Hi Anita,

Longest, hardest journey being the 18 inches from the head to the heart, or so I’m told.

I see how you connected the dots and filled in some areas, and it makes sense to me.  I’m at a loss as to how to ‘connect to other people.’  It’s never been a deliberate act; it’s been more something that happens than it is any act of mine.  Look how long it took for me to encounter my first real sense of connection…

And it’s worse than dropped off the radar.  She surfaced, briefly… long enough to ensure that I got the message to back off and cease contact.  “Cease and desist.”  From her sponsor, not even from her directly.  So it’s worse than simply disappearing.  There’s always hope of a re-appearance when there’s a disappearance like that… now it seems unlikely in the extreme that there will be.  Plus she’s on the other side of the country now.  Seems the attraction was mostly if not entirely one-sided.  Looking back, *now* I see signs that point to this… but I didn’t then (and still don’t now) trust my own ability to see such things and come up with an accurate picture of what the real situation is.  So I just tried harder and continued to hope I managed to say the right thing in the right way at the right time… or something.

Makes sense to me – – that losing the two people I felt most connected to (whether that was an accurate assessment or not is immaterial) is leaving me feeling ‘lost and adrift.’  When I’ve been almost entirely focused on one thing for that long, and then that thing is suddenly gone, it leaves quite a void.  One that I’m at a loss to fill immediately.  That might be another reason I’m feeling stalled and disenchanted with AA: we met at our both of our first meetings — both ‘came in’ to the same meeting on the same night (thought I saw some meaning there… and maybe I did, but I also think maybe we’ve both done for one another all we were ‘meant’ to do.)   My entire history with AA has also been my entire history with her… they’re inextricably entwined in my mind.  Just feels like a completely different critter now.

I continue to go to meetings (via Zoom… I host three weekly meetings), and still see a number of the ‘old crowd’ from meetings, but there’s a lot I don’t see, and one in particular who I was very much looking forward to seeing again isn’t coming back at all; he died in December unexpectedly in his early forties, just like my Dad did.  Jeez, I’m getting gun-shy at this point: seems every time there’s some degree of attachment – – they go away, one way or another.  I know… nothing’s permanent, or even lasts very long, other than relatively.  Still… to go most of my life without connection, and then in the space of 3 1/2 years to form three attachments, and lose them in that same length of time…. Maybe there’s a message there.  How many times must one get burned before learning to not grasp that hot object?

Okay, I’m just bellyaching now.  I guess all I can really do is put one foot in front of the other, continue with what AA has become for me, seek more secular alternatives to AA (either as a replacement for or in parallel with), and wait and see if another connection forms.  For me, interactions with people are just that: interactions.  Continued interactions just pile up; it’s rare that any sense of closeness or connection happens, and when it does, it’s never because of anything I consciously or deliberately do… it just happens, and then I really focus in on it.  Hopefully I’ll get better at it, and not keep scaring people away.  (Okay, that’s not fair; I scared only one away; another was transferred, and the other one died).  Just seems like a lot of loss, all of the same kind, all at once.  Strange and unhappy.

Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful reply… you always give me much to think about, and you also enable me to get a better overall view of things.  I’m mostly too close to see a bigger picture, and you always manage to show that to me.  It’s very much appreciated… thank you for taking the time.