people while looking in the eyes of those people, as it is not quite the case in the blogosphere. So I contacted the Simon and Schuster speaking engagement peeps and now have an agent. Siiiiick. I must get them my profile today…
• Seating a Table: This is the groundwork. This is where I can connect with people on a super human-humble and simultaneously super spiritual-ethereal way. Not because I find my meditation in seating a table, but because I’d like to find meditation in every action throughout my day. I’d like to find meditation in every interaction with you. Because you make me feel closer to the God of my understanding.

5. Everything else:

• Is there anything else?

So I would like your input on the updating of BecomingJennie. Would you like Monday morning? Wednesday morning? Friday morning? It’s time to get regular.

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Tagged: 12-step programs, ending, i am jennie, identity, life, love, Pasadena Recovery Center, prepared, recovery, Sarah Tomlinson, therapy

Posted in: Beautiful Days, Game Plan and Progress, Recovery Days, Totally Awesome Days