Top Five Priorities

I was flipping through some books I have in my collection and this book appeared — F*CK I’M IN MY TWENTIES, A GUIDED JOURNAL — I thought I may give this entry a try, using it as a prompt. I remembered that I am temporarily out of prompts. So here it is…

My Top Five Priorities

1. Continue my daily prayer, rising with the sunrise. Well, it has been pretty early this month. I will soon be back to catching the sunrise. I was an hour late this morning.

2. Love and pray for those family, friends, and neighbors whom I am concerned about. I.E. Two of my four brothers struggle with addictions. One brother's wife just died recently, and the other was divorced last year. I can’t fix them, I can only pray and love them.

3. Take the best care of me I can, as I can’t help anyone else if I am not okay. That saying about the empty cup or the cup half full? I will do something for someone without being found out most days.

Right now, taking care of me means getting back to regular exercise and continuing the eating program I am on. Writing every day, laughing every day, and loving others. Work on an art project regularly.

4. Continue to work part-time as long as possible. This is a more recent one, as I retired in 2016 and thought I might be done working by now. Now, I believe it is something I enjoy, and I can find a replacement and move on to something else. This is fun.

Not staying in a job where it isn’t fun all of the time is not my thing anymore. What is my thing? I am staying with fun jobs, and I can do this in retirement.

5. Always work on my recovery. What that means for me is I will continue to attend support meetings for myself and others. I have enough experience to give back to the newer members, while the newer members remind me and teach me what happens if I go back to addiction or stay in addictive behaviors.

Have they morphed in the last few years?

I wouldn’t say morphed, it is simply more difficult to keep up as life happens. We have a large family and friends group, and there is a wedding here and a funeral there, special gatherings like births and birthdays.

Is there something on the list you wish wasn’t?

I would love to have my brothers in recovery, but that wouldn’t mean that love and prayer would stop, as there are always grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and if we live long enough, great-great-grandchildren.

Grandpa John says he can pick ‘his people’, meaning those who would struggle with addiction, and he is most of the time right in picking grandchildren. Luckily, most of them have had a shot at recovery and appear to be sticking with it. Mid and late twenties, early thirties now.

I have said, couldn’t there be an intervention, young? What about prevention? Do they have to learn this themselves? So far, they do.

This one is tough, as I want to scream sometimes and jump in and commit them. Or ignore them and their lifestyles. Or just ignore them. But no, I am the one to love them, and that means staying in touch. Remembering their birthdays and sending them notes that include, Love you, brother! Or whoever may need my love and prayers.