Saturday Night, August 16, 2008

Hey alkies, how it going. Four years ago today I rolled into Houston after an absence of 32 years. It was kind of good to be Home. I stayed with my friends Joe and Karl for 54 days. I intended on it not to exceed 2 weeks, but they would not hear of it when I was going to move to an extended stay hotel. And honey, you do not argue with either of those two. I'm really starting to miss Karl.

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There were times that I wondered if I had done the right thing in moving to Houston. This city has so many ghosts for me and I talked to my sponsor in Los Angeles about this. His take was that I put my house on the market and everything just fell into place. The second person to look at it on the 1st day bought it and we had a 45 day escrow. Everything with that worked like clockwork and everything else just came off the same way. I had the movers pack, and they loaded the truck on Friday, the 13th and off they went. I spent the night with my friend Dana and left the next morning on my trek to Houston. That was the 14th of August 2004 and I rolled up in front of 923 at 5:15 that Monday, August 16, 2004. I relaxed for a couple of days and that Thursday I met the realtor that Joe and Karl had recommended.

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I had talked with Ron on the phone several times and had looked at houses on the Internet. I knew what I wanted to spend, they type and size, age, etc of the house I wanted to buy. So on Thursday August 18, we started my quest of home ownership in Houston. I looked at over 100 houses. Some new, and some real dogs. I found a neighborhood I really liked and confined my search to that area. I found a house that I really liked. The master bedroom and bath were the selling points. I signed a contract, had it inspected, it failed the inspection, and my search was back on. However, I did not need to look at anymore houses. I had a couple of others that met my criteria, and one that I loved except the master bath shower was smaller than I wanted. So I signed a contract on it, had it inspected and it passed. I had a hell of an inspector and he annotated everything down to a few loose screws. I'm glad he did not inspect this loose screw. I would never have passed. Anyway I went into a 30 day escrow, closed on time, and took the Keys on October 2, 2004. I had the house professionally cleaned and the carpets done, and I moved in on October 6, 2004. I was really home.

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I was talking to my LA sponsor that night and I mentioned again that I hoped it was the right thing to do. His response was, Zane it all fell into place, Your Higher Power guided you, and you followed. So it was meant to be. He was very right. It will soon be 4 years since I moved in, and yes, there are times that I wish I had moved closer to Downtown, but I do love my house. It is home and I do love being here. This is one of the perks of sobriety. It just don't get much better than that.

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Tonight I am grateful for:

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God, my higher power.

My sobriety.

Mamie, my schnauzer.

My sponsor.

A great speaker at Lambda tonight.

Seeing my friends and meeting Ricks sponsor from Arkansas.

Acceptance.

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Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.