Brrrr.... a moment of clarity

My furnace stopped working last night. I woke this morning, turned on the heat, and realized it did not magically start working again overnight.
Coming from a family of heating and air conditioning people, I make one phone call to my step dad. He not only knows what is wrong, but has the part needed to fix it.
He will eat breakfast and be right over.
For a brief moment, I was like EAT BREAKFAST? My mercury is dropping and you can't come right now??
As I sit here in my below 0 house, I realize how fortunate it I am. One phone call, and a two hour wait and I will soon be warm again. No money out of my pocket. The pay will be a cup of coffee and some blueberry scones. How can I be anything more than grateful for that? Thank Gawd my family was not in the pool business.
As I sit here freezing, my mind wandered to the homeless. (as it often does). There are people who may have slept outside last night. No one is coming to fix their heater.It's possible someone died last night due to the freezing conditions. They have no where to go during the day to get warm.
All I have to do is put on extra coats and gloves, which I have plenty of, and wait it out a couple of hours. Not too bad.
Sometimes, it takes something like no heat for a minute to make me realize how lucky I really am in comparision to some. I feel bad for being pissed my dad had to eat before rushing over here.
But I do wish they would hurry..............BRRRRRR.


jb

New Years Day................

New Years Day. It's always a very important day in my life as it means I made it another year clean. Some years seem more special than others. This year, I couldn't quite grasp what I was feeling, nor was I trying to0 hard to figure it out. Just trying to let it pass.
I just returned from a meeting. That's when it hit me. 17 years clean. When they asked if any one had multiple years of clean time today, I walked up and got my keytag,sat back down and tried to stop the tears I felt coming. Tears of gratitude? Tears of sadness? Just tears. Sometimes there is no definition for them.
What I do know is I was thankful at that moment for the man who took me to my first meeting in a little church basement in Northeast Portland 17 years ago. Thankful that he drove me to one every day after that for months on end. Thankful that he let me cry and thankful that he watched me detox and told me I never had to feel that way again. He was right. I have not had to.
That same man snuck onto my porch last night and left me a gift. A plant, a balloon and a card. At first this struck me as odd and a little disturbing given the circumstances.
After much thought, I am no longer disturbed. But the tears continue to flow. Tears of gratitude ,tears of sadness or just tears so I know I am still alive, I do not know. But they won't stop.
The balloon waves around my kitchen and it reminds me too much of the man who took me to that first meeting. The man that told me everything would be ok if I just kept coming back.

jb