End of the Middle of Life
Journeys Through the Past, Into the Now
Of Journeys and Discoveries
So, 2020, and the decade of the 20’s, seems to be revealing itself to be a time of journeys and discovery. Just ten days in, and we’re about to embark on our second journey of the young decade and new year.
Last week, it was back to where it all began, to Pittsburgh, which always is a journey on many levels for me. That’s the place where I first tasted life, first looked around and discovered an amazing world outside of myself, and began the larger journey of this life that I am still (counting on longevity, here) only coming to the end of the middle of.
I am 65, but that always comes with an implied “and going on 100” when I say it. So, mathematically I’m at the end of the middle third of life. In my 66th year, which I’m in, I get to wrap up all of the “middle of life” business, and begin to prepare for the final third.
I find this an exciting way to look at my life. I still have so much more to learn, about living here on this rock, this planet, this place called earth. I cannot possibly imagine not living to triple digits, and even then, I could see myself bargaining with God for “just a little more time, a few more years, Dude”, because I know there will be more that I’ll want to learn before I go.
Savoring the Lessons
You see, I am a very slow learner. I like to savor these lessons as I go. I tend towards a bit of tunnel vision for whatever my current lesson is teaching me, so I miss a lot of the rest of what’s going on. So, I like to go back to figure it out later on, once I come out of the tunnel, if that makes any sense. It does to me.
Pittsburgh did not disappoint. Wow, what a trip that first one was! Now that I seem to be in this mode, this eyes-wide-open, letting long-closed doors swing open to reveal little nuggets of truth and life that remained behind those doors for years, I walk forward on this journey with that much more truth about who I am, and where I’ve been.
Let The Sunshine In!
In this, the final year of my second third of life, I feel like I have nothing more to hide, no more fears to keep safely locked away. Life keeps offering these wonderful opportunities to let the sunshine into these dark, little corners of my heart that I didn’t even know were there, and I just keep saying, “Yes, by damn, let the Goddamned Sunshine In, already!” (Anyone who grew up in Pittsburgh, or who ever spent a few days there, will appreciate the sunshine allusion, here. We didn’t see much of the sun, growing up there. Now that most of the steel mills are gone, they see a little more than we did, then — but not that much.)
So, speaking of sunshine, Journey #2 of this new month, year, decade is down to Virginia Beach, for an NA Convention. You know, I have no idea what to expect there, what doors will open and reveal some new kernel of truth long since tucked away somewhere that the sun don’t shine. All I do know for sure is, the sun WILL be shining, there! If that’s all the weekend winds up being about, that’ll be just fine. If more is revealed, it’ll all be gravy.
Virginia Beach Memories
There’s a number of potential threads for that. First, there’s Virginia Beach. I have memories of there going all the way back to 1966 when, as an 11 year old, I had been allowed to plan a family vacation there, for my large (9 of us) family, who all came, and a few brought a friend along, as well. I think there were 13 of us that stayed in the cottage I found there, on my own, when I had written letters to chambers of commerce all up and down the east coast shore communities, from Maine down to South Carolina, finally settling on a deal I made with a realtor in Virginia Beach.
I’d had my first taste of the ocean two years before, when we’d driven down to Atlantic City, from Pittsburgh, to pick my older brother Chris up from that shore town, where he’d spent the summer working at a YWCA. He was 16 at the time. The next year, we’d driven down to Ocean City, NJ, to pick brother Ken up, who was 16 that year, and had also spent the summer working in Ocean City.
After those brief tastes of this marvelous thing called the ocean, with the wonderful smells, sights and sounds of a seaside resort town, music to this Pittsburgh kid’s senses, I had bugged Mom endlessly for us to take a vacation week to the shore. She’d finally, in exasperation, said, “Damnit, Pete, if you really want to do that, go ahead and plan it. I don’t have the time” (She had gone back to college, at age 42, to finally get the degree she had started working towards when she was 16, her age when she’d spent one year attending Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh).
Planning a Family Vacation — at Age 11!
I didn’t have to check to see if she really meant it, because my Mom never said anything that she didn’t really mean. I pulled out a map of the eastern United States, picked out about a dozen shore towns that I liked the sound of their name, and began writing letters to the Chambers of Commerce (CoC) for each town.
The CoCs, in turn, sent me lots of information, including real estate office addresses and phone numbers, and I got right on it. Within a few weeks, I’d had it whittled down to Cape May, NJ, Virginia Beach, VA, and Myrtle Beach, SC.
When I found the cottage we wound up staying at, I negotiated a price my family could afford (I even threw in some of my newspaper route and bakery earnings to cinch the deal), and we had a memorable vacation that none of my siblings ever forgot. It was actually probably the last vacation we ever all took together, until we all spent a week at the South Carolina shore for Mom’s 80th birthday, but by then, Dad was 8 years gone.
The first time Kathy and I did a getaway weekend to Virginia Beach, I went and found the cottage my family had stayed at there, those many years ago. It was still there! I had to marvel at what I had accomplished at age 11. In a family of over-achievers, I had always considered myself the dumb one, the “less than normal” kid who struggled just to keep up, most of the time.
As an adult, I have come to realize that there was nothing normal about who and what I was, even as a snot-nosed kid in Pittsburgh. I can’t imagine too many 11 year-olds pulling off what I pulled off, planning that vacation. Then again, not many had the Mom I had, who would even empower them to do such a thing. I really loved my Mom for doing that!
Convention Memories
Kathy and I have since spent a number of getaway weekends there, and even a couple of week-long vacations in Virginia Beach. This one will have the added factor of being an NA Convention. The last NA convention we went to, as members of NA, was the 5th East Coast Convention at Yale University in Connecticut.
That was the last stop on a whirlwind 2-week vacation we’d taken, our first journey together, in which I had proposed to her — actually, we had kind of mutually agreed, one night, that committing to spending our lives together was a good idea.
The official proposal came later, on a New Jersey Trailways Bus — no, strike that. I tried to propose to her on that bus, ring in hand, but she’d been horrified, and made me wait until we got to Wildwood, NJ, another shore town. She’d obviously never seen The Graduate, with the great ending scene on the bus, which I’d always held as incredibly romantic.
My lasting memory of that convention was hearing about the girl who came crying out of a stall in the lady’s room, after overhearing Kathy tell her best friend and sponsor, Sherri, about our engagement. Turns out I’d had a one-night-drive-by fling with the “stall” girl, down in New Jersey, that she had thought was more serious than I ever did. Whoops! It’s a small world!
The previous East Coast Convention, the 4th, at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa, I had chaired the registrations for, and played and sang at the Saturday night banquet. It was a song I’d written about the writing of the NA Basic Text, after attending my first World Literature Conference in Warren, Ohio, a couple years before.
I’d gone to the first 5 east coast conventions of NA, beginning in 1980. The first one, I was just coming up on 90 days clean, and it was there that my obsessions to get high had been lifted, finally. After that, I’d become obsessed with NA for the next 4 years.
Reconnecting with Old Friends
Kathy and I attended the 17th East Convention, in 2013, just to visit a few old NA friends who were going to be there, but that was the extent of our convention-going. I’d been to a few others during my time in NA, I probably don’t even remember exactly how many, but that was all before I figured out how to live life on life’s terms.
Now, it just seemed like a good way to have a getaway weekend at one of our favorite places to do so, and maybe, experience a little bit of the old magic that used to happen at these conventions. Or not. I’m not looking for anything but a nice weekend away. We’ll see whatever else happens. Whatever it is, it’ll all be gravy. I’m just glad to be here, with a great weekend looming ahead.
