painstaking

I am told by friends who belong to Alcoholics Anonymous that within their literature is a piece called “The Promises”. Listed are a number of promises of a new, healthier, better and even more spiritual way of life – clear rebounds off the self-centered damage from a previous life of substance abuse. My friends tell me “The Promises” begin with this sentence — “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development,” and there’s something about being amazed, and then a host of these clearly described promises fall out.

That’s nice, and it’s a list someone or someones thought up a while ago, and it may not be my list, or your list. I don’t know, I like the idea that there are promises, and right there in the day-at-a-time chance to get to see what they are. Still, if I was writing that particular piece of recovery literature today, I’d write it like this — “If we are painstaking.” Period. And leave it like that. A once upon a time thing.

Decades ago on Tuesday nights in Winchester, Massachusetts a guy named Rod was always saying this – “I’m not who I could be. I’m not who I should be. But, I’m sure not who I used to be.”

If I am painstaking.