Rainy day Monday...

This is our second day of rain. Everything is dark, gray, and depressing. You can sense the mood of most people in the office. Low patience tolerance even though it's only a three day work week people are already crabby. It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is here upon us. Alex and I will be helping at the AA Alano club to prepare and serve a Thanksgiving meal to those who have no where to go. Then we'll come home and have a Thanksgiving meal with Grace, Sam and my mom. Hubby is away hunting. I've noticed a lot of impatience with people lately. It seems the closer we get to the holiday season the worse that impatience gets. When I hosted the "We are Not Saints Group" meeting Thursday evening a man whom I've seen in other meetings showed up. He was full of talk of himself, critical of others, and in general made me rather uneasy. As I was cleaning up I over heard him talking to another meeting goer about his manic depression and how he feels so good that he took himself of all his medication. This
other man kept telling him that he shouldn't take himself off his meds and that he needs to see his dr. Nope the first man said he was sick of Dr.'s
and that he didn't need any stinkin medication. Well Saturday came and this mad showed up at the 11:00 meeting with a list in hand. Which he proceeded to read off, and basically took everyone's inventory and then told everyone to f--- themselves before storming out. Obviously this person is in pain, is seriously mentally ill and needs his doctor. The mood was somber and quiet and then an old timer began to speak. He said he was shocked at how rude the man was, but he also knew where he was coming from. Ten years before this mad had done the same thing. He was so angry with himself, and the program and the people that he came in and unloaded one Saturday morning. Yelling and screaming and leaving in a rage he swore he would never come back. But after a while he realized that he was just angry and bitter with himself. He hadn't worked the program of AA honestly. He had tried to do things an easier softer way, and it didn't work. So he put his tail between his legs and apologized and came back to the club. From that point on he never looked back. He knew what the man was going through. So much pain, disappointment and disgust with himself that he wanted to blame the whole world. I was glad that this gentleman had spoken up. He made me stand in the other person's shoes for a while. So instead of leaving hurt I went home and put the man's name in my God box. It's so easy to dismiss someone who "unloads" as nuts or crazy but we never really take the time to see the pain they are in. I lack patience a lot but since Saturday I've been taking a deep breath and trying to look at things from the other side. It can be confusing, and humbling, and revealing all in one, but it definatley opens your heart up as well as your mind. And that's always a good thing, rainy day or not......