Recovering Falkland Islands

So when I started my blog after arriving on an island, I wanted to be able to share with fellow recovery members to keep in the loop of fellowship. Little did I know I was about to be part of my home group some 8000 miles away for over a year with almost attending a meeting every day. This simply was unthinkable and now the unbelievable is believable because my Higher Power is well, Powerful, Resourceful, and Caring. My sponsor who also owns these same attributes encouraged me to do meetings online. Before long it has become the new norm. Not just for me, but my sponsor, and my fellow AA’s. Tonight’s meeting left me so satisfied and then after the meeting we spoke like we would after the meeting; joking with each other and this made me feel so happy that I felt emotional. I am 8000 miles away which I enjoy mentioning to everyone and anyone, but I was there with them and they were with me. The only difference is I believe I have the better deal. I believe that I have the joy of the fellowship and the normal life I enjoy here on the Island. We don’t have Covid and we don’t have restrictions. We do however have something similar to lock down. This is because there are few shops, no online shopping or daily deliveries, and we don’t even have a McDonalds, Starbucks, or Department Store. Hell it’s just like lockdown. But after a while (20 months) you get used it.  But I do have a job, and I do have a purpose to get out of my bed, and I have medical care that whilst is limited, is bloody quick. 

An AA member did come here and he was on a contract. When he left in January 2021 on the military plane, the other AA member stepped off it. So my HP has a plan. How could he have planned that so well? How could he have picked him from the same county I lived in back in England? Is God just showing how funny He is? All I get is a sense of love and care from Him. The new AA guy here seems happy too. A bit shell shocked with how life is here but equally happy. He encouraged me to extend my contract for another couple of years. He has been exactly what I needed to get off my lazy backside. He encouraged me to walk, get out and even take trips to other Islands to see the wildlife. This totally blew me -especially since I’m not overly enthused by wildlife. I allowed nature to enthrall me and it didn’t disappoint.

The last time I wrote on this blog we were still suffering from a boss who was really mean to most. She has gone now and we had the unofficial assurance from the resident psychiatrist the new one doesn’t seem to suffer from any abnormal dictatorship personalities. 

I am not good at waiting for outcomes nor was I ever gifted with patience and tolerance as a natural default condition. So I need to wait a couple of days to hear from my employers if I am to return to work. I am in that case of people who stand at a greater risk. I have two jobs and my head has already been scheming as to how I might do one without doing the other. Not once did I consider my own health, and had to be reminded by a normal human that perhaps there was a reason we have been told to isolate on a small island with limited medical resources. I never did put my health first in the old days, and it would seem that tact is still prevalent in me today. 

I may have to yield to what the rest of the world is dealing with currently.

So someone owed me money. Yeh that old chestnut. I didn’t need it back but wanted the new member to think about honesty and responsibility. I got the text message that my money was available but had to take him to the shops.

He gave me my money and I took him to the shops. He bought nothing. I got in my car and drove over my £700 iphone.  I thought that it would have be easier to let him keep the £20. haha. But the reality is that I went about my business and my phone fell out of my pocket as I got in my truck.  But wait......... no resentment...... no anger.......... oh but a Facetime chat to my sponsor in the UK. She laughed and it was over. He didn’t need to go to the shops. Had I not gone perhaps my phone would be intact. The truth of the matter was within an hour I was back up running with another iPhone. No drama... So wait.... is it going to happen later? Probably not. This is what I think is meant when I am catapulted into the Fourth Dimension, when human things that would normally steal my peace of mind, and others’ around me just doesn’t happen. This is bliss. This is a long way away from my life where not finding a parking level on the first floor would piss me off and increase my heart rate. I still have my life to deal with but now and then my HP gives me a little taste of the world He wants me to live in. I need to keep my head in those clouds about all the crap, but have my size 8.5 boots firmly rooted and grounded on the earth. This brings me to another experience in my life when I trained as a healer and eventually taught  the damn course. You can do amazing things, feel energy, give healing, see and feel chakras, but you have to have yourself completely grounded. It’s the cardinal rule in any good practice. Otherwise you can wander off on your own - depleting one’s energy and mistaking it for God’s. 

This Island I am stuck on is really stretching me. Oh My God, do  I have to work at my defects. I have had quite a lot of fellowship lately and that has helped. 

Finally making some history. Held our first AA Fellowship meeting at the base. Not sure if there ever has been one here. 

I have been doing step work with my sponsee. I have however been Facetiming my sponsor with regularity. This has helped me stay on beam.

I had a long weekend and it had a mixture of emotions.

The 3rd Fellowship meeting happened this Thursday. It was one of those days where my head started to go, and it naturally painted a negative picture of me sitting in a hospital room on my own. I had pre-empted that I would only wait 45 mins then go home and make dinner. I did however remember to bring milk and tea just in case there were any visitors. As it turned out the CPN was waiting with a newcomer. I was surprised but pleased. The room was already set out for me which I eventually noticed. The meeting like the previous one attended by a newcomer ran over time. I believe there was identification on both sides. I was judging the situation like I did previously. I realised Islanders like to speak, and there was no natural period in the encounter to read from the Fellowship literature. I didn’t quite get all the usual sayings out there, but I did say that getting used to the idea that our collective illness is indeed an illness, and that we are not bad people- as a default.  

So I was asked if I could take the newcomer home which I agreed. I was conscious that other people were looking in the car and may be asking why I am with someone, and of course driving someone else’s car. I seemed to notice the person. I went into a slight paranoia about everyone knowing my business, and you guess, my head painted a very negative picture. I counteracted these malingering thoughts when I got home - simply through prayer to my HP. I said “protect me”. So if He gets that wrong He will have to fix it. haha. 

Other things that are of interest in my new life here.

I have a gun. Given to me by a man who called me when he was drunk. On announcement of my new toy my son thought it was so cool, my dad lectured me, and my sponsor questioned me even more. The reality is I am very safe with it (so far) This was demonstrated when I went shooting geese (one goose actually) and the person I was with, frightened the crap out of me. She had a semi-automatic shotgun. These are guns that can hold 3 loaded cartridges without you knowing. So I held her gun as she climbed over fences, and up steep hills and over streams. In fact I held it most of the time. Thankfully the gun jammed and it was clear it was not going to work. So we ended up hunting with my gun. It was a sniper rifle. Not exactly ideal for standing in gale force winds firing into heather, to hit a bird that equally looked like the colour of the heather, and with me colour blind, the birds must have laughed at our antic. Eventually, and very surprisingly, I went into hunter mode, I felt my entire body change, my stance, my eye sight, my stealth, everything about me was focused on hunting and killing that bird. I did hit it but it still kept moving, though it’s partner moved faster. I was struct by the intent of hunting it down, but also not wishing to prolong it’s suffering. Eventually I got close and took a shot standing up.

All those years spent on my Xbox playing Call of Duty and Far Cry finally paid off. I stood near the bird, hands shaking, as I looked at my counter part in disgust, she was down the bottom of the hill having another fix of her asthma pump. She was really beginning to  annoy me. I made her lift the bird. She dropped it and screamed saying it was still alive. I said it was just electrical impulses going through its body. My impulse was to hit her over the head with it.

Finally we got back to the farm where I parked the Land Rover. The farmer’s sheep dogs that initially followed us up the bloody hill, and after we took them back down to the farmer, he said they will leave when you start shooting, came to greet us. I got her to start cutting the bird open. She pretended to say she didn’t know what she was doing. We got the farmer to come out of his house and show us what to do.

Again after some initial hesitation, I went into Far Cry mode and cut the bird up.

I did console myself with what my brother had told me earlier that day. Only kill it if you intend to eat it, and not just for sport or fun. There was no sport or fun dodging her semi-automatic shotgun, or waiting for her to proceed her many stops after refuelling from her inhaler. 

By now I had blood over me, my hands, and the bottled water I was trying to drink from.