What a difference...

I woke up this morning after sleeping all night. Amazing. I didn't wake up at 4AM, or any other such scenario. I still plan on picking up my car today and driving it home, dodging the raindrops along the way. I checked the weather and it's supposed to be cloudy all day and a 50% chance of rain this afternoon. Those are odds with which I can gamble. The other thing is that I really don't want to leave my car where it is. It's in the same town where I used to live and where I hit my emotional, physical, spiritual, and legal, bottoms, so I am very wary to have too close a connection there outside of my recovery. So in a couple of hours my mother, the saint, will drive me to the garage and I'll pay $80 to the guy for his labor, hit a meeting, chat with friends, and hightail it home, about 25 miles. Cross your fingers.

All of the above is an example of how I must have control over my life. Having my car 25 miles away doesn't feel safe, so I must have it in the driveway. Whether I drive it or not within the next 6 days will be a total crapshoot, but having the car at home is my first priority. It just feels wrong not having my car. I feel like the guys at jail will know who I am, what I did years ago and will want to vandalize my vehicle in a sneaky way, like spraying WD-40 on the brake discs or something. This is all ego. No one knows who I am, no one remembers, and no one cares. I have since discovered that most people are self-centered to the point that if the news of the day doesn't directly effect them, they gloss over the facts and go straight to the comics and the horoscope. Notice I said "most", not "all".

My level of paranoia over my past can get pretty heavy sometimes. I panic whenever I see someone in a uniform or any kind of official vehicle. My shrink thinks that this is a response to being in jail for 19 months. PTSD. I tend to agree. It's sometimes funny, though, to panic over a uniformed person seen from a distance only to get near enough to see that they are a plumber or something. I guess it's not really funny. I'd like to laugh about the whole thing someday, but I don't see that happening. So for the time being, I'll sneak looks at police cruisers in my rearview mirror, certain that they are going to turn around and give chase; know that when the phone rings, and no one is on the line, that 'they' are just checking to make sure I'm at home; and make sure I check my brakes before I leave the garage...Just in case.

Johnnyboy