We Are Not Saints

It is an amazing relief to admit and accept that I am not a perfect person. I've spent so much time in my life trying to be perfect, to live up to some astronomically huge expectations for myself, and I've made myself crazy in the process. Granted, I still have high expectations. 15 months in Al-Anon has not relieved me of all my crazy behaviors. My sponsor's been in almost 17 years and she certainly still struggles with her insanity. :) What we talk about is how we now have tools to recognize and deal with the crazy when it comes up. I see it sooner, and I'm learning to take contrary actions.

I am certainly not perfect at this. It's 17 days into 2011 and I've felt kinda blah during most of the month. It's not my usual January "blah" though - it's not the gray weather or the cold temperatures or the lack of color now that Christmas lights and decorations are down. It's more internal than that. I'm working on my personal inventory for my 4th step and I'm looking at a lot of my own stuff. It's fascinating looking at back at my life and looking at patterns, but focusing on resentments and times when I was jealous or angry or whatever is not so much fun. It's helpful, and it's important, but it's tedious and challenging.

This past weekend I was in Skokie for the We Are Not Saints convention. It's an AA Convention with Al-Anon participation. My home group usually attends in droves (and we perform a skit at the banquet... so fun!) This year was no different, except that I actually got to attend this year. Over the course of the weekend (Friday night through Sunday morning) there were 6 AA speakers and 2 Al-Anon speakers. Each speaker opened the way an AA meeting or an Al-Anon meeting would. For the AA speakers, that meant reading a section out of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, from the Chapter "How it Works". In that section, we read "No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we were willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection." You'd think hearing the same thing over and over again would get repetitive and annoying, but it wasn't. For me, it was powerful and relieving. The consistent reminder that we are not saints, that I am not perfect, was exactly what I needed to hear this weekend. I needed the reassurance that my journey is more important than achieving perfection. I needed the comfort of a loving God who sees that I'm working on my relationship with him and just wants me to take it easy on myself as I work through all kinds of personal changes.

Anyway, it was a good weekend and I wrote down a lot of great tidbits from the various speakers to keep close by as reminders when I'm having an off day. It's what I do on retreats ;) I definitely had to decompress after the weekend, I was more emotionally worn out than I expected to be yesterday afternoon, and I felt emotionally hungover all last night and most of today. Going back to work tomorrow will be good, but I'm glad it's a short shift. I'll go help a program friend pack up for his upcoming move, do some 4th step writing, then go to a meeting. Wednesday I start class and my spring semester routine will begin. I'm looking forward to it, but I have to remember that even while I take it easy on myself, I still need to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.