Rushing

Yesterday evening I was headed out the door to go to an AA meeting at a little before 8. Most uncharacteristically, I was running late. I had turned out all the lights in the house and walked in the dim twilight across the rec room to turn on the patio light when I realized I had a glass of water in my hand. "This should go back to the kitchen," I thought. So after I turned on the light I reversed course back to the kitchen, walking fast and....

BAM! I walked directly into the low blanket chest which has served as a coffee table for us for a long time and went sprawling over. Water went everywhere. Somehow, however, I didn't even break the glass, much less any bones or the glasses on my face. Once I ascertained that I was basically OK, though I have some booboos on my shins and a little bit on one knee, I was immediately filled with gratitude. I grabbed a towel, cleaned up the water, and continued on my way.

This brought to mind one of the greatest pieces of concrete wisdom I've heard in AA. I heard someone share about being late for a meeting or something and being trapped behind someone at a light who wasn't going right on red quickly enough, and therefore getting really annoyed and honking. When this person told her sponsor about it, the sponsor said "It sounds like you should probably leave home earlier." So true. Not that I have perfectly internalized this, obviously.

Probably what I shouldn't have done was stop to talk to my neighbor John when I was coming home from my run. But I hadn't seen him in a long time and he showed me some truly excellent crystals he had found that day out near Asheboro when he had gone crystal-hunting. So you have to take the bad with the good.