NOW

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." Abraham Lincoln


Okay, first of all, can I just say that if your last name, or first for that matter, was "Dick," wouldn't you change it as soon as you could? Can you imagine having the name Dick in middle school? Ay, the horrors! Okay, I'm done.

Almost 25 years ago I made a commitment to reality, whatever that turned out to be, by getting and staying clean and sober. And I have done the best I can...or HAVE I?

It's all relative. First it was booze. Then it was drugs. Take them away and it was anorexia and food obsession, which, by the way, will never be perfected as I have to form SOME kind of relationship with food to continue to exist, said relationship also striving toward a healthy reality. Face that, then it's "romance" or as some would say sex, again, not total abstinence but...sane or "healthy"? Face that, then it's money and finances. Again, more of the same.

So let's see now, we've got AA, OA, AlAnon, DA. Oh, and I quit smoking. Without an A.

Now, there have been many, many other sometimes mucho fun and, alternately, somewhat destructive things I have put in the place of these obstacles to the facing of reality, but most of them wouldn't kill me eventually. The one I'm bumping up against most right now is fantasy land. Again, something that won't kill me and doesn't need to go away completely, but right now it's got my laundry piling up and the cupboards bare.

How did I become unpleasantly aware of this? Last night I was with a group that was talking about "self-care" and I could feel myself get really twisted and annoyed. I thought, "I don't relate to this namby-pamby crap anymore, this kindergarten of the basic spiritual search, and I don't feel like sitting through my ABC's again. I know how to take care of myself and I do and blah, blah, blah, hmmmmmm...I'd like to lose some weight [because I've noticed all day that my waistband has been cutting off my circulation] and I wonder if that guy [I was thinking about all day] will call [and we can do what I was imagining] and I wish my hair would grow out longer [like I pictured it looked all day] and I think ...." Non-stop.

Somewhere in the speaking going on around me [while I was thinking], interrupting the busy signal I was creating by chronic self-absorption, a guy I know said the words "self-indulgent" and "alienation." Wham! Back in the NOW.

Here I am again, in the running for another overhaul of my spiritual ABC's. There is such a world of difference between self-care and self-absorption, and I've been living pretty much in the latter. How do I know? I look in between those brackets and see what I've really been up to [all day] versus what's on my to-do (self care) list!! I got a lot done on the Planet Nancy this week, but here on Earth I still need to do laundry, go grocery shopping, get dog food, make a doctor's appointment, set up a dentist appointment, fill out a camp scholarship form and job hunt. Take a shower, read a book, play a game, write a story, make a phone call, have coffee with a friend. All self-care. None done.

I believe in fantasy and I think there's definitely a time and place for it in everyone's life, even daily. But like the definition I found of self-indulgence: "to yield to desires and whims of, especially to an excessive degree, to allow unrestrained gratification (i.e., indulged herself with idle daydreams) - if I can put it into practice in between big chunks of actually living my life it might add to instead of take away. I think it's called pulling oneself back into "living in the NOW."

I am a compulsive thinker by nature. Always have been. Much of the time I know I'm doing it and I'll indulge, even when the phone rings or the doorbell sounds. It doesn't do much for my real world, at least the way I practice it thus far. But wouldn't it be great if I were a compulsive writer-downer of my compulsive thinking and then a compulsive promoter of my compulsive writing down of my compulsive thoughts? Would I need yet another program, I mean other than Quick Books, to add up all the revenue to be made?

Today I'm grateful that learning, particularly learning to be me, is a lifelong process.