Show Up Anyway

“I have learned that it does not matter how afraid I am. I can show up anyway. I pray and ask God to help me, and I’ve never been disappointed” (Voices of Recovery, p. 337).

I was 55, divorced for six years, and very lonely. One morning as I was walking to work, I prayed to my Higher Power, saying, “HP, I can’t worry about being alone anymore. The worry is making matters worse. If I am to be alone, help me, please, to live the best life I can.” I felt a physical weight being lifted from my shoulders.

A few weeks after that, a friend called and introduced me to a widower friend of hers, a lovely man who had lost his wife the year before. Some months later, he asked me to go with him to Florida for a cruise, and my first thought was, “I have always thought that I’d die on the water.” My next thought was, “Yes, that’s possible . . . or you could be a lonely lady sitting in front of your TV with your food tray.”

Off I went on my first cruise of many, sometimes even twice a year. We are like an old married couple now. When I run into friends whom I haven’t seen in years and they ask how I’m doing, I talk about my husband and I say, “He always opens doors for me, and in the winter, he wipes the snow off my car when I’m going out.”  Imagine if I didn’t have OA.

Imagine if I didn’t have OA friends who kept encouraging me to act as if. Life still throws curve balls, but I have OA and my HP to keep me in the game. No sittin’ on the bench for me. Now, I can’t wait to find out what adventures HP has in store for me.

Thank you, OA, for teaching me to show up anyway.

— Barbara