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I had to pick something up from the pharmacy the other day, and one of the workers said, “Give me one minute, okay?” I nodded my head and said sure… but it was not one minute. It was more like three minutes, and I found myself getting aggravated. I like things how I want them, when I want them.

It made me think about how much I fully accept the broader concept of this too shall pass… but man, can I get an ETA? Wouldn’t that be so nice?

I remember a few years back when I had a difficult situation with my kids fighting all the time, and I just kept telling myself to stay the course, that this kind of friction never lasts forever, that I needed to just keep loving them through it. I remember having countless recovery friends say that this is normal, that teenagers fight sometimes. I remember in my own life fighting with my brothers and thinking we’d never speak again… then it would be fine three days later. I kept telling myself, This too shall pass.

But I am an addict, so I want what I want, when I want it. So after about a week, I was getting frustrated. They were bickering every day and stomping around the house, and it was miserable for everybody in the house.

Then one evening I was in the living room and I heard them upstairs screaming at each other. My oldest daughter stomped up to her room and my middle daughter slammed her door shut. I stood in the hallway ready to yank my hair out after a week of this crap, and I kept thinking, This too shall NOT pass, apparently! What the hell?

Then I heard my middle daughter laughing in her room. I knocked on her door and asked if I could come in. She was laying on her bed smiling, looking at her phone. I asked her what she was laughing at, and she turned the phone around. It was a FaceTime call with my oldest daughter, who had been yelling at her roughly 30 seconds before.

I was perplexed. My middle daughter sensed that and said, “We were mad at each other. But it’s fine now. Is it ok if we run over to Target?”

I was completely befuddled and just shrugged my shoulders. I was very happy they were speaking in a civil way with each other, so I was glad to see them go somewhere together. This too shall pass almost instantly after weeks of not passing, apparently.

As I walked out of the room, I couldn’t help but laugh. This situation had not passed, and had not passed, and had not passed… and then it did. I would have loved to have gotten an email from God letting me know that this too shall pass after 13.5 days. But life doesn’t really work that way, does it?

This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:

DRASTIC DIAGNOSIS

"The best thing for you," said the doctor to the dissipated young man, "is to give up smoking, drinking, and sex."

The patient thought for a minute, then asked, "What's the next best thing?"

(Credit: Grapevine, April 2009, by Anonymous)

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