Sprung a Leak - Disaster

So last night after my post I went into my bedroom to watch the tube and suddenly I felt wet. I maybe old but not that old. My water bed sprung a leak. I know what your thinking, you have a water bed isn't that from the dark ages. Yes it is but it I love it. It doesn't look like a water bed so unless you lay on it you wouldn't know. It keeps me warm and I sleep like a baby.

I had to move upstairs and sleep on my sofa bed. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't the cocoon I am use to sleeping in. My bed is old and needs replacing my ex and I bought it the first year we were together. I think it is appropriate the I am emerging from grief over that relationship and I am getting rid of the bed. I also got a dual mattress in case I might share it with someone else one day. That is looking forward to the future.

I thought about how I might have handle a crisis like this before the program. Actually, back then I had such a tight control over every inch of my life that if someone sneezed and it wasn't on the schedule I was devastated. I know what is important now and I realize the insanity of thinking I can control anything. By the time I attended my first meeting everything that I thought was certain in my life was gone.

I felt victimized by my circumstances and had to make changes in my thought process. First I had to learn that if I thought of myself as a victim then I was a victim. They told me no victims just volunteers. This seemed harsh what about all the wrongs that had been done to me? This is where it took time and I wasn't ready for a long time to look at my part in the disaster of my life. Then came compassion, compassion for myself first that I didn't know better, I was trying to survive. I didn't have the tools to cope with the behavior caused by the addiction in my relationship.

This is where it gets tricky having compassion for those that hurt you. It is so hard and for me some of those people were not alcoholics. It helped me to look at each person and find a way of accepting they did the best they could, just as I did. But I didn't inflict the kind of pain they did, how do I know? My tongue was sharp and I could lay low and strike at a very opportune time, when the other persons defenses were low. We all see things through our specially made lenses blocking out the things we don't want to see.

I was a martyr and occasionally I am still a martyr, on my worse days, but it doesn't last long. I have grown up in a lot of ways and don't allow myself the luxury of feeling victimized. I hate that about the program taking responsibility for every piece of you life, not being able to wallow in self pity. You can still do that but you will have to do that with someone outside the program.

I never know where this writing will take me each day. I start with something and then it totally changes. So back to my disaster, I ordered the bed and for the next 14 business day I will be without my cocoon and I will adjust. It isn't life or death and I will survive.

I Am Sam - Pleasing Others

I thought I better write before I run out of steam. I have been home for an hour and have eaten and finished up a scrabble game I started last night. I don't usually have food in the house but since I cooked this weekend I might have eaten a little too much for dinner. I am sleepy and it is below 50 outside and it is a good night to hibernate.

Nothing too exciting today at work just some paperwork. I did have a few customers come into the showroom. The first was an older woman with her grown daughter looking for a kitchen to install by Christmas, this Christmas. We do have a few displays we would be willing to sell. They decided to come back Saturday with the husband, nothing like waiting until the last minute.

The second customer to come in was previous client, we put his kitchen in a few years ago and wants more cabinets and a bathroom vanity. He brought a young boy with him, maybe about nine, I would it was his son, but he kept calling the man David. He was very articulate and had an opinion on everything. As they were leaving I said nice to meet you and I asked him his name, I thought he said Tim and he blurted out, I am Sam and then we bumped fist, not my idea.

After they left, I commented to the owner about the kid and he said while I was talking, Sam plugged up the toilet with paper towels. Oh well some things never change, kids and bathrooms not a good combination.

A pleasant day even if we are freezing our butts off here. I was suppose to go to a city council meeting tonight and see a presentation on a plan to improve my area of town. I was going to meet my old boss there because her husband is getting into local politics, I really didn't feel like going and I had a customer call and wanted to come by after work, so I sent an email saying I wasn't coming. A cop out I know, she was a tough boss and everyday in the office was a test of courage mixed with friendship. I know she will be disappointed in me. I never could please her no matter what I did.

Once, when she was still my boss, she asked me to feed her birds. She had a two page detailed list of instructions and homemade bird bread for them. I was terrified because she loved her animals more than any human. I came in and the bird was missing, I thought I was going have a stroke. I looked everywhere the cage was still shut, how can this be? The bird had burrowed under the paper at the bottom. I would have had to quit if the bird had been missing. I probably mentioned this tale before but I was really scared of her then.

She probably figured I wouldn't show up tonight. I was glad to have an excuse, not to go, but the truth is somewhere deep inside I still want to get her approval. I always was just short of the mark even though she kept promoting me there was always and under current of criticism. This is a pattern for me with those that do not trust easily. I am in one minute and then suddenly I am out. I then try to get back in by any means possible until I am exhausted and give up. I want to good enough.

I have disappointed a lot of people lately since I withdrew from my social commitments but it has been good for me and I needed to stop looking outside myself for approval. It was a test for me, was I enough for myself on my own? Could I love myself if I didn't have a list of things I had done or people I had pleased each day.

The answer is yes. I am enough just they way I am. I don't need to meet the expectations of others to feel worthy of love. But it had to start with self-acceptance, self love to make that shift. If I am whole I can give without needing something in return. I can stand on my own two feet and do what is healthy for me spiritually.

It hasn't been an easy time for me being alone, but without distractions I have healed places in my heart that I thought would never heal. The emptiness I have carried since my mother died. I wanted someone to fill this hole but I was the only one that could do that.

Past Present Future

Pretty quite day overall but it didn't seem like it was going to be that way. I had an emergency call from my cousin because her cable and phone had been turned off and she needed help and was calling from a neighbors house. She has a trust fund that she lives on and can't manage her money.

My cousin has some learning disabilities and only lives in the present moment. What that means is if she has money in her hand, then it must be spent. I am a co trustee and before my aunt died we set it up so she gets a check every other week. The rent and utilities are paid directly and she still is out of money the first day.

She seems to call when I am in my own crisis but today it didn't bother me. She usually works it out on her own or does without until the next check. I had four calls before I got out of bed this morning. I could hear the ring tone from my bed and felt a sense of dread as it kept going off. I thought it was her and then I imagined all kind of other trouble that might be lurking for me out there. This is the nature of working for yourself and the fact that you are never really off.

I decided to take a different approach today. I got up made some coffee and came back to my bed and got out my journal. I wrote a little and then wrote my intention for the day asking HP to help me find joy in the day no matter what presented itself.

I got dressed checked my voice mail and decided not to call my cousin back. No cable or phone is not a life or death matter. The other calls were work related and one said call her back tomorrow the other I met her to make a final decision on her tile design. We ended up having lunch and then I took her to my favorite art store and then we went to the antique mall. My favorite things combined with work.

I then got a call from a friend and she invited me for dinner. We had Thanksgiving again and then we watched while she decorated for Christmas. She had ornaments that her kids made when they were in kindergarten. Her daughters are grown and one was there when she put the disintegrating angel, from the first grade, on top of the tree.

I don't celebrate the holidays much anymore. That is where I am in my life right now and maybe that will change next year. It is about family and tonight I thought of my childhood and about the special things my mother did for us as part of the holidays. She also saved every ornament we made. Seeing my friend and her family made feel a little Christmas cheer in my heart.

Pork and Meatloaf

I have spent the last hour playing Hit the Road on Bored.com and having some much needed fun. In the game you are responsible for getting people across the street without them getting hit by a car. Hey I can do that, it is helping people right? Just like life is isn't as easy as it looks. Their remains are scattered on the road when you fail. It really gets crazy when they put you in charge of the traffic lights, so much responsibility. I had to quit at level 12 too many casualties meant I was maxed out for tonight. It was hysterically funny, am I a bad person?

I have spent the day just hanging around the house. I started pot of soup with some pork I made at Thanksgiving. Don't I froze some, so anyone out there counting the days since Thanksgiving. I originally cooked it with green chilies and tomatoes. Today I had some butternut squash that I cooked in a cast iron skillet also from my grandmother, the skillet not the squash. I wanted to give it a roasted flavor before adding to the soup. It was a pain to cut it up though I had forgotten how dense butternut squash is, I know you usually bake it, but I didn't want to wait. It actually tasted great when it was finished.

I have been organizing the house today and did come across some stuff from the past. I am sentimental in a way that would probably make your eyes roll. I keep stuff from people that I have loved or that have loved me. Sometimes it is a piece of clothing or in this case a letter written by my ex-husband after he had been married a few years and we were speaking again. I kept everything he wrote me during our years together. He was a great writer and this particular letter was a letter of amends.

In his letter he said that he had learned a lot from our relationship and that it had made him a better man. He always had a good heart but his childhood left him without skills to work through the pain and ended up turning to alcohol for comfort. We were the same really soul mates in a very unhealthy way. We were equals in that we had deep unresolved pain and thought another person was the answer. He thought he had picked the wrong person and moved on.

I have thought about him a lot the past few days. I was playing the old Meatloaf CD Bat out of Hell yesterday, this was one of our favorites. The famous dashboard light song where he is trying to laid and she says "Will you love me until the end of time?" and he says yes and then "now I am praying for the end of time to hurry up and arrive". We would sing to each other to the top of our lungs. We had been married a few years by then and appreciated the sentiment. We had a lot of laughs and that is why we stayed together, but the drinking crept in and that was the end. Our pasts had destroyed our ability to have a future together.

I can be sentimental because it was million years ago and time has healed that wound. He introduced me to real music and real food. We met in a bar and he was a cook and I was a patron. I had been eating his food for two years before I even met him. He was a great cook and went on to be a chef and then I stepped in talked him into leaving that life. I thought it promoted drinking and I wanted a family. So he got a corporate job and met his new wife. What is it we say, we didn't cause it, we can't cure it and we can't control it. I didn't think he had a drinking problem I just wanted him to come home at night.

Oh well, that relationship taught me a lot too. I was so sick and in so much pain by the end that it was a joy when he finally left. He was angry and drinking. I was scared of him, I thought it was my fault. I wasn't good enough to make him happy. I will never be that person again because of the program. He was cheating and drinking and pissed off at me for just being alive.

This is a far cry from an amends letter and my rosy picture of him in my head right now. I don't know if he was alcoholic or whether he has a program. All I know is that he wasn't the same person when the drinking escalated.

I think this post has been good for me. A review of the past with rose colored glasses first and at the end not so rose colored. Relationships suck sometimes and you just have to do the best you can and hope it works out. I hate growing up.

Mustard Greens and Music

I am home tonight and making some mustard greens and listening to some music. If you are not from the south, mustard greens are collard green's bitter cousin. You are suppose to cook them with some smoked pork slowly for a few hours and then serve them with cornbread.

In my grandmothers house this was a huge process. Greens were not just for Thanksgiving and I helped her look the greens many times, this is what she called it, looking the greens. She said they always have grit on them and after all the waiting you don't want anyone to get any grit. Her method called for stripping out the spine and filling a sink full of water and letting them soak until the sand sinks to the bottom. We would repeat this process until she was satisfied that there was no grit.

These days I feel like those bitter greens. I have had my spine ripped out and now I am floating and waiting for the grit to sink to the bottom. Silly, but I couldn't pass up that analogy. It is appropriate for me right now, but I am not bitter today.

Waiting and being subjected to a cleansing of sort. I think I must at least be on the third soak by now, not quite ready but soon. Then comes the slow cooking, worth the wait? I hope so, because patience is not one of my virtues. I think that is the point.

Never pray for patience I have heard and for the record I have never prayed for patience. I am changing I know and tonight I am feeling happy and in a place of acceptance.

My grandmother would say anything worthwhile is worth waiting for, or her own version on that. In my family there was no such thing as instant gratification. If you didn't work for it it wasn't worth anything. I hope she was right for I am here just floating and waiting for the grit to sink to the bottom.

Eye of the storm - meditation

I have recovered from my temporary place despair yesterday. It is good that I know it is temporary but it is experience that has taught me that and sometimes in the midst of the storm having that information doesn't help at all.

I saw an interview with Marie Osmond about her son and his suicide and how one month before he was excited about getting into the college of his choice. I get that, despair can come up so quickly and seem so paralyzing that you would do anything to get relief. Being young you don't have experience to know that it will pass.

When I was in high school living at home in an impossible situation the thought of suicide did cross my mind. I thought I will never survive this and I was a minor and couldn't leave, I had left before and was brought back.

To me despair is when you see no way out, you believe that you will always feel that bad. I was 15 and I knew at 16 I could leave and I did. In the mean time I slept for almost 9 months. I made a decision that when I was at home I would be unconscious. I lived because I believed they were the problem and I knew that if I could get away from them I could be free. I knew that only time stood between me and freedom. If I could do something to kill time I could make it.

I am not sure why I went into all that today but there it is. I guess for me when I go to a dark place sometimes it seems more devastating than at other times. Grief is familiar and perfectly healthy really. When you lose something or someone important to you, you must grieve in some way. Despair is another animal and care must be taken to get help. You can't think your way out of despair because despair makes you think there is no solution. You need a second opinion.

So I got a second opinion yesterday from a professional. It seems perfectly clear when it comes from someone else. She is spiritual and knows I am game for anything that will make me feel better so we did a meditation. She had me lay on the floor on a blanket and imagine I was lying in the grass looking at the sky. It was clear and blue and the sun was shining and then small wispy clouds started collecting and then darker clouds. All the time I am safe in knowing that the sky was blue behind the clouds. The storm came and I was perfectly safe and then the sun returned and dried me off and the sky was blue once again and then more whispy clouds.

I feel great today and know that good or bad, this too shall pass.

Darkness to Light to Darkness

What a difference a day makes. After my post about being in a great place I ended up not sleeping. I don't know whether it was exercise or caffeine or what but yesterday was pretty awful. Spiritually and emotionally I felt like I slipped back into darkness and fear.

I don't know where I am going these days, I always believed my life had a purpose and in moments of fear and doubt now, I am not so sure. I have made decisions in my life that have led me to where I am today. I don't blame anyone but myself for those choices. I get into trouble when I think, whats next? Is this it?

I look around and people are going on about their lives. My partner at work spent the entire day making a Christmas list for herself and her husband to give to her family. With specific item numbers. This seems so foreign to me and makes me feel like I am some kind of alien on the planet.

I thought about skipping the blog writing today given I am living in the shadows but the writing is about honesty.

I am grateful for many things in my life and I know this time of darkness will pass. I will find my way even if I think I am taking too long to do so. I actually feel better than I did last night but I called my counselor to get a reality check.

I beleive that at some point in time I will look back and understand what this time in life was suppose to teach me.