Great Lunches…..I have had some marvelous experiences when a friend calls me up and asks me to lunch.
-One of the best was when I had about a year in the program. After a meeting Anita, a happily safely married woman asked me if I wanted to have lunch with her At lunch, we laughed and joked and talked about the high points of the meeting we had just shared.The thing that made it magical for me was for about 75 minutes we listened intently, laughed at each others jokes. She looked into each other eyes with program eyes so filled with acceptance that I was filled with hope. Now, 15 years later, I know that is called the meeting after the meeting.
-Another of my favorite lunches was really a series of breakfasts. It was also when I was very new. A group of us met at a restaurant on Saturday mornings before our meeting. I don’t think any profound messages were exchanged. The good thing was the laughter. We were so used to each other and so in love with program that every joke anyone told was hilariously funny. We may have gotten too loud, we certainly lacked very much restraint. Other restaurant customers looked at us but when we noticed they were looking it just seemed hilariously funny. To this day we are still incredibly close friends.
-One time a buddy called me wanting to have lunch. I readily agreed. we talked casually for awhile, probably about sports. Then he wanted to talk about our common problem. We both had controlling, angry moms. He said every time I walk down 2nd street I see mothers that are thrilled with their children. I see the same thing at movies, on TV and in books I read. George, why couldn’t I have had one of that kind of mother? I told him that I had no answer for his question. But that I was thrilled when he called me and invited me to lunch. If I had the loving, delighted mother kind of mother he would not have called me. Having people want to talk to me about how they were hurting is the very thing that helped me have such meaning in my life during these elderly years.
I did not say I was grateful for the way I was raised. However I was grateful that my program had taught me that the tough parts of my life can be switched around so that they work for me and not against me.
Maybe someday I will have lunch with you. I would love that.
George Caywood 