I Can Run

Just getting off the treadmill my friend gave me a couple of weeks ago. She is very generous to give it to me. I have a gym membership until the end of the year but I really only like to run. It will be great to be able to run at home.

I think it is funny that I have started running the past couple of years because I always claimed that I hated running. I have always fallen for runners, literally an figuratively and would never join them willingly when they ran.

When I first met my husband he was 22 and 6'4" and weighed 165 lbs. He always said he was built for speed and he could run like the wind. I of course at 5'2" was not built for speed and always felt inferior in many ways to him. He always wanted me to run with him and I couldn't keep up, I finally started riding my bike while he ran. This was early in our relationship when we still thought we should spend every minute together.

I think the reason I claimed to hate running was it seemed more important than me. It was immature of me, but my feelings were just a symptom of what was really going on. I felt left out and was trying to manipulate the situation which ended up putting more distance between us. In the end I was right they were running away.

It has taken me time and distance to accept that communication is hard even with someone you love. How is it that you start out in love and it feels like nothing can ever come between you and then one day you wake up with a stranger? How do you keep that from happening?

I had resentments about running and rebelled by not running. So I have to admit now that I do like to run. I will never run like the wind but I can crank up the music and get those endorfins flowing.

I feel strong tonignt physically and emotionally. I can let go of those resentments and the runners that go with them. They can just keep running.

Saturation and Sudoku

I woke up early this morning and felt like a million bucks. I started reading and having my morning cup of coffee and then dosed back off. The phone rang and it startled me I didn't feel like answering it, I could feel my mood had slipped.

I was having a dream that I was staying in a small cottage on someone else's property and when I walked in the door I interrupted a couple of robbers. I ran screaming from the house. I am sure there is a message here, but I will need more time to process this.

I have gone about my business today but I never got back to the elation I felt when I woke up the first time. I have finished a painting that I don't really like and I am not sure why I don't like it.

The picture was of some succulents I found in a magazine and using acrylics thinned like watercolors I painted it light and airy. I did this a few weeks ago and went back to it today to see if I could finish it. It felt too washed out and so I added more color and then more color. I hate it now. With painting is can be like cutting your own bangs when you were a kid and you just keep trying to even them up and end up going to school looking like a freak.

Sometime I get that way about life. A little seems good so a lot must be better. I am about extremes. I couldn't admit this until recent years and I have accused others of it plenty of times. You spot it you got it, right? When I am really into something I am really into it and then I am done.

Saturation is what I call it and I can never see it coming. I try really hard but inevitibly I hit the bottom exhausted and have no choice but to move on. Being ADD and complusive is not a great combination for a balanced peaceful life. It is my secret though, it isn't obvious to the outside world, only to my closest allies.

Once I spent an entire vacation in a hotel room (with three other people) doing Suduko puzzles. We had just discovered them and everyone was content to stay in the whole week pratically. After that week, I have never touched a Suduko puzzle again. After the trip they went on to higher levels etc. not me I was done.

So when does just enough turn into too much? Like today when is being alone with yourself and your introspective, analytical, complusive, ADD mind too long? I think I have answered my own question. Happy to get back to work tomorrow.

God and me (and J)

I got a call last Saturday day from the bishop. The shop owner is a priest in a charismatic episcopal church and his bishop calls from time to time looking for him. I was there alone told him that the owner was at the church. It was a church work day.

He seemed surprised by this and went on to explain that he was doing a house blessing in the afternoon and didn't want to alone. He said the guy was in AA and didn't think the guy had any friends. I said if he is in AA he probably has a ton of friends, he said he didn't think that the people in AA really believed in God. I said I wasn't sure that was true and left it at that.

I thought about my own struggle with even the word God when I first started going to meetings. Raised in the Pentecost they talked about Jesus and Gods love along with the part about if you sinned and didn't ask for forgiveness before you died, even if it happened five minutes ago, you were quite literally toast.

My earliest memory of my connection to Jesus was when I was five and I thought when they said, Jesus was coming any minute, they meant any minute. I stood outside one night when I saw some big search lights in the sky, looking for Jesus. He didn't come, I least I don't think so. Once I got the gist of the burning in hell part I would pray every night to be forgiven for anything that might be a sin that I didn't know was a sin, I wanted to cover all my bases.

It was a lot of pressure and as I got older it took a toll on me, once as a teenager I had some evil spirits cast out of me, but that is a story for another time. That was the end of my desire to be apart of the trilogy, until turning 30 and attending
Al-Anon.

Until then everything was black and white. Either you are in or out none of the grey stuff or thinking for yourself. I was out, I knew that for sure because I wasn't perfect and was sinning so much that I really couldn't begin to keep up with the list.

So I had to start at the beginning unlearn all that had been imprinted on my young brain. I didn't want God in my life and I certainly didn't want to turn my will and my life over to him. But I got over that because I started feeling better so I just put on my denial cap and kept going.

When I finally faced the God of my understanding I acknowledged that he was an A-hole and let my mother die and my father marry a evil person and then let me marry an alcoholic. I understood him perfectly. I had been victimized by the God of my understanding.

So how does a person get past that kind of thinking, one day at a time of course. Actually, I don't know exactly, I think the biggest thing the steps taught me is that I was not a victim. I had to get past the warm fuzzy feeling it gave me to be a martyr and start over. It is hard to say my life sucks to a room full of people that can say right back, I can top that. So I guess I found out I wasn't special so I had to get on with living and I did.

I actually feel grateful for those life changing events now. Those events led me to the program and the program taught me that I didn't have to listen to the voice in my head and that people can change. It is really remarkable the transformation I have seen in other people and myself. Even now I have mini awakenings, when I see how my thinking is totally messed up. Is there more, oh I am sure there is.

Coming to terms with God and sifting through what I was taught and what are my own beliefs is true freedom in every since of the word. I always say to my friends when I can't deal with my religious up bringing I just pretend I was raised Methodist, they seem so much more peaceful.

So I am good with the trilogy now and I am not talking about The Lord of the Rings, although I like that one too. I can'tbcomplete this post without noting that it is very interesting that I ended up working with a man that is a charismatic priest. My God of course has a sense of humor.

Shoulds and Spys - Character Defects

My day was full of I should be doing this and that, you can say it as many times as you like but if in your heart you have not intentions of actually doing anything about it, what is the point.

I have pretty much stop shoulding on myself over the years but occasionally like today I had envisioned so much productivity. First I was going to go to showroom since no one was there today and get some paper work done, but I couldn't make myself do it. Then I thought I would work on some much needed household projects, but I didn't do it. It was like the boss was on vacation and I was left at the office to keep things running and I decided to see how hard I could work at doing nothing.

This is my character defect that I use to think was an asset. I think I must be productive. Everything I am involved in must produce or accomplish something. It is even better if it serves multiple purposes. A good example is blogging, it helps me address daily spiritual issues, improves my writing skills and entertains me, for a short time.

Doing comes naturally to me and I can honestly say that I don't know how to do nothing or have fun for that matter. I tried to think of the last really fun thing I did and it was playing Cafe of facebook. I liked the cooking and serving it felt like I was really accomplishing something and then there was Farmtown, not to be confused with Farmville. Don't even get me started I created a second identity so I could have myself plow fields and work two farms and bonus I could get more stoves in Cafe.

I finally had to back away from the games because my virtual life was taking more time than my real life. I did get bored once I had the whole thing running efficiently as possible. So you can see I have a problem even defining fun most less downright goofing off.

So today the boss was on vacation and since I work for myself it is like having a spy in the office. I will have to come up with some pretty good excuses for myself when I get to the office tomorrow.

Giving Thanks - No Drama

I have returned from my meal and I think I am in a carb coma. It was really delightful everyone seemed open an genuine. I got hugs from strangers and the food was really good.

The matriarch of the family had everything down to a science. She of course had been up since 5 am and we ate at precisely 1 pm. The precision of the step up made me think, maybe an Al-Anoner, but she is a teacher so maybe that was where that organization came from.

With all the usual southern Thanksgiving fixins. Turkey with pan style dressing made with cornbread and sage, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac and cheese and potato salad. She went all out with the desserts, she made all of them except the coconut cake. There was banana pudding, key lime pie, cheesecake, sweet potato pie and peanut butter cake. I brought mac and cheese an she made her own or somebody else did.

No drama today, we ate cleaned up and it was all over in a couple of hours. All the tables (from the church) broken down and loaded up and it looked like nothing had ever happen.

It was pretty amazing to me because when I cook it looks like something exploded in the kitchen and I might do the dishes and then wait until the next day to finish getting things back to normal.

I asked her how she got to be so organized and she said she was a single mother for seven years and worked 60 hours a week and if she had a system for the housework she could spend more time with the kids. Nice.

Feeling grateful today and not thinking about the past. Accepting where I am in my life and feeling refreshed.

Making a change for the holiday

It is the first time in a couple of decades that I will actually be spending Thanksgiving with people I am actually related to and not my chosen family. I have been estranged from my family for most of my adult life. My sister loves me but her circumstances clashed with my circumstances over the years and we both have made other choices for the holidays.

When my dad died about six years ago and I went to the funeral his only living sister took an interest in me and started calling me. I didn't think it would last because that side of the family are not much for reaching out. I did good to hear from my dad once a year when I called him on his birthday. She has kept up with me and I actually stayed at her house last year.

Her son lives about an hour from here and they are coming to visit him for Thanksgiving. I have been to his house a couple times and his family is really nice. His wife called me and invited me for Thanksgiving.

I have spent the last hour making my deluxe Martha Stewart recipe for mac and cheese. It is basically fondue with macaroni in it. It will be a southern style meal and it should be fun I hope.

I have cooked Thanksgiving for a lot of years before I moved and last year my friend and I decided to skip it and we made apple pie and snow crab. I will miss my friends this year but it seems nice to actually have family interested enough to invite me.

This has been at the core of my life long insecurities not really being that important to my family. I have recreated this over and over in my relationships with emotionally distant people. I finally get it now after all these years these relationships felt like home.

My aunt gave me more insights into the dynamics of how my father was raised. She has said there was no affection only discipline by my grandfather. This helps me to understand my father and his limitations.

So tomorrow we will feast and I will find out what it is like to be with my family of origin on Thanksgiving.

First on emotions - then a family disease

It is the time of year for me that brings up a lot of emotions. Being dumped twice at Thanksgiving gives me cause to be just a little cautious this week. Deciding what are emotions from the past and what it is I am actually feeling today.

What I have learned is you don't have to be a slave to your emotions but ignoring emotions will only delay them. I dreamed this morning that my ex not only had an affair but was sleeping with everyone in our high rise apartment building. Everyone knew but me and they were all consoling me. We lived in a house not an apartment so I interpret this as me thinking I should have known. It is pointless to go there but it tells me my subconscious is still acknowledging the date.

I am feeling sadness just below the surface today. I can accept that this too shall past and know that leaning into it is the fastest way to move on. I have learned the hard way that resistance is where the pain lies.

I went to lunch with my co-worker and ran into my original sponsor and she said I was thinking about you last night. I was thinking about her last night too. So this afternoon I called her and we discussed the above issues. I have known her 20 years and she knows me probably better than anyone emotionally, all my fears and how my mind works and I trust her to be honest with me. I felt relieved after the call and went on with my day.

Just as I was getting back to the office my nephew called. I had to look twice because he has never called me before. Unfortunately he got his brain from our side of the family the analyzing side. Thinking too much, being keeper of all things the beacon in the storm. Most reliable in a crisis.

His dad is an angry adult child of two parents addicted to prescription drugs. His volatile unpredictable behavior over the years have brought out different traits in their three kids. My brother in law recently started taking medication himself to cope with his sister's addiction to drugs and they haven't seen much of him since.

My nephew is in his early 20's and is trying to decide a career path and his mother wants him to go to law school and take over her practice. She told him to call me because she thought since we have similar personalities I could maybe give him some insight. He started by giving me the run down on the Thanksgiving plan and how he's forcing the rest of the family to go the his aunts house because this is what his dad wants and if they buck then there will be a scene.

I feel for those kids and I know their road with be tough. My sister has done a good job raising them to be confident and not follow the crowd. But the things they have endured with their dad and my sister's denial will shape their lives forever.

This is why it is a family disease. The grandparents didn't need help because they were taking drugs prescribed by a doctor. They are both gone now leaving a legacy of addiction behind.

On the bright side they have me and they can have a program if they need and want some help. My sister has been to Al-Anon but didn't feel that she could relate since she isn't married to an alcoholic. She went because her husband sister's son needed someone to go with him. She did have some advice for the group. We have all the answers and I lives are still unmanageable.

What was my advice to him about his career? Well I said if he is like me he is probably ADD and will need a variety of different kinds of tasks to keep him busy. He is a people person and can be disciplined when he in interested in a subject so law might actually work.

Do what you love and you will be a success, at least in your own mind.