Love Letters - Being Hit - The Promises

Saying goodbye to the past is a life long endeavor or at least it has been for me. I am cleaning up my office soon to be creative space and found a framed copy of  "The Promises" It is the Al anon version.
Number two says "We will not regret the past nor shut the door on it."

While cleaning I also found my copy of "The Power of Now".  This is one of my all time favorite books. It showed me how much time I was spending getting lost in trying to solve my past.  I just wanted to understand my part in what happened to me.  I have lived most of my life staying busy all the time thinking these millions of thoughts about what I could have done differently to change what happen.

I always believed that because I was left there was something wrong with me to the core.  Even recently I have accepted that I am the way I am and if this isn't lovable then so be it.

I have been loved by many people mostly people that have been deeply hurt themselves. I think I represent a safe place to land.  Isn't that what we are all looking for?  Once they feel better and gain some confidence they move on.  I think this means my part in their lives are over and it is time we both move on.

I was watching "The Jane Austin Book Club" last night and they were talking about the writing love letters and how the written word can have a profound impact.  I thought nobody does that today. What a fantasy well today I found about 20 pages of love letters from my high school boyfriend.  I had forgotten about the letters. We went to different schools and worked together at a fast food restaurant at night. He wrote these letters everyday and brought them to me at work.

It was by far the most romantic relationship I have ever had. He actually wrote in one that he knew only girls wrote letters like this but as long as I didn't tell anyone about them it was okay. His dad didn't want us together he knew we were too serious and he wanted him to go to his college and join his fraternity sow those wild oats.  My dad didn't like it because they were Episcopal a far cry from pentecostal.

He ended up breaking up with me because my parents wouldn't let me stay out past 11 on prom night. I begged my dad to change the rules for this one occasion but her wouldn't.  This had his dad written all over it.  I was completely devastated and we still had to work together. Ironically I had moved out by the time prom came around and I stayed out all night whenever I wanted.

Jim went on to marry that same girl.  So dad's plans didn't work.  She went to my same elementary school and I have a picture of  the whole six grade class with her in it.  That is also ironic. Any way I covered my pain well and the first time we worked together I made sure he knew I had a date for that night.  He actually got so mad he hit me.  Not hard but this gave me a good indication of what the future my hold. I laughed out loud when it happened I wanted to make sure he thought it didn't bother me.

I believe life is just life now.  People come and go based on their own needs. We really don't have any control over what other people are doing. I think if your heart it right and you have spiritual guidance then it can work out.  I do think you must always see your part in every situation but sometimes you just have to let go and accept that control of anything and anybody is an illusion and move on.

Not regretting the past can sometimes seem impossible.  I can make the past my own fantasy version reading love letters and thinking things might have turned out better than they would have. Then I have to  remember that he hit me.  The only person ever in my life, besides childhood spankings, that ever hit me.

From time to time I still have regrets about the past and feel each time I should have known better. I always took people at face value living every day in the moment until the bad things snuck up on me. I still think that is better than constantly preparing for disaster and not trusting anyone. Neither one keeps you getting hurt.

Eagles - Promises

I am streaming the Eagle's nest on my computer two babies have hatched and one to go. Just having the sound on my computer while working and writing has calmed me the past hour.

I can't write today. Anything that comes out will be black. I won't feel like this forever, even though it seems like it, when I am in it.

The animals have small really evolved brains and can be satisfied with being unconscious and just living to reproduce. I envy their minimal thought process not worrying about the future or mistakes of the past or why they exist. The down size is a short life and being some other animal's meal. The first I could live with the second would be a little harder.

This too shall pass. The Promises--That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. God, please make it disappear.

Changing things back

I woke up this morning and decided that I didn't like some of the changes I made in my house. A few weeks ago I spent the weekend re-arranging my furniture and after living with for awhile I decided I didn't like it and I spent the evening changing some of it back.

It feels good to be see little glimpses of my old self coming to the surface after such a long period of grief and depression. At my lowest I didn't see any point in being alive most less moving the furniture. Everything seemed like such a monumental task, even small things like loading the dishwasher or even opening the mail seemed more like climbing Mt Everest.

Today I woke up feeling hopeful with no particular dread on my mind. I had my usual cup of coffee and wrote in my journal. I was scheming about changing the furniture back and then I felt my mood slip just a little when I thought about my life, the big picture. What will become of me and starting asking the big questions, is this all there is? Then I shook it off and got my butt in gear and left for work. This is how I know I am not depressed anymore. If I was still depressed I would have crawled back into bed with my clothes on and spent the day there.

It is a tough time of the year for me with both of my long term relationships ending at Thanksgiving and I have to be gentle with myself. The promises say we will not regret the past nor shut the door on it. For me that means accepting where I am and those relationships shaped who I am today and knowing it is all going to work out.

I a happy to not be where I was three years ago or three months ago I am moving forward with the faith that I will get the answers I am looking for when the time is right. For now I will settle for just changing the furniture back to the way it was and leaving everything else alone.

Dreams

I had a good day yesterday and felt at peace, something that hasn’t been a staple in my life for longer than I want to admit. This morning I had a lot of people from my past show up and not show up in a dream. Today I have been sorting out the meaning of the dream. In the dream I was going to a party expecting to meet someone and they never showed up and then there were some other characters from my past that did.

I don’t believe in dream interpretation but I do think that sometimes your dreams tell you what you are working on. A friend was over last night and we were looking at old photos from about 20 years ago. I looked stylish and put together but I was living with active alcoholism and did not know of the impending meltdown heading my way.

It was a long time ago and I survived and actually the loss of that relationship changed the course of my life in a good way. I had to wake up and begin to address what was really ailing me and start the process of my own recovery. It hasn’t be all smiles and giggles but worth it.

I have a lot of anniversaries coming up this month and I will have to work at keeping the past in perspective. Two lines from the Promises of AA come to mind. We will not regret the past nor shut the door on it. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

So for today I will practice acceptance of myself and the decisions I have made in my life that have lead me to where I am today. In my dreams I hope to find what I am looking for or something better.