Wait.What?

Memories of my life

2012-02-16T10:09:00.003-06:00

I am packed, my life belongings in a travel trunk and a backpack. You would think to look at me that I am leaving for college, but instead my dad is driving me to a home nearer my high school, to live while I complete my senior year. I am more than the things I carry, I know this, but somehow looking at my meager belongings, I feel less than my own worth. Perhaps it is leaving my home, knowing I am less to my mother than a daughter should be, or perhaps I am just less altogether than I should be to myself.

My Dad drops me off, brings in my things and says hello to Aunt Ida, who is not actually my Aunt but is a family chosen Aunt from church. We all make small talk and I note how odd this feels being dropped off by my father, to a home in the same city where I have lived since I was 12 years old. I walk him to his car, no longer my family car and I feel the separation of it all. The awkward silence between us cuts a bit as I look up, he is talking in reassuring tones and I want to say something, to reassure him or maybe myself that I am still here, living, breathing, needing. But in the end I don’t spill my guts for fear of tears pouring out my eyes like a broken damn and because the pain in my throat of willing myself to talk will show him how fearful I am of everything that is happening. I grew up in a home where showing your weakness was unsafe. Instead we hug quickly and I watch him drive off knowing that my life is my own.

While putting on the fearless adventurous face on my outside, I can’t help but recognize a feeling of abandonment deep inside me. Graduation is months away and I begin my pattern of living for my future rather than living in my present. Life is easier I have found when I don’t feel the pain of the now and only look to a hopeful and pregnant with possibilities future.

And is'nt that how it is supposed to be.

2012-01-27T11:04:00.003-06:00

It is late. Midnight on Thursday and I am awake when I should be asleep. I turned the television on, hoping it would lull me to sleep, no luck. So I grabbed the laptop and starting jotting my thoughts down in the same chaotic order they stumbled out of my finger tips.

I want to write about my bed which most likely is my very favorite thing in the entire world. I have always loved this bed. It’s a king size bed made by the same artist who created the iron statue outside the state capital building in Austin Texas. I was born in Austin Texas, so when I saw this bed advertised, when I saw Austin Texas, I took it as a sign. It was love at first sight, with its 6 foot tall headboard in the charcoal grey iron worked together and soldered and rutted and jointed. It makes a statement in its simple lines yet oversized presence. It took me ten years to find my idea of what was the perfect bed.

When I met my husband in 1990 he was 6’2” with a shock of curly red hair and freckles. It was love, in the first week - with his 6 foot tall frame and sea blue eyes that worked together humor and rutted sarcasm. He was the life of the party. He was indeed the party itself and he made a statement with his simple lines and oversized presence. It took me years to find my idea of the perfect man, he complimented me nicely.

Fast forward to right now. Right here. In my home, in my bed, alone for the first time in many, many years and I find that now after so many years with my husband being a permanent fixture in this – my favorite most prized possession of a bed, it is no longer perfect, without him in it. It’s value is diminished in his absence.

And is'nt that how it is supposed to be.

Note: He is away on a golf trip in Florida - he is away for the first time since becoming sober visiting with family friends. All is well – just strange without him in bed

Put a fork in me. I'm done.

2012-01-04T13:48:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I think my son is an idiot. He is smart, he has a high IQ, he is street savvy having lived in the city his entire life, but he can make the most ridiculous statements and look me in the eye when he says it. The kid is not joking and it infuriates me, Initially. Then I get disappointed and wish he was joking and that leads to my last though: “When is this boy going to leave my home so I don’t have to deal with this stupidity?”

OK. OK. I admit this happens maybe once a week, sometimes twice and it is getting harder and harder to live with. Take for example the last conversation in which he tried to convince me that since pot is decriminalized in Illinois that means it is legal and he should be able to smoke in the home. My home. Yes. Go ahead and re-read that so you get the full effect of it, I will wait. My responses to stupidity are short and meant for him to rethink what he said. Usually, It is; “Really?” or sometimes it is; “ Wait. What?” said with more of a general attitude so he knows I heard him, but he should really rethink what he just said.

He quit smoking recently. Hurray! Cigarettes. He took up smoking Pot on a pretty regular basis at that time. Because hey it is decriminalized now…(Read that last italicized bit with sarcasm for full effect please.) Since that time, he has been stoned every day and I am getting off the ride and setting the boy loose on the world. I have done my part. At almost 20 with a job of his own, it’s time for him to begin doing his part. Paying his own bills and renting his own place won’t allow much money for his new found habit. So, put a fork in me because now - I am done.

I finally get why a mother bird would kick the baby out of the nest. When it’s time, Its time.

I have stumbled through my days

2011-12-07T13:34:00.001-06:00

I have stumbled through my days
drifting from one experience to another
from people to places
from loneliness to love
falling constantly forward
with not much of a plan
or a purpose
but to stay upright
and ever so slowly
know myself.

It had to do with the dogs

2011-10-26T09:43:00.003-05:00

It was always about the dogs. When my husband was drinking he would always take the dogs for a walk, or down to the basement with him, the dogs were his pack, more so than his human family. They were content to let him drink himself into oblivion, they never complained when he passed out on the sofa, bottles littered on the ground, where they lay. They accepted him in all his failings, all his lacking and they loved him, unconditionally. They loved him in spite of himself.

I had always thought I loved in my relationships much like a good dog. In fact I have described myself as loyal as a dog on several occasions, but I was never as loyal as our first family dogs, not to him. Not like they were.

My husband’s ‘bottom’ hit with the death of our two bulldogs six weeks apart from one another. Our older girl Bella died at 11 of old age but our younger boy Boo who was only six at the time and being treated for Lymphoma rapidly declined after losing his companion, Bella.

Truth be told, this was the family hitting bottom, not just my husband. We had lost so much to one another, over the short course of being a family there was a time after the dogs died where the pain was tangible in our home. We were all sad, but Rodger would begin his spiral down from that point on. It was as if he recognized that his humans were incapable of loving him as unconditionally as his dogs had been. So he drowned his sorrows, as was his custom. In a sense we lost much more than our family pets within that 6 to 8 week period, we lost a husband and a father as he slipped farther away from us, into the bottle. He went from being a functional alcoholic to one who could barely function at all.

It was the dogs that set him in motion, spiraling downward into the drink. It was the dogs that saved us.

Today my husband is four years sober and I am grateful and thankful and looking forward to the next four sober years, one day at a time. Now it is the dogs that enhance our healthy lives together. We rescue them, care for them, foster them, teach them and send them on to forever homes with the hope that they will save others the way they have help to save us.

Adrift today

2011-07-27T12:50:00.001-05:00

Last night I was painfully reminded of how things once were. The yelling over one another, the pushing, blocking, bullying. The whole 'my need to be heard is greater than your need to speak' kind of communication. It was the dance of 'tag your it, I won’t walk away because I will be heard'. We have had a good year or so with no incidents of being disrespectful towards one another we have if you will been good roommates toward each other. For the most part, as good a roommate as teenagers and their parents can be. Until last night, when everything changed.

Is it possible that so much can change within the blink of an eye? Without knowing of the coming disaster, with no time to prepare or take shelter. That quite literally, in one moment all is well and the next the roof is blown off the place we call home and we are once again reminded how fallible we are as human beings. How naked families are to one another, how deeply and tragically we are all connected to a moment.

And I am adrift today, wondering how long it was all separating at the fault line, how long did I just not see it? Have I reverted or is it the same old addiction induced craziness from our past that has come back to reminded us of just how broken we were. We are. Or is it telling us how far we had come before this?

What was left

2011-03-25T12:10:00.001-05:00

He began fresh, new
as me and you
and
like us he would watch cartoons
on lazy Saturday morning’s
seeming normal
except not quite.

He sat on the floor
with his cookie monster, footy PJ’s on
innocent and unspoiled
mostly
while on the couch behind him laid his father
in a sweaty snoring heap
and all about the floor beneath
were bottles
standing straight up, laying sideways, bleeding their contents out
that the child employed in his play
army men would climb over, hide behind them
in this the war of
what was left
from childhood.
By Cat Aitken

This parenting thing is hard, even with a clean kid...

2011-03-18T16:54:00.005-05:00

Last night I sat down and had a good long cry.

This parenting thing gets so complicated when your own hope is wrapped up in your children’s successes and failures.

My son has been home out of rehab now for 7 months and while initially he was successful staying clean and positive, since early January he has appeared to flop about like a fish out of water and it’s getting so difficult to watch.

What do you do? Be supportive, be encouraging, remain positive yet realistic. State the obvious, call him on it when he is not sticking to the plan, find creative ways to stay connected.

He is visiting family, changing his scenery getting away from bad influences and staying close to those that love him and have faith in him. He requested this, on his own, and I support it. I think he is working on taking care of himself again, refocusing on what he needs to do to move to the next stage in life - 19 is right around the corner.

Sometimes I forget that I do not know everything there is to know about him and his life, like I once did and that gets frustrating, but is'nt this how it is supposed to turn out?

From drugs to mugs. A slide show of the changes in faces

2011-03-02T11:48:00.000-06:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41786945/ns/health-addictions/

the red eyed beast

2011-02-28T11:16:00.000-06:00

Addiction. The red eyed beast that chews upon your loved ones, arms and legs, takes whole bites out of their hearts and souls until you barely recognize who they once were.

A new perspective

2011-02-21T11:43:00.000-06:00

Written 3 years ago at the height of my husband’s sobriety changes:

I am the parent who stayed when others would have fled.
I am the parent who doubted herself and her ability to survive alone with two babies, the very same parent who was too scared to leave and face the unknown and uncertainty of something as simple as a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. I am the parent who preferred the familiar victim role as opposed to grabbing a hold of her own life and her own destiny and charging on, bravely alone. And while it may be true that my children were not beaten and abused, I am the parent that did not remove them from a living situation that would damage them, perhaps beyond repair.

Rewritten with a new perspective:

I am the parent who stayed when others would have fled.
I am the parent who relied on her ability to make it through anything, in order to care for her children. I am the parent that was brave enough to sit through it, the one who chose to weather the storm. And while it may be true that my children were exposed to an alcoholic father and sometimes chaotic home, I am the parent that was the rock that grounded them during that time and encouraged growth from our past experiences.

Allow

2011-01-10T21:02:00.000-06:00

There is no controlling life.Try corralling a lightning bolt,containing a tornado. Dam astream and it will create a newchannel. Resist, and the tidewill sweep you off your feet.Allow, and grace will carryyou to higher ground. The onlysafety lies in letting it all in –the wild and the weak; fear,fantasies, failures and success.When loss rips off the doors ofthe heart, or sadness veils yourvision with despair, practicebecomes simply bearing the truth.In the choice to let go of yourknown way of being, the wholeworld is revealed to your new eyes.

(Danna Faulds, "Poems from the Heart of Yoga: Go In and In")

he is home

2010-10-18T16:47:00.005-05:00

he is home.
it’s been scary and wonderful and a little bit of exciting all mixed up together.
i have had one time when i blew it, over-reacted, certain he had failed and he calmly called me on it.
i understand it is my problem, not his. i apologized, frustrated at myself for hanging on to conditioning from my past.
he is good. great even. he has found some new friends, found a young AA meeting to be a part of, found a sponsor and continued to see his therapist.
he is sober and i am not fearful today.
my son came home.
my boy is back to who he was before he ever began using, only somehow he is a better version of that. adult, calm, self assured, self confident and courageous.
he is home.

September 7th - Release from Rehab

2010-09-03T14:17:00.008-05:00

His plans are:

* 90 meetings in 90 days, which he asked his father to help him find some good ones

* Look for employment

* Touch base with his probation officer the first day back and his therapist the second day

* Eat a really good hamburger with a milk shake

My plans are:

* Not smother him

* Stick with my program

* Buy him that hamburger and shake

* Take it a day at a time

Hope finds a way or my goodbye post

2010-07-16T12:49:00.007-05:00

The time for this place and my writing here is past and I have moved on to other areas of my life that need my attention. This will be my last post here, and I will leave the site open for others who stumble upon it searching the web late at night for an answer or a connection or just to know that they are not alone, because that is after all, how I started out.

Thank you to everyone who has commented and opened up my world in a whole new way, thank you for the encouragement and the support, the understanding as well as the open ideas expressed here with sincerity. This part of my life, this writing and sharing with you all has made the difficult times easier and has helped in more ways than any words I can write could ever express.

I wish you all the very best and wanted to leave one of the most important things I have learned here on my page:

There is always hope, even when we feel there is no more room left in our hearts to hold onto it, hope finds a way.

If you are new to my site, my story starts with Coming Soon.

PTSD. What it is like.

2010-07-02T15:53:00.002-05:00

Black tendrils of this old
familiar monster
hunt and search for a spot
to land,

to take hold of me.
Like foggy mist
it floats
hunting out
old familiar
unpleasantness,
memories of days gone by
memories of midnights

early mornings
looking, longingly out the window
waiting, hoping

that everything is
OK.
Gone are those days
and yet,
my mind brings me back to
that place
allowing the monster to touch
my head,
my heart
with fear
as if it were only yesterday
and not many, many years.

On Chess & Life

2010-06-29T11:43:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday I went to see my oldest and stayed the full 5 hours for visiting time. It was just he and I. I was looking forward to spending the time with him all to myself but I was worried, would we run out of things to talk about, so as an afterthought, before I left home I grabbed our chess set and brought it along.

I taught my son how to play chess around 8 or 9 years old, he would play and play and I would win and win, until on occasion he would see an error on my part and win the game. Chess is a game about thoughtfulness, careful contemplation, and looking at all of your choices before making your move. My son, of course having nothing to do but read, play cards and chess now has surpassed me in skill and I won only one game against him, out of four we played. But in my defense one was a draw… however the boy is getting skilled and on the train ride on the way home, I had time to contemplate how chess is like life and came up with the following.

Take a look.

An interview with All Treatment

2010-06-28T16:58:00.000-05:00

Read about it here.

There are words

2010-06-22T10:42:00.006-05:00

Some days words are my closest of allies, they are able to articulate what is hidden deep within, and in fact I find that words are never a problem for me, rather vocalizing them is where often times I fail myself.

Words help me create a picture of what I see in my head or my heart even. Words assist me in offering up love and comfort, confusion and apprehension. Indeed words rarely fail me, but rather fall short on my lips half spoken.

When the judge asked me about my oldest son, after he tested positive for DXM and pot while on probation for violence against his father, (due to an episode where he was high), I was not failed by words, but confounded by the moment. My son looking to me, to stand beside him, to be on his side and my own need to have him back, as he once was, before the DXM abuse, before the change. I stammered for the moment and suddenly no longer felt sure of my words, I was clumsy and they caught in my throat, as I spoke them; “My son needs help, and I cannot give him the help he needs.”

That day, I held back tears as I heard the judge sentence my son to in-patient rehab. My son looked at me as his betrayer, and he was hurt and so was I. Eventually I stopped questioning my own response to that question, and I began to understand that anywhere my son could be held in-patient, sober had to be better than where my son was then. My son needed help that I could not give him. It was just that simple for me.

So I believe that some days there are words to ask for help, when you can no longer will things to happen. When a loved one needs more than you can give, there are words to communicate your love and affection at the same time, express hopefulness for the future. Maybe the words I plan on saying sometimes stop short of my lips, but always, always there are words.

Update. He is at the half way point now.

2010-06-17T12:45:00.004-05:00

My son had a six hour pass this past weekend. I loaded up his brother and his BFF and we took the train to visit. His time away, getting clean has helped me to better see who he was before the drugs. His personality the boy I knew before the DXM abuse, is peeking through here and there. It sounds silly to say my heart sings, but that is about the only way I can describe it. Something inside me is lifted or filled up because of being able to see the wonderful stuff that makes up this boy. I knew it was always there, underneath, but it has been years since I have seen him like this, and it feels good remembering and seeing him at his best again.

To thine ownself be true

2010-05-25T13:13:00.004-05:00

(Photo Credit: Zacker Aitken age 5 - David & I at the Cabin)

Have you ever noticed that fine twine when pulled tightly feels almost like silk, yet when unraveled loosely can feel like course wool, prickly and uncomfortable. I liken it to my family being a strand each of this twine, sometimes being pulled tightly, feeling as smooth as silk yet at other times as course and unwelcoming as a porcupine. In most families I imagine this is the dynamics, it’s not always wonderful and not always terrible. If we are lucky we get a fair amount of days that are just right. For me as I age I see that there is much to be said about my own attitude in my perception of others and likely this goes both ways.

When I was younger, I thought that little white lies made me feel better. When my mom, red- faced and puffy came to pick me up at the school yard, I remember saying that was my aunt and not my mom. I was embarrassed that she was large, red faced and sweaty, but I also did not want others making fun of her, because as much as I was conflicted about my own feelings of her at 8 years old, she was my mom.

As I grew older I began to understand how important staying true to myself was and how when I told those little white lies, a piece of me was chipped away bit by bit and I felt less, instead of more.

I am the daughter of a wonderful man, who was at times both mother and father to me growing up, but who was by no means perfect. My father taught me about unconditional love and that nobody was perfect and that doing the best you can was the best you could expect from yourself on good days. He also taught me about people being equal without consideration of their race or religion. So it may come as a surprise to you that my father is a gay man. He is married to the most wonderful man who is also a big part of my family and who I love dearly. Not outing my father as a gay man in a long term relationship initially kept the need for anyone else judging my beloved father harshly out of the way. But it also did not tell people who I was or where I came from and it did not tell people what kind of a person raised me and helped to shape my world, neither does knowing he was gay. People are so much more than their sexual preference or addictive tendencies or religious views.

The other day one of the doctors I work regularly with asked about my oldest going to college and graduating I stammered initially, explaining he was in Lake Villa, wondering how much to share, how much I could get out of my mouth about my son. Then, I went on to say he was in a rehab facility there, and that the hope was he would be home before he turned 18 in August.

Because he is my son and I will stand by him no matter what, because of all that I have learned about myself and what “doing the right thing" means for me I was able to open up. I am not embarrassed by my son, I adore him and I know that all of his missteps now will add up to parts of him later on in life that will make him a better person. This is just a rung on his ladder of life and he has a long way to go til the end.

Friday Flash 55

2010-05-21T09:39:00.003-05:00

Rodger,
It has been
18 years since
I said
I do
And so did you
18 years since
we had
no children
no dogs
no cats
no real responsibilities
and sometimes
no real sensibilities
and
after all this time
I can tell you true
I would not change a thing
cannot imagine life without you.

A quality to admire

2010-05-14T14:14:00.002-05:00

Six weeks ago my husband put up these sharp, wire contraptions on our windowsills around the outside of the house to deter birds nesting. Doing this meant he had to clean out all the bird poop from years past where pigeons would perch. During the Spring of last year we found out that the pigeons did more than poop and in fact had nested. My youngest had the dubious honor of having pigeons wake him up early and then when the eggs hatched hearing the little birds cry for more food, which they do quite often. Did you know that?! It was as if they ate nonstop.

When we found the nest, last year we were faced with a choice and decided to wait the birds out, as opposed to possibly killing all the poor babies at that time still in their eggs. Don’t get me wrong I am not a big bird lover and I have been known to call pigeons rats with wings at times, but babies of any species kind of make me go to mushy. So we waited and they grew and ate and squeaked and cheeped and finally one day the whole family was gone.

Last week my youngest son and I noticed the momma and papa pair from last year, stooped on our garage roof. They are easy to identify, the fat and squat couple just sat there, he a big, poofy white chesty thing and she looks like every other pigeon you have ever seen, unremarkable really, except for the fact that they were a pair and we recognized them from last year. I had no idea pigeons mated for life, so I went and Googled that and in fact they do. All week these two have been hanging about the back yard, the sills on the house that they can still land on, the backyard fence and the back porch. They sit on our fence unafraid of us or our canine companions who could care less about them as they go about their backyard business. It is as if they are waiting, or courting or whatever it is that birds do before they make babies.

But we put up barriers to prevent them from having a happy home on our sills this year, and while I feel their pain something more to this has caught my attention. We put barriers in their way, in hopes they would find a nice perch and nest somewhere else, and they sat, perplexed, almost thrown a little that their old nest was no more for a few days at most. But after that they had obviously got on with life, found a new spot and set up house because last evening my husband discovered their new nesting place, under our back porch.

And ya know what? We do have a pretty good place to call home, and if I were a bird looking to nest I would probably choose this place as well. I have decided that the bird couple and my husband and I are much alike. He is poofy-chesty and I unremarkable but we have had many barriers in our path and we have managed to set up a pretty nice place to call home, managed to stick with it, to one another no matter the barriers, we just kept on keeping on and that is a quality I have to admire, even if the species displaying it are just rats with wings to some people.

My two greatest gifts or my Mother's day post

2010-05-06T10:30:00.006-05:00

Recently I have been thinking about how much I have learned, grown and changed from being a mother. From not just mothering but having the opportunity to mother my boys, who are like night and day in personality but who fit nicely together in my world.

Growing up being a mother to me when I was young, was something I was not particularly interested in doing. Once I was a mother though it took on a life of its own, as sometimes loving another person does. When my boys were small they would make a game out of asking who my favorite child was and my answer was always the same, “They are both my favorite” which did not satisfy either of them at the time of the asking but I suspect as they have grown older they have some comfort in knowing I could not love them, either of them any more than I do.

I have talked much of my oldest son here. Poured my heart out onto these pages of his comedic and often times touching ways and of his addictive tendencies. Written of my love, frustration and pain through all of the changes that growing from a boy with an alcoholic father into a man has brought. I have shown you a little piece of my heart where he is concerned, but did you know I have another son?

My youngest is 15 years old now and when I found out I was pregnant with him, I remember being worried and thinking that I could never love him as much as I loved my first child. I had lessons from my mother going through my head, haunting me, lessons about how to love siblings differently and how to have favorites and how to hurt your children with words and deeds. The pregnancy of my second child had me in a very different place in my head than the pregnancy of my first child. His delivery was not easy on me and the fact that the he weighed in at 10lbs .2 oz may have had something to do with that, even with a c-section birth, 7 days before he was due. I had gained 15 lbs the whole pregnancy, could not eat meat without feeling ill and had to have crunchy fruits and vegetables as well as cinnamon toast every day with him. He would be my last child, and my recovery was as difficult as he was the first few weeks of life. My second son was not an easy baby - like my first, he was picky, fussy and would not breast feed but something in me refused to see his inability to breast feed as a personal rejection and instead looked at it as a personal preference. I could understand that because I too had my own personal preferences, don’t we all!? As well I too did not breast feed as a babe, and decided to embrace the sameness in this fussy child and myself. And in fact he and I are much alike.

At four weeks old he suddenly bloomed into this wonderful, pudgy, happy baby with long legs and arms and the most beautiful round face with rosy cheeks. His eyes are a green color now but started out as the bluest blue, his skin was milk white and his hair had a red hue to it. When he was old enough to know a few words, I took great delight in asking him, “Whose baby are you?” to which he would respond, “Momma’s baby”.

Looking at him now you can tell he is that same baby in the photos from 15 years ago, he has grown to 6 feet and some inches tall. He is still picky about what he eats but has replaced climbing out of his crib and on my bookshelves with skateboarding and playing the guitar, which he taught himself. He expects much of himself and has no issue with peer pressure because he really does march to a different drummer and the beat is fiercely independent.

With Mother’s day approaching fast, I cannot help but be grateful for the boys I have been gifted to love, to mother and through it all I know I am lucky to have had them both, lucky that it is I who can be called their Mom.

The smells bring her back to me

2010-05-05T16:49:00.000-05:00

I think I was thirteen when it happened. I remember it as if it was just yesterday, we were in Oklahoma, on my Great Grandmother’s porch, waiting for her to answer the door and I was in front, knocking, trying to peep through the window, hopping from one foot to the other in my attempt and excitement. When she finally arrived at her door, I was taller than her, to the delight of my 13 year old self. We hugged, and immediately I noticed there was less softness to her body, for me to lean into. It was alarming for me, because I had never considered the possibility of her dying before, also because she was my most favorite person in the whole of the universe, my small world could be filled up with her smile.

Later in that visit, in her home filled with smells of coffee and moth balls I went to take her hand while sitting next to her and there was conversation going on and I remember, holding her one small, boney, arthritic hand in mine and being amazed at how silky soft her translucent skin was. I remember that I could see her blue veins so clearly and in truth it was a little unnerving for me to begin to understand that she was much more fragile than I had ever imagined. But she of course was no ordinary person, she was the matriarch of my family, where everyone gathered to be together, the hub of our family wheel.

My Grandmother had always been connected to my young life. She would visit El Paso when we lived there, while I was in grade school, she would pick me up and walk home with me and talk to me about my day. I spent many summer weeks at her home, in the turtle garden watching and learning or with her at the penuckle group with the blue haired ladies clucking over me. She was the only person I ever allowed to buy me a pair of ugly shoes, that I wore every day I was there with her, and that I put away once I got back home. She even killed a garden snake in El Paso, in our garden with a rock and to an 8 year old she appeared fearless and as far as I could tell flawless.

Before my Grandmother died, she had lost her husband and two of her sons. At my Uncle Ray’s funeral, my Great grandmothers youngest child, I remember the drive from the church to the burial grounds because the procession stopped at one point with nothing but cotton fields in bloom all around us on a seemingly endless country road, with dusty red clay blowing as it does in Oklahoma. My Grandmother got out of the car and picked cotton, which she gave to my brother and I back at her home later that night. At the time it never occurred to me what the simple act of her doing this was, but now later in life, I see it as something I am not sure I would be able to duplicate. For even in her grief, it seems to me that her thoughts were with the living.

Putting words to my relationship and memories of this woman can sometimes be frustrating. I want to paint a picture of what I aspire to be and I want to relive those memories of her holding my hand, her smile and her ability to reach out to love others, even in the midst of losing her own child.

it has been some time

2010-04-30T11:29:00.004-05:00

I wrote something last year here and finding it today was a good reminder for me that moving forward comes in many shapes and forms.

on a lake

2010-04-28T11:19:00.006-05:00

On a lake that borders my state and another, my son resides at a residential treatment facility. Last Saturday, I took a two hour train ride there to spend two hours visiting him, one hour (mandatory parent meeting) learning about Chicago gangs from actual gang members in the facility and a two hour train ride back.

He looks good, my chameleon son. Coming from a family of like minded people we do well at fitting in and landing on our feet, and he does what he does naturally, easily. But this place will be a hard fit for him, as he is not so far gone as to be physically ill from withdrawal, he does not have knife or bullet wounds to wear as a badge of toughness like the gang members from the inner city Chicago streets, but instead he has deep brown eyes that have seen and known more than a child his age should.

The house is quiet without him and I am working on appreciating the solitude. The door to his room remains closed off from the rest of the house, which is appropriate I think since he is physically closed off from me at the same time, but this tug in my heart does not let up, a closed door does not close off the brain or the heart from what it has known or from the missing. So I venture out to the market where everything I know he likes to eat calls to me as I pass it by and I cannot close the door on the world of things that I associate with my son.

It has not yet been a week and I can't help but wonder how strange this place is that I am in, as a mother not physically mothering, not moving ahead nor backsliding, yet being fully aware of the missing piece of my life and feeling somewhat in limbo land and ya know what? That is really OK.

Heart Hurt

2010-04-23T10:37:00.005-05:00

My heart is fluttering in my chest. At first it felt like butterflies but that was two days ago, today it is a dull, hard thudding, demanding attention sometimes keeping me from catching my breath as I feel it (thud, thud, thud), beating hard in my chest and neck. I think it is my body trying to send me into a panic attack, it feels familiar like some I had a few years back when I felt sad, stressed and unable to express it to anyone. So I have been waiting them out and they come and go, but I am not feeling panicked, just annoyed that my body is insistent on causing a commotion that I would prefer ignore, and move away from. I think that the fact that I have not cried over the events of the past 24 hours may have something to do with the strange signals that my head is sending to my heart, alerting me that maybe I should, that perhaps that would help but I prefer to keep on keeping on, as if I had a choice to do anything but that. But oddly enough I think it appropriate that I can say I am heart hurt because of the events that are going on and physically my body is behaving accordingly.

Yesterday I accompanied my son to be admitted into a very nice rehab facility on the boarder of Illinois and Wisconsin. It is a four to six month program in a beautiful space, right on the Fox lake and today I see my puzzle master to talk this all out.

Today

2010-04-20T13:21:00.004-05:00

I am in a sad place in my head today.
The in-patient treatment center called
about insurance coverage for my almost 18 year old son.
I do not want to pay the money.
I do not have the money to pay.
Perhaps more than this is that feeling of
something creeping up inside me
clawing its way to a quiet scream.

In the last year I have gone through enough financial madness and I am done with it.
I won’t allow that to happen to me again, no matter what it takes on my part.
Now having gotten to a place that is marginally do-able…
that is to say, less uncomfortable than it has been
but still there is nothing left over to save or spare.
Just the basics are met
and that has been enough.

But now, I am faced with-
contemplating even,
turning my back on my child’s addictive habits.
Because it hurts to look, to acknowledge the
truth that stares at me in the face. Maybe it is as simple as needing to look away
for a moment or
maybe
I am fearful of drowning in debt again
so soon after the relief came, not enough time to become friends with the
feeling and get acquainted with it and I see it slipping away -
as if to say, no security allowed. It is beyond my grasp.

My son has a long way to go,
since he does not have a problem and lives
in a world filled with his own delusional lies
but the truth of it, the heart of it
the brutal honesty is that I do not want to go in dept
again.

There I said it.

List of gratitude

2010-04-15T15:15:00.000-05:00

My husband has been sober for 902 days today
He has also been released from probation as of yesterday
The sunny weather makes for lovely biking along the lake shore
That my skinny pants fit me nicely and just in time for the sunny weather
My oldest will be going into in-patient rehab, either of his own accord
or because of a court order very soon and I see that as an opportunity for him to grow, change, learn
That my family is all physically healthy and able bodied
That I have the most wonderful dog in the whole world
That my most wonderful dog shows me she thinks I am pretty wonderful also
That my youngest can create music from his own head / heart / hands
That my heart is open
That this too shall pass

That Will to Divest

2010-04-14T16:36:00.001-05:00

Meaning: once
you've swept
the shelves
of spoons
and plates
you kept
for guests,
it gets harder
not to also
simplify the larder,
not to dismiss
rooms, not to
divest yourself
of all the chairs
but one, not
to test what
singleness can bear,
once you've begun.

Kay Ryan the current poet laureate
Thanks to one of my most favorite people who also happens to be my mother in law for sending this my way.

Purging

2010-03-29T11:01:00.003-05:00

The last few weeks I have been in the process of purging. It began as spring cleaning, but has taken on something entirely different, in a good way. I started with a sofa that was older than 6 years and has seen the likes of two cats, several foster dogs and my own residential dogs not to mention teenage boys and their friends. It was ratty, tattered and worn out and while my husband and I had discussed getting rid of it, we never had, until recently. Once that was accomplished it was as if the cork was unplugged from the well. I was nothing short of a raging river running through my bedroom, closets and kitchen, discarding things I had held onto because someday I would use it or need it or want it. But for many of the items I was purging, someday had not come in years, so I thought it safe to assume someday was not coming often enough and it was time to let things go. An old bookcase I never fixed up as I thought I would, an old microwave that had a warranty when I stored, but no longer did a broken mismatched chair and several hundreds of pieces of graded school work for the boys, because I used to keep everything.

Then I decided it was time to let go of my Jeep Wrangler, which I had purchased new, off the lot in 2002. My first brand new car in my life, the Jeep I had purchased on my own, with no input from my husband, because he had refused to help. He thought if he refused it meant I would not follow through and trade in my current car for a new one. It was the first independent action I would take and it inspired many other brave actions through the course of the following years. If I were a car I think I would be a Jeep, rugged, self sufficient and durable. Able to withstand the long haul. Letting go of the actually Jeep was hard, but also freeing in a way.

After having purged so many items I was able to delve into old trunks that held old letters, court documented and summons that were filed with outdated and hurtful memories. Court summons and letters that I have not read since I received them that were painful, cutting and somewhat brutal at the time I put them away. Ultimately letting go of all these pieces of paper now proved easy for me, as I found my heart let go of these painful memories gradually over the course of the years.

I have room now for more life to happen and space to store new memories of better days to come.

On Gratitude

2010-03-11T10:18:00.007-06:00

I caught myself last night, complaining about another night spent alone, while my husband was preparing to go to his home group meeting. I was both confused and a little embarrassed that I spoke before I thought about it. My mind has been in a dark place, my own stuff pouring out as words of complaint, but not on him. Not really, it was on myself and my own unhappiness, my selfish nature. I want it all and why not?

Two and a half years ago he was hitting a meeting every night for 90 days, I did not complain, I was grateful - hopeful. Or a year ago, when he was still going to five meetings a week, including the open meeting we would attend together on the weekends, maybe then I could have fussed, but I never did, not once. I was grateful and held such hope for change, for him to be succesful. So now while he is active and attending three meetings a week, not counting the open one we attend together and still maintaining his positive and might I mention sober outlook, he obviously is getting out what he is putting into it. Or maybe it is me who is benefitting really, afterall his changes have made my life better and we have grown to be friends, which we were not before this began.

So every so often I have to remember how things used to be, in order to realign myself with why things are the way they are now. I have been hitting a meeting where there are no new stories and maybe I need those more than I thought. They used to remind me of how things used to be. With the drinking, lies, lost money, wasted time. The dui’s and lawyers, the hidden bottles throughout my home, like hidden Easter eggs left for me to find. Like eggs they were rotting something in our home that we could not see. When I am able to see how much has changed due to his working the AA program, going to meetings regularly, having a sponsor and living one day at a time, it makes not having him for those 4-5 hours a week, so much easier and it reminds me of all I have to be grateful for.

Now, to find a new meeting for tonight.

At the crossroad of the storm

2010-03-09T09:35:00.005-06:00

When he was small he would not sleep
he needed comfort
he would not keep
this crossroad that I find myself on
between once being young
and what’s left to come
it scares me some
to think
he will soon
be on his own
when he does not attempt to fly
living at home
where the soft ground beneath
would catch him with care
and I, his mother
would be ready
prepared

He was late to school again today, almost 18 and he cannot manage his own schedule. I as his mother, I am frustrated, sometimes even livid but I know I have no power over this, as I have taken away all that can be taken away to inspire his attendance at school and soon enough he is going to learn the hard way how life is lived.

My oldest can be the most creative and compassionate child I have ever known, he is passionate about what he believes but he also is self centered, bold and rash in his thinking and actions. What teenager is not ?

He like my husband has Attention Deficit Disorder and has been struggling since second grade through school. It seems that the failures of his past have left him with a bitter taste in his mouth for education and so I believe he has given up. I saw this coming years ago, attempted to intervene, to quell the storm before it hit, but in truth, my son has been the storm since the age of seven. This is how he lives, how he loves, how he tries to move forward, my storm of a man child. If I could capture his passion on a daily basis and manufacture it, I feel confident I could solve the world’s energy crises.

But I live in the real world, where my hopes and dreams are just that, my own. And while my child was young I was his cheerleader, his protector, his rock. I stood solid, on shaky foundation thinking he would be OK, because I would will it. Yet I find at this late hour of his youth I am no more able to will his success than I am to stifle his passion and I can only stand in the storm, unwilling to back away, back out. I am a spectator only.

He woke late today, does'nt sleep well anymore, he comes and goes in and out of patterns that are his own for some time now with sleep. I knew he was absent from first period again, he is almost always late if not absent, unable to pull himself from bed, his alarm ringing incessantly, unheeded. But today was different, in that he sent me a text, that said;

“I want to see a doctor about medicine, I am sick of this. I do not sleep, think it is ADD, can you help?”

This text may seem inconsequential to the parent of a child who does not have this diagnosis, but to me, coming from a son who has refused medication for the past 6 years, this brings me much hope. Feeling helpless the past few years, I would sit by watching him whittle away at pieces of himself, refusing medication, falling farther away from my arms reach, I would worry about how I would catch him. But today he has given me hope that maybe, just maybe things will be OK and that maybe, he will be able to catch himself.

10 things I learndt in the last year

2010-02-26T10:37:00.006-06:00

As of 02/13/2010 I have officially been in therapy with my puzzle master for a year. In honor of that fact I wanted to do a post of: 10 things I have learndt in the last year of therapy

1. Sometimes digging in deep, causes more pain than it does good
2. If I have no idea where I am going, how the heck can I expect to get there?
3. When my body feels bad, so does my mind
4. I really like the idea of adventure in my everyday life
5. Trust is a hard thing for me to hand out, but love is not possible without it
6. If each day I do my best, then I am good enough
7. Be flexible in mind as well as in body
8. Letting go of fears brings relief and happiness into my life
9. Balance needs to be met for me to feel grounded
10. Reaching for the warmth rarely results in a burn

Sitting nearby

2010-02-24T10:01:00.006-06:00

We sat in the high school gymnasium, with plastic and metal chairs that made a screeching sound on the linoleum tiled floors as people moved them in and out from their table groups. As we watched and absorbed the speaker and others around us, I was reminded about why we were there and what keeps us coming back. At one point my husband reached for my hand as if it was a subconscious behavior that rose to the surface, one warm hand wrapped around my own. And I wonder if he knows how connected I feel to him when he does this with his rough, course working man’s hand. I contemplate on how to tell him how very much worth the journey this all has been when we are together, like this. Some days our movements are fluid as in a dance where he responds and floats as I do, in unison. Yet it still surprises me, when it happens the sheer amount of gratitude and appreciation that bubbles to the surface after all this time.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-02-24T09:00:00.002-06:00

Something close to my heart

2010-02-17T11:06:00.001-06:00

Happy one year anniversary to Violence Unsilenced

Love week

2010-02-12T15:30:00.003-06:00

Inspired by Lou.

Good Enough

2010-01-22T13:10:00.005-06:00

In case you hadn’t noticed, I took a little break on this site for about two months. Initially It was because I thought myself to be unmotivated, but not only did I take break of the writing in my life, I took leave of the working out and the eating right too. I stopped going to meetings but once a month (the open AA one with my husband) and instead allowed myself a distraction of a different kind (bulldogs). All the things that made me feel good, I took a break from, except the bulldogs and the family of course.

In December I did a good amount of soul searching on why I need to take these breaks like I do, what causes them, how can I manage them better next time the feeling to ‘break’ sets in and why on earth does this pattern of ‘breaking’ make me feel totally and completely, like a failure. When I stripped away all of the distractions I have had over the last year with my husband and my oldest child, all that is left is me and all the things I have yet to deal with on my own.

Deep. I know right?

I have been back to writing, ( kind of) and working out, (mostly) and eating right, so I felt good about spending an hour with my puzzle master the other day. I talked about these ‘breaks’ I take and how they make me feel absolutely crappy and how I want myself to be better at sticking to a plan and why can’t I be like everyone else anyhow? I know people who can maintain a healthy routine of eating and working out yearlong with no breaks in between, no backsliding and I want to be more like that and I should be able to right?

My puzzle master suggested that I am not like everyone else. He said I should consider the concept of being just “ good enough”. Sadly, the two words together make me cringe on the best of occasions, but in his office, where it is safe, I bawled like a 5 year old. Good enough is something I could never achieve in my childhood. I was never good enough, so at some point I stopped trying. Apparently, attempting to look away from this type of thing does not make the thing go away, no matter how many years you ignore it, somehow it seems to be intertwined in my everyday life, whether I admit to it or not, whether I care or not, it’s still here reminding me how, not good enough I am.

Upon leaving his office I thought about how I set my sights high, feel determined have that goal in front of me and work towards it, knowing that I can be better than just good enough, but somehow I fall short. And, it seems I always fall short. Just as I did as a child and the possibility that those breaks are me giving up is very likely, which results in that feeling of failure.

Rewiring is most likely out of the question at this point, but knowing is half the battle of anything, right? So I am back at it again. Setting realistic goals like to blog at least once a month, work out at least 4 times a week for an hour, eat clean and hit my meetings and therapy. I may not be able to rewire myself, but I suspect I can find a place this year for myself that is just good enough where I can actually believe that I am.

just been busy being

2010-01-14T15:47:00.001-06:00

If I were a food right now, I would be a tangerine. The best tangerines are brightly colored, firm and sweet.

I think last year I was an eggplant at this time of year - so a tangerine is a good place to be I think.

What food would describe you this year? Why? What about last year?

A reminder from the universe

2009-11-19T13:39:00.001-06:00

I was driving home from the juvenile courthouse today with my oldest and husband. While pulling out of a parking lot I saw a man with a blind walking stick on the side walk ahead of me, preparing to cross the drive. I stopped far away from his path in the parking lot giving him plenty of room and he looked my way while stepping into the drive to cross. He walked at a diagonal angle, heading into the street, instead of walking in a straight line. There was no curb to catch his stick now because it was a drive way and the traffic was lunch rush going into and out of this particular parking lot, while cars were zooming down the street. I tried to predict where he would wind up and as I watched I became worried for him. If he stayed on the same angle he would walk into the street and be hit by a car. I found myself wanting to holler out to him or better yet, get out of my car and go and take him by the arm. I wanted to save him because I was sure he was going the wrong direction, heading for a world of hurt or catastrophe. But just as I was going to put the car in park, I saw his stick catch the curb and he stopped abruptly. There was confusion on his face and hesitation was written in his slight turn of the body. He felt around more with his stick, felt the grass, felt for the cement and walked slowly back to the side walk and went on his way.

The moral to the story? It was his path to walk, to learn and to experience and not mine. He did just fine without my interference and others in my life will as well.

Flass 55

2009-11-12T16:52:00.006-06:00

“it’s something of an art to lay yourself out there like that," he said, taking a drag of his smoke as the wind pulled wisp's of it away in the cool night air.

‘what could she say to that’ she thought looking into the dark sky, ‘she had always considered herself an artist at heart’.

Are you interested in participating in Friday Flash 55?It is hosted by G-MAN, work up a piece with 55 words and head over to his place to let him know you did one!

The next right thing

2009-10-14T10:43:00.009-05:00

Wait. What?

When I thought of my name for this site I thought of all the things that were unimaginable that I was going through. I was in a place where self pity was flowing steadily and victim was my middle name. Wait. What? Was my own way of poking fun at myself and my reality because at the time most days all I could do was shake my head and cry, it got to the point of expecting the black cloud to follow me along because I deserved it…Wait. What? No really. I was in a bad place when this blog began and the only reprieve I seemed to get was when I was writing. When I started this blog it was a way to reach out from my introverted life, to the world in which I lived but felt like a spectator. You see I had totally walled myself in, cemented the bricks in place as fat under my skin and for much of my life I lived like this, not a participant but a spectator and a fat one at that. It was a miserable existence and all I knew when I began my blog was that I needed to write about my life, my experiences my thoughts and ideas and in writing I was reaching out to others, in the most indirect but comfortable way I could at the time.

Slowly over the last two years I have learned ways to participate in life, to come out of myself and chip away at the walls I had built up. I have learned to live a life that makes me feel good about who I am and where I have been and best of all I am hopeful about my future, looking forward to what may come. I am not unrealistic, I understand I have more work to do, but I am on my way and the road looks clear ahead of me with no clouds in sight, (but I will pack my umbrella just in case.)

Change has not happened over night and I have not had a guide book to follow but instead change has been a series of baby steps, relying more on my feelings of ‘is this the next right thing’ for me and then deciding to consciously move forward. It has been thrilling, scary, sometimes gut wrenching but through it all the trip has made me determined that there is a better way to live my life, to be happy and to make the most of everything that comes my way. I have become comfortable in my own skin and some days I feel as if I am glowing and I want nothing more than to spread myself all over the places and people I come into contact with, because I want to share of myself and I am less afraid to do this these days.

My recovery will never end but is only changing directions slightly and I have come to a place where this blog is less important to my recovery now than it once was. Admitting that is hard. Change is hard but I believe that it is so vital to who I am at my core today, I need to follow my heart and my head agrees.

So, in doing the next right thing I am going to instead begin a blog about all the positive changes I have made in my life. Over the last 2 years I have remained true to myself in working out and eating right and as a result I have lost weight and gained back my ability to be happy. My journey began with recovery and this new place will be about recovery of a different kind, but just as vital to my life as the 12 steps have proven to be and I am excited about writing again, about sharing my life and where I have been, as well as where I am going. I want to pass along what I have learned and help others. It is really that simple and many of my readers have helped me learn that this is how recovery works, by reaching out, and offering up support and open hearts to others, even strangers. This is what it is about, this life and living it right. I have you all to thank for that lesson, for that tip to happiness.

Once my new site is up and running I will post here about it and I will of course continue commenting as often as I can in order to keep up with everyone as well.

Rest assured this is not a goodbye but only a change in direction and Change is Good.

On meeting in the middle

2009-10-07T11:34:00.005-05:00

Before my husband discovered AA and I began Al Anon we were the kind of couple who happened to be in a long term relationship together where we spent copious amounts of time and energy working against one another. Literally.

My style of dance in the relationship was clingy and needy based solely on my fear of his addiction and my need to focus on him, rather than look at myself. My husband on the other hand danced a solo, where everything was always about him and his needs or wants. It made meeting in the middle a difficult task for anyone, let alone a married couple with two children. We were bound to fail long term if we kept doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same miserable results. (Who ordered the Insanity plate?)

Within the last two years we have learned a new way to dance as a couple, we split and go our separate ways in our days, take care of things for ourselves such as our meeting schedule, hitting the health club or going for a round of golf and we do these things without one another. We do our own things; take care of our own stuff, work together as parents as needed and come together to meet in the middle. We are better because of this. Better people, a stronger couple and happier parents because of this meeting in the middle that we have learned to do.

It took work, but eventually came down to changing our minds about ourselves as individuals. For him it was learning to focus on others more than himself while for me, learning to make myself first was key. You see we have always been polar opposites; it is what attracted us to one another in the first place. Being so different from one another certainly keeps things interesting. The bonus of course is that in taking care of ourselves, in care taking – we have also taken care of our family and our mate as well.

Flash Friday 55

2009-10-02T08:32:00.003-05:00

You come,
comment
leave a line of crumbs
for
me
to
follow
you
back
to your place

I follow,
comment
then leave my own crumbs
and
we search through other people’s archives
their comments
their people
and we look for;
connection
understanding
community
in hopes to find more
people
who we can call,
our own.

Are you interested in participating in Friday Flash 55?It is hosted by G-MAN, work up a piece with 55 words and head over to his place to let him know you did one!

Wordless Wednesday

2009-09-23T09:24:00.002-05:00

I am that girl

2009-09-17T13:48:00.002-05:00

I am that girl
on the playground
with no friends

My clothes are not new and fancy
but hand me downs from my brother
or pick me ups from the thrift mart
my hair is not cut into the style of the day, but instead is greasy and unkempt
on my feet are boys tennis shoes from the salvation army, that
when I got them I loved
but after I wore them
and you made fun of them
I hated

I am that girl
who wants to be your friend
who needs a friend, wants to fit in
who does not understand why
she doesn’t. Can’t.

I am not particularly smart, witty
or athletic. Being picked last for dodge-ball and kickball
I am sacrificed first for the good of the team
yet I do not show how it breaks me
inside.
This dirty business of being expendable

I am that girl
who thought that negative attention from her parents was better than no attention at all
who struggled to belong in the family she was born into
who wished for death in her teens
because it seemed the only solution
that would solve everyone’s problems

Did you know me
back then
when being alone
was treated as some kind of sin

It comes slowly, but at least it comes

2009-09-11T17:15:00.000-05:00

He has reverted. He slipped I tell myself, this happens. Everyone goes through a slip here and there. I want to shrug it off, walk away from it, because, well its ugly and he can be hurtful when he is like this. He raises his voice and my husband put the dog away after the first flash of teeth. We are touching base and he is doing more than touching on this first of our meetings. But something odd happens as my oldest and my husband struggle to communicate, or maybe to be heard is what they struggle with, to be seen by one another and acknowledged as viable and valuable and worthy. I am the audience, not the mediator but the people watcher as these men do a strange cockeyed dance around one other.

Family counseling has been over for several weeks now and my oldest is back for one week from vacation and working on dividing and concurring. He has his sights set on a goal and it does not align with the house rules. So he reverts as he belittles and berates, he pokes and prod’s, he pushes and he demands, all so he can have a friend in the house (read girl friend) while we are away at work. It is as if this is all about his friend and he spending time together, but I see through this to what lies beneath the surface. He is testing us, trusting he can manipulate things to how they once were, where he ruled the roost and we all ignored his behavior because we could not stand to acknowledge it. At one point my husband walked out, stating the meeting was over, when in truth the meeting had never really begun.

My oldest, now becoming ugly proceeds to cross the line by taunting my husband to go have a drink and that we were a fine family without him once and would be fine without him again, it was all about the damage he could do. As if he was wielding a mace, cracking it down on our weak spots. He doles out damage and I wonder if he recognizes it as such.

Just then, I had a flashback of my son as a toddler, who could not be talked down and had difficulty accepting answers he did not want and we are in the grocery store and he is throwing himself on the floor for candy that I refused to purchase for him. I left the store, left the items I had gone to purchase in the basket, picked him up and carried him outside where we walked home as he wailed and carried on. He has always been this person I see before me, but somehow in my head or maybe my heart it was more acceptable coming from a two year old.

So I find that we come and go from this standoff point where he wants more trust and I need him to earn it. He is impatient and impulsive and still has difficulty waiting for an end result and I am tired and ready to end the conversation. I want to walk away as my husband had wisely done and my child says for the 10th time that I never listen to him, when what he means to say is that I never give him what he wants. So I give it the old one – two go as I repeated back to him what he had been saying, repeated my responses as well and then said I needed to end the conversation because we were going in circles and I was tired and we were only becoming more frustrated.

He looks at me disapproving as if he thinks I want to run away from him, form the topic and I see that and change my approach. Instead, I asked him head on, how can we end this conversation where we can agree to disagree because the previous attempts I had made were not working and walking away is viewed as turning my back to the problem or him. I asked him for help, how can we end it now? And he replied with the most hopeful adult thing I have seen him do in a long while, he closed his mouth and walked away.

Flash Friday 55

2009-09-10T18:00:00.007-05:00

It is a late morning in bed with a small, sweet smelling being sleeping next to me, stealing my pillow. I roll close wrapping my arms around him, pulling him into me, gently nuzzling my nose in the folds of his neck and breathing in so that this moment will remain in my memory forever.

Interested in participating in Friday Flash 55?
It is hosted by G-MAN, work up a piece with 55 words and head over to his place to let him know you did one!

A note from my childhood

2009-09-05T09:01:00.000-05:00

“That’s it”, you screamed at me with a puffy red face while sweat was pouring from your hairline in the Texas heat, “I am calling child well fare and sending you away forever, I cannot stand you anymore!” I remember the heat of your breath and the spittle that flew from your mouth to hit me as you screamed not two inches from my face and I began to understand that it did not matter what my perceived sin was, because anything was an excuse for you to take out your rage, disappointment and anger of your own life, upon me, your own personal, mental punching bag.

You held the phone, that phone, on the wall in the kitchen with the lime green counter tops and linoleum floors, your tool to eviscerate me from not only you but my family, my home, my life. As I heard you talk, negotiating to give me away, I grabbed for the phone, fear running rampant through my veins, I struggled against you with all I had in me and I was balling while begging and pleading that I would be good from now on, gasping for breath between the oceans of snot and tears running down my nine year old face. After you hung up the phone you helped me pack a bag and then you had me wait on the front step for strangers who would come and take me away, but they never came. Until finally, you told me to come inside and made mention of how sad and pathetic I was because “strangers did not even want me…”

Happiness captured

2009-08-31T10:39:00.002-05:00

In a moment.

Flash Friday 55

2009-08-27T18:00:00.005-05:00

i believe in words.

my ability to communicate effectively relies on words daily, hourly.
words rarely fail me but line my spine, support my backbone.
within them, when looped and threaded, woven together like some fine afghan, words can affect an outcome.
words do not change things, but words change people and people change things.

Interested in participating in Friday Flash 55?

It is hosted by G-MAN, work up a piece with 55 words and head over to his place to let him know you did one!

Photo was lifted from google images

Tuesday Bullets

2009-08-25T09:14:00.010-05:00

I am grateful:

* That my youngest son called me from his orientation day at high school yesterday to share with me his schedule , his excitement for this new stage in his life and he sounded happy

* That he (my youngest) shares with me so easily and that he wants to share with me still

* That my brother has taken my two teenage boys to Wisconsin Dells with his two teenage boys for a few days

* That reconnecting with my brother after so many years apart was easy and near seamless

* That Pilates and Spin are on my schedule for the day and I am able to move for both and keep up

* That my husband and I are closer than we have ever been before and I am really liking this 'team' I belong to

* That my oldest son’s probation officer is so supportive and on the ball

* That I have been around the block a few times

* That happiness comes easily these days

* That labor day at the cabin with my family is right around the corner

the choices we make

2009-08-21T10:37:00.004-05:00

Here we sit
upon our sinking ship
a life raft awaits
anticipates

But you refuse to board
the raft is not big enough for
you and your father

I insist it is and it will hold
but you are hesitant
preferring to go down with the ship
rather than come to terms
with the human flesh that is
your heritage

Self destructive
you sink
In the blackness of the water
your choice
to punish me
or him
or you

I am torn
to leave you
I am your mother
I want to rescue you
my child
who cannot understand
the consequence of such things

And I board the life raft
heading for shore
for safety
your father by my side
just as much my own flesh and blood
as you

And I weep
for fear of losing you
to the ocean
to the hate
to this life

I reach for you
from the raft
one last attempt
and you touch my hand
hold still for a moment
then
let me go

The dark spaces in between

2009-08-20T08:00:00.004-05:00

Life seems to have moments like creases, that hold dark spaces in between. When it arrives the dark can blanket you with confusion and disorient you. For some people it takes years to come through the dark folds that hold them paralyzed. I was one of those people and I want to share a part of my story.

It is an ugly thing that happens when dysfunction sets into a relationship. Not something that people want to read about or know about someone else. But nonetheless it is a part of my story, along with the alcohol, the crazy mom and the al-anon meetings. As sure as I am a mother and a wife, this is part of me but like everything else it is not the whole of me, but just a piece. Since then, I am grateful to have come out of the dark place that held me frozen for too long, grateful that my husband too has climbed out and that we are making our way, in our own time.

If you would like to know more, read on and comment there please: Violence Unsilenced

It must be like that...

2009-08-19T10:44:00.006-05:00

When my husband was newly sober he would wake in the middle of the night in a sweat, breathing heavily as if the beast’s of hell were after him in the dream he woke from. He would tell me about those dreams of him drinking and try as I might I did not understand. These dreams happened more often in the start of his sobriety, but every now and again, another dream will come to him. I thought how terrifying that must be, to be tempted in your sleep by the very thing you know you are working at staying away from, the very thing that you know will bring you to your knees.

Please head over to the Second Road to read the rest.

Knowingly

2009-08-17T11:49:00.009-05:00

(In light of a post I have coming on Thursday 8/20 I wanted to re-post this piece from Cautionary Discretion that I wrote/ posted in July of 09. Rest assured this is not happening in my life any longer.)

As you sit in the emergency room,

a toddler climbing restlessly

all about you

no extra hands in sight,

to help

to hold

your eyes

puffy from tears

of how you got to this place

how your life fell so off course

or perhaps from

the pain in your

shoulder,

hand,

face or arm

fresh bruising

appears

as the sunrises

but you stay

allowing another person to treat you

in a way

that shows no love

no honor

and

whittles away at you

a bit at a time

the scar tissue takes hold

in side of us

a place

doctors cannot reach

or mend

and we sit

you and I

waiting

for our names to be called

our turn

our time

as we glance at one

another

knowingly.

Flash Friday 55

2009-08-14T08:29:00.004-05:00

As the fog lifted, there came a day when she woke up, looked in the mirror and was surprised at what was there. No longer were the surface features of the creature before her but, instead the beauty of her, what laid dormant, just beneath the skin, waiting patiently for her to open her eyes.

Friday Flash 55 Hosted by G-MAN

Photo Credit

On being my own #1

2009-08-13T14:32:00.004-05:00

I am working on becoming selfish. Sounds strange right? Having to work on something that is so self-serving, but I come from a long line of guilt carrying peoples. At some point in time, just after procuring the dubious honor of ‘Mommy’ I seemed to forget about myself and my own needs or wants and desires. Occasionally I would begin something and then just as suddenly something more important came up and my initial need got put aside. It happened so many times that I am no longer able to remember each and every event that took place and then of course there were my own resentments over what I had to put aside, building up like a pile of legos, waiting for me to step on them in the dark where I would have to pay attention.

The why’s of it all are easy for me to understand because it came down to my own commitment to myself and the fact that my own loyalties never really were with me. Strange how I could grow up so fierce and determined about loyalty and yet the one person that needed that more than anything from me I continually neglected.

Over the years my gut instinct has lead me to doorways of opportunity, where I was meant to be and most of the time I never walked through that door. I would say it was because of time issues with my children or finances for the family, but ultimately it had to do with my own loyalty to myself.

I am not a person motivated by materialistic things, but more by meaningful experiences in my life and one such thing has come up, quite unexpectedly but at exactly the right time. I was contacted by a trainer who has won awards and whose ideas about diet and exercise closely align with my own about a spot opening up for him, for me to train and learn and grow. He wanted to know if I was still interested. And I find myself standing in that doorway pondering if I can afford it, if I am worth it and if I really want it that badly as to make the sacrifices needed. As if I can talk my gut out of feeling as strongly as it does or negotiate it away, trying to second guess myself.

There is more though because I find that I am both excited and terrified of this. I could fail (but not if I do not try). I could succeed (but only if I attempt it).

It is not often I say 'I want this' and stand by my convictions, not allowing myself to be talked out of it and this is one of those times, perhaps one of the first time in 20 some odd years where I can say, 'I want this', while planting my feet firmly in place, in front of that door. So I have little doubt that my choice will be selfish and I admit to feeling a little proud for that. After so many years I can take for myself what I have willingly given to others without a second thought and knowing how foreign that idea has been to me over the course of my life confirms to me just how much I have grown in my own ability to take care of myself.

Flash Friday 55

2009-08-07T09:34:00.003-05:00

The red dust on the dirt road coated him a thick and rusty color. It was dusk and he was thirsty, licking his blistered lips he continued his aimless walk to nowhere as beads of sweat dripped from his nose and ran down his back, his cotton shirt sticking to him in the August heat.

Friday Flash 55 Hosted by G-MAN

I belong

2009-08-04T14:36:00.001-05:00

I slipped a bit. Just a bit. You know when you are with family how that can happen? Somehow, your mind tugs to revert back to how you once were and the shadow of the past converges upon you in the dark of the night while you lay in the bed you slept in as a kid. My thoughts tell me when I am wrong, because I usually wind up feeling like that 12 year old, tubby thighs’ kid with the miss matched knee socks on and the shoes from the salvation army. So I go through a routine of bringing myself back and it includes some amount of exercise to ground me to my now and sometimes it works well enough although it does not always work and instead I find that pained little kid who just did not fit in looking back at me in the mirror.

And it does not matter that I am a 43 year old woman when It happens because suddenly I let my own self doubt and fear transport me back to that “ you are not good enough” place and the land of the misfits where I roamed so many years of my life alone. And I think that others must go through this when visiting home and families, others must relive old habits and patterns I think because there is no way in the world I could be so special as to be the only one fucked up enough to put myself through this, involuntarily or not. So I think triggers and wonder if it was the old photo albums or the bed I slept in or the meetings with family I have not seen in 5 or 6 years in some cases.

On the trip back is when it hit me, even with the constant tugging going on in my head I have no regrets from this trip home. I am not the only one changing here and we each are working on our own ideas to better ourselves and for the first time in a very long time, I can say I belong. Actually for the first time in probably my entire life I can say that and mean it. I belong. Those are my people and that is my past, my present and my future as well.

Less talk, more do & a Thank You

2009-07-23T10:35:00.007-05:00

I am in a good place; Under a big oak tree sitting on a picnic blanket surrounded by all of you, affectionately known as my blogging community. We laugh, cry, talk like old pals and hug as we offer up comfort or humor to ease the pain of what has been our daily lives. When I began blogging a while back I was in a room of my own where it was dark and dreary and hope was nowhere to be found. Once I found this community it was as if the sunshine had come out, the rain was drying up, there were those of you in the group with the umbrella at the ready and the Kleenex and a shoulder or just an ear to listen. I was no longer alone, even when It looked darkest you were all there sitting under this big oak tree of our community with me.

No longer am I the martyr of the household but instead we as a family unit all discuss and work out issues that come up. The world does not rest on my shoulders and what a relief for that! We are how families are meant to be and I am so grateful that we have gotten a fair shot at this while my boys are still home, still absorbing, watching and learning. Not long ago my fears ruled my life. My biggest worry today is my oldest sons' wish to pierce his lower lip, not once but twice. There are no more concerns about drinking and drugs, no more worries about him hanging around the wrong crowd and honestly with his ability to negotiate, he will do just fine in this world, where ever he is headed.

My husband has remained sober for over 650 days. Six hundred and fifty days. All done one day at a time. I am working my program and doing it my way, having added exercise and eating right into it and making myself first. If I practice this I am happier because of it, so I have become more do and less talk in the last few months. More practice and less I know it all. More observation of myself and more staying true to myself and I find that life is really a happy thing, when I allow it to be. Acceptance is such an impressive tool for me. My meetings with my puzzle master are still going places and my al anon meetings on Tuesday nights help to keep me grounded and reminds me of where I have been and why I continue to do what I do. Your blogs and posting about AA and Al Anon still feel like that meeting under the big oak tree for me.

This blog began as a way to express my fears of the chaos and turmoil that was going on in my life. It was my outlet to pour out my hearts contents and walk away from it after. Who would have imagined that the simple act of writing brought into my life so many blessings in the form of my readers and your comments. I was embraced into the community of those in recovery, those with some of the same issues, blogger mom’s and story tellers. We have been connected through our similarities and interested by our differences. Prior to my blogging recovery had been some secret society to me, that my husband held a membership card to and the fact that there were alcoholics out there willing to share their stories and al anon people who were just like me, waiting to encourage and offer up their side of things to me, a complete and total stranger, has left me overwhelmed with gratitude daily.

Because of this community, this big oak tree, I was able to get myself to meetings, be open to new ideas, I was able to understand and accept that change is hard and uncomfortable but so worth the effort. I have faltered and fallen and written about it only to get back up and still stick with this reaching for serenity that we all do. This has been one of the most healing venues for myself to be involved with and if I have never told you all thank you before, please let me say it now: Thank you.

With that let me say that I am at a place where I think that a change in my direction is happening. So this blog may be changing slightly or drastically and I wanted to be sure before that happened that everyone of you knew how much your postings and your comments have helped me to come to a better place in my life where I am able to embrace change and begin a new adventure without fear.

Photo Credit

Getting out of the driver's seat

2009-07-20T12:53:00.004-05:00

When I was a teen getting my driver’s license was the big deal to me. It meant independence and freedom to do what I wanted and it meant I was in control because I was in the driver’s seat. I have driven everywhere I could since then and have never tired of it. Something about the open road just makes me feel that an adventure is taking place and I am in the driver’s seat of that adventure.

I have driven cross country to Santa Fe New Mexico years ago on a two week trip, driven to Oklahoma from Wisconsin when I had my learners permit with my dad. Driven to from Florida, Kentucky, New Orleans and Houston, Nebraska and all parts of the Midwest so It is fair to say I had hoped to drive to Ohio on July 28th when I travel to visit my father and retrieve my teenage boys who will have been visiting my father for three weeks by the time I arrive.

My Jeep is always my first choice when driving, it’s just so fun to drive and so versatile with its soft top up or down. But it is not in any condition for a road trip so it will be staying behind. I think I should relate that this will be my first trip in a very, very long time when I won’t have my own wheels and initially this made me nervous. This is after all a huge step outside of my comfort zone.

While I envision myself with face to the sky and eyes squeezed shut with my arms open and sun beams all around (no seriously) I am working on embracing this new way of travel. I am collecting my books that I need to finish and intend on doing nothing on a schedule while I am away.

I am packing a pillow, because I should be able to nap the whole way if I want to! This passenger thing is looking better and better as the days grow closer and I expect it will be easy peasy getting out of the driver’s seat for a while.

Flash Friday 55

2009-07-17T10:41:00.004-05:00

Fingers of memory reached beyond their grasp for a redeeming moment that had gone between them. Briefly she paused to take in the woman before her, a stranger to her now, beautifully done up for the occasion, lying in the casket. 'If only her heart had been decorated as lovely', thought her daughter walking away.

Friday Flash 55 Hosted by G-MAN

It ain't pixie dust

2009-07-14T17:23:00.008-05:00

This weekend my home let out a deep, tired sounding sigh. It was held for a long while and was lined with contentment. For all intensive purposes it is nothing more than a brief pause between married life with teenagers in the home and married life without teenagers in the home and I spent much of the first and second day cleaning off the teen spirit that is all over everything with 409. I washed it away. For hours I worked filling garbage bags; plastic gloves on, the shop vac whirring and suddenly I was that compulsive cleaner I had been way back when. But not entirely.

When my husband was in lock up, when he did not come home for days at a time due to drinking binges the cleaning bug took hold of me and I cleaned with a fury that was just not human. I let the anger and resentment fuel my frenzy and would not stop until I was a sopping, wet, heap of exhausted woman. Usually that is when the crying began and washed it all away for that episode.

Cleaning is not something I have ever considered therapeutic but more I view it as a necessary task that has to get done. I recognize that when I cleaned with a frenzy, way back when it was my own attempt at controlling something, anything, since I felt so out of control. This last time though was remarkably different and I can only compare it to nesting. The kind of cleaning you do before you have the baby. I did this with both of my boys and it felt similar to this last weekend. It is done with an excited energy that I can only describe as opportunity. As if the world (home) is my canvas and suddenly I am an artist and I can’t help but to feel creative or maybe renewed because of it.

My boys are with my dad for three whole weeks and I am grateful that he agreed to take them for so long . My need for a break had been overwhelming and the fork in the cleaning road of my home only made me more difficult to be around. The choice was leave the place a teenage dump and ignore it, while living in my bedroom only or, send the boys away and clean. I am glad I no longer deny and avoid things that make my life difficult and I am also looking forward to missing my boys, but that part has not happened yet. *grin*

My husband thinks that this is an “empty nester” in training test for us and I think he is fearful of the 'honey-do' list I have made for him, but this will be a good time for us to see how well we work on things by ourselves and I am frankly excited about the change and the newness of what this offers.

Sticky, Puffy, Goo Filled Heart

2009-07-10T16:23:00.002-05:00

Sometimes the sticky goo that fills my heart

seeps out at the seems.

It drips a bit and puffs it out,

making it look like something out of a dream.
But truthfully when this happens I know it is making room,

for all of you who support
me while I am taking bloom.

Photo Credit

It's about choice

2009-07-06T16:33:00.002-05:00

The 4th was wonderful – with my boys and my husband. We spent 4 hours in a Chicago neighborhood alley watching and lighting fireworks the likes of which could only compare to a professional city show. My boys loved that aspect of it of course.

I catch myself sometimes when I get stubborn and want to dig in my heals. But I am grateful that now I no longer am an expert on how to lose friends and alienate people because of it.

Being stubborn with myself in the gym pays off – big time.

I am learning to think out of the box and still get what I need / want without causing hardship and headache to others around me.

My imagination is a beautiful thing. Sometimes while at the club spinning I will pretend I am in a race and I try to beat the guy next to me!

Consistency is something I am getting good at with the rules of the house. It is nice that enforcing the rules is so much easier now than it once was.

My husband scored a 36 on a golf course this past weekend and his happiness was thrilling and catching.

Our dog Thor is having worrisome behavioral issues and we are working to teach him that attacking our kids is not acceptable.

Today was a good day.

Tomorrow will be as well.

My youngest went out of town with his girlfriend and her mother yesterday. I did not want him to go when he asked, but then I realized he was already growing up and going so I should let go a little bit and allow him to spread his wings because he really is quite capable.

My oldest should be a comedian. No Really.

I cannot do the mini triathlon I signed up for in August because of my heels. Running is not an activity I can participate in these days so instead I am looking for a good bike race to sign up for.

Photo Credit

I know why mothers eat their young

2009-07-02T09:24:00.003-05:00

It has been a good solid two weeks since I have had an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Summer vacation to my almost 17 year old and his brother means staying up all night and sleeping all day. It means playing music at 1 am, gaming with one another at 3am, a WEEDS marathon lasting 17 hours, laundry at 4 am and snacking while downing copious amounts of coffee in order to force their bodies to stay awake and alert.

Action had to be taken, I am a beast without my sleep and someone could get hurt. There was no pleading or begging for quiet and sleep on my part but instead a communication with all the humans in my home under the age of 19 years old took place. It was brief and stated that my sleep was important to me and to that end I would be taking the modem off of the computer at 11 O’clock sharp for the rest of the summer, because this was initially the problem - staying up on the computer, turning on the music and tap, tap, tapping away all night and morning long. This of course was met with friction and complaints of my not being fair, but I reminded everyone that my lack of sleep was also not fair and after all this is not a democracy. To my delight it worked well, for four days.

At 4 AM last night I heard a crash and a bang, the front door slam shut, someone shuffling heavily on the creaky old wooden floorboards and of course at that hour being awoken in that manner I had no good scenario running through my brain. My adrenaline was pumping through my blood and I was up and at my bedroom door in three long strides, my heals screaming their protest. My oldest offspring was entering his bedroom across the hall from mine and when asked what he was doing he said that he was doing his laundry and thought since nobody else was awake that then was a good time to get it done.

Exit common sense. When exactly that happened I have no idea, I think it must be in hibernation, asleep for the summer, perhaps. God forbid.

That explained the bump, the crash the slam of the front door and my being up for the 13th night in a row, awakened yet again. Suddenly I understood why some mothers on the nature channel eat their young and I was much less horrified at that thought than I once had been.

FF55 - late!

2009-06-26T14:27:00.004-05:00

This is not a new place
I am changed

the air my lungs suck in
is not filtered with the past
but my present

I feel the bite

withdrawing my hand
gasping

cursing

It seems
the way of this life
a merry-go-round
that I get off
because the spinning
makes me forget
how far I've come

Interested in giving this a try?

Write your own and then go tell G-Man!

I am a good daughter

2009-06-25T12:24:00.005-05:00

Her voice sounds old, worn out.

I was silent on the other end of the line while she spoke as I tried to balance this mother - daughter thing as best I could. The subject now was on how alone she was, how difficult recovery would be because of that and I could not help but to speak, things need to be said, heard. My heart opened up as sure as my mouth did and I began, "You give what you get in relationships…", and she went silent. Was that a double bladed knife I lobbed just then? Is it possible that I do this in the same way she has done all of these years and am I so well trained in this craft that I would not be aware of it until now?

Holding the receiver, I chew on this while she begins to talk again on the other end of the line.

This dance that my mother does with me, her daughter, it can be tiring. I have developed thick skin so as to better shield myself from the words she once threw, but there are still holes in my surface and she is shrewd in her conniving and I want to trust her but it comes slowly. She could get a knife in reach my heart, now open, I silently warn myself but remain the same, as she talks about an out of body experience she has had, my eyes roll and I hold my forehead while my mind is no longer there listening to her.

Finally I ask about the test results of the tumor and find out no malignancy, she tells me the tumor was 25 pounds (which I chalk up to my mothers exaggeration practices) and then she does something that caught me off guard. She mentions that she has called both my siblings much earlier in the day about the results and she knows that I know she did not call me.

She had one son and one daughter and she does not need me…

The words she had cut me with so long ago in childhood find me again, the wound freshly opened now seeping, those words echoed through my head as if it had happened, just now. My fearful and unforgiving mind goes into overdrive for a split second and suddenly all I want to do is hang up the phone and scream and throw things, like a child having a tantrum; Why am I not good enough still?! But I stayed put, took in a deep breath and listened to her talk for a while longer. I reminded myself that this is not about me, this is about her and she is getting old. I said I loved her, hope she felt better, at the end of the conversation and she said it back. We both mean it, I am sure, the only difference is we love in different ways. Just because she does not love me the way I would like her to, does not mean I cannot love her the way I need to.(I owe much thanks to my father for that gem).

Lesson Learned. Maybe it is possible that sometimes you get more than you give, but I want to believe that everything balances out in the end and I am all about balance.

At lunch, I walked on the lake shore in the burning heat a sweaty, smelly mess and strangely I felt cleansed by the sun and the heat and the sweat. Sitting on a cement slab under the sun it is easy to consider all that I have become as the boats bob up and down in the water. Slowly the words that I choose to cover the wound with on my walk back to my office were simply: "I am a good daughter."

My silly son. Making me laugh being goofy...

2009-06-24T11:41:00.001-05:00

Tuesday Glee

2009-06-23T10:51:00.008-05:00

I have noticed that when there are challenges in my life that is when my writing can be brilliant and I wonder if I can learn to write with passion and emotion in the good periods just as well. Maybe I have conditioned myself to purge in the bad times.

Lately my life has taken on many good periods and I find that writing about the good stuff is harder for me than writing about the challenges. It is as if the good stuff is somehow more private which honestly dumbfounds me…I should be shouting on rooftops my glee. (I had to use that word - it is a feel good word.) So in the spirit of changing my technique I offer up the following bullets about what has been going on the past week of my life:

* The above picture is of a foster bully named Benny and just looking at that shot makes me happy. If you live in Chicago and are interested in adopting a bulldog please visit ebullymatch.com for your love connection.

* My Plantar fasciitis has all but disappeared after having the shots in the heels 12 days ago. Who would have thought a few minutes of pain could bring so much relief? (ha! Story of my life!)

* The sun is out, the heat is turned up in the city and life looks brilliant outside my window.

* Because my heels have healed I am back to my work out routine and feeling alive.

* Watermelon is now my favorite food in the whole wide world. Really!

* My boys are enjoying their summer time freedom and I am looking forward to having some summertime peace in July when they leave for my fathers home for three weeks.

* I have never looked forward to downtime from my children like I am looking forward to this coming July.

* I am meeting up with an old friend from my teen days at the end of June and Blogher is right around the corner and I cannot wait to meet people from my Koe group at it.

* I am looking forward to plans to visit my in-laws and my family this summer.

* I am grateful that this fathers day weekend was splendid and that my husband felt loved.

We have come a long way, since then…

2009-06-19T13:49:00.002-05:00

One of the reason's I really like blogging so much is that everything I write since the very start of this blog is at my fingertips; easily accessible and sorted by date. I was curious today about what I had written about this time in our lives last year, so I went to look and do you know what I found? I found exactly how far we have come, since then.

Progress looks like my family these days and it feels unbelievably good to have the reminder in front of me in black and white for me to see it clearly.

Flash Friday 55

2009-06-18T16:51:00.004-05:00

Unable to deny it

this itching piece of me

just below the surface

wanting to be free.

I sit in the sun

or under the shade tree,

the feeling in me wakes

of running wild,

being free.

Never fear,

should you happen

upon a naked banshee

it’s my inner wild child,

running barefoot

being free.

Every Friday, compose a short story of 55 words - no more, no less. if you want to join in the fun and games and give it a try. Post your story and report to the boss G-Man!

Wordless Wednesday

2009-06-17T08:22:00.003-05:00

My mother

2009-06-16T10:57:00.002-05:00

My mother was taught young in life that family is not a place to find comfort and in fact family was a place to be used up and then tossed away. Her early years were not filled with the right kind of touching from parent to child and so she was nearly clueless when it came to parenting her own children. With the first of us she was rough and course while learning her new role, creating cracks in our foundation in that circular motion that often times happens with sick families.

One of the things that I believe is that our foundation of self is set from early childhood. I think that our environment can influence certain aspects of life and who we become, but basically the cracks early on need continued attention and care as we age and grow into ourselves. Those cracks can strengthen us if we allow them to and care for them in the proper way but they can also weaken us if we neglect them.

My mother is going into surgery today to have a kidney taken out that has shut down and looks to have a large mass on/in it. The good news is it will be taken out and looked at, a determination will be made as to what the mass is and treatment will begin.

Today I am asking for positive thoughts and energies sent her way, for good news and a successful outcome because she deserves a successful outcome.

Flash Friday 55

2009-06-11T18:00:00.001-05:00

I'm sure its nothing, she told herself, folding the sheet of paper containing her Mammogram results and absently shoving it back into the envelope. She did not delay, her fingers dialed the number of the office while her other hand played with the phone cord and she scheduled her second screen in as many weeks.

Every Friday, compose a short story of 55 words - no more, no less. if you want to join in the fun and games and give it a try. Post your story and report to the boss G-Man!

We are not that cow

2009-06-10T21:12:00.005-05:00

" I don't trust you."

There I said it, it was out, but it was not the total truth, was it? I mean, I do trust him to not drink, to help pay bills, to be loving and reasonable and not cross boundary lines. I trust him with my life and that of his children, see I do trust him.

Money issues that I thought we had worked out and negotiated are alas not so worked out between the two of us. As a date draws closer to being upon us I am finding myself less willing to follow through with my end of the bargain, I want to change my mind. Renegotiate really. I have spent years working two jobs while he worked his one job and drank, because it was a full time job too - only it took money from us. So now I am feeling compelled to take care of myself first and in taking care of myself I want to believe I am taking care of my family as well. But we disagree on how much should go where and there in lies our stalemate.

Years ago my boss had given me a desk top Chicago Cows on Parade. It was the first gift that she had ever given me and it was unexpected and a surprise. I loved that cow, even though I am no cow fan, this cow had puffy white clouds all over it and it really made me feel, well, appreciated. About a year after I was given it I brought it home, and it was broken by the kids or my husband into about 6 different pieces. My husband, seeing how upset I was, promised he would repair it. He said when he had time he would get to it and over the course of three years (his drinking years) we had purchased on several occasions super glue for the task but it never was completed. Finally one day, I took care of it myself. I was angry that I waited for him to take care of it, instead of doing it on my own (Codie alert right?!). It looked as good as new, but the cow, which once meant appreciation to me, now reeked of failed promises and I boxed it up and packed it away after that.

There had been many of these failed promises from my husband during our time together; Fixing the car, paying off the parking tickets he got while driving my car, picking up the boys, taking them for a weekend away that did not include drinking or gambling. Some things I took care of on my own, like my credit card bills, which I was able to pay off through an agency that specialized in mediating the debt for you and that worked successfully for me over the course of about a two year period (credit cards are the devil!). Because of this conditioning, however I think that I have learned that it is better to rely upon myself for things that are important to me and I am finding that the letting go of this idea is not coming so easily.

After all who would not want to take care of things themselves? I did not want to be that damn cow!

My husband has worked hard over the past 600 days to get back the faith and trust he had lost. He has more than made up for the cow, by promising and repairing many things timely since his sobriety date. Since he has become sober and I have been in Al anon our relationship has grown and it continues to challenge us both in ways we never imagined it would. It is almost as if we are new at negotiating the business pieces of things and I guess that is because - we basically are. After all he was in the Alcohol induced fog and I was in La La land back then, when we should have been learning how to negotiate this type of thing in our relationship he was drinking and I was pretending everything was OK.

Oddly, I feel more grown up than I would have been in the past about this sort of thing. We are able to agree to disagree and even shelf the topic until later, when we can look at it fresh and compromise better. We can put it away and still make dinner together, watch a movie together and kiss one another goodnight before bed and that alone is something that was unheard of years ago for us.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-06-10T11:34:00.002-05:00

Snap Shots

2009-06-08T13:29:00.004-05:00

There is something to be said for snap shot photos. Those tangible, silky smooth photos that I spent so many hours placing in just the right spot and in just the right family photo album. With all of the new digital camera's we have, we have not had need to place photo's in albums for some time.

Last week I was given my annual review at work and told that I was doing a great job. A Great Job. I felt like Sally Fields accepting her Oscar, "You like me, You really like me". The job that once offered little appeal to me has grown into a second home of sorts and challenges I have sought out to keep the position interesting for myself have been noticed and recognized and rewarded and this gives me much satisfaction and apparently it gives me good reviews as well.

The day of the review however, my codie crept in. I was worrying about things that in my mind should or would affect me, things that maybe I could have done better, or worked harder at to show my dedication. My childish and un-trusting mind set whispered to me now and again questioning my boss's intentions and motives. Suddenly, I could easily see how she was not being straight, open and honest with me and I even thought that maybe she would wait to trick me at the last minute, to terminate me in the meeting, which of course did not happen.

In my head, I still take snap shots, of how much better I am now than I was way back then… and it reminds me that when I do slip, it's really OK. Because a simple slip is not a life lost, but only a fleeting moment, reminding me to stay present.

Flash Friday 55

2009-06-05T06:00:00.004-05:00

I would run

to get away
from the torture
from the day
the whirl winds
that I kicked up
from day
to day
were meant
to
scare
people
away
and
it began
when I was small
a miniature tornado
i was
one here
another there
gusting winds
would run amok
a complete
and total
clusterfuck

Flash 55 hosted by g-man.

Birthing myself

2009-06-04T10:55:00.005-05:00

Lately I have had visions of myself in labor. Crazy because even with the children I have had, labor never really set in, not the pushing and panting and sweating stuff with your feet in stirrups and your Hoo-Ha exposed to everyone in the room kind anyhow. That was not there, what I did have was the fear. I remember the panic and that 'what the fuck do I do now', feeling as my water broke at 5 in the morning. It was nothing more than the panic you get of not being in control, and nothing tells a woman how little control she has over life, more than a labor that lasts 34 hours and is called unprogressive.

I had always thought that the fear of not being in control, the fear of the unknown was what held up my labor, even though my very trusted doctor assured me afterward that my baby was much to big to pass through my pelvis and a C-section was the only solution. I was left feeling elated at having a handsome and healthy baby boy, but somewhat of a failure at not having been able to actually birth my child. Silly now as I look back on it all, I wanted to control it, every aspect of it, right down to the very way my son came into the world.

Recently my son and I had a conversation about fear in which he reminded me of a line in one of one of our families all time favorite movies, Star Wars where Yoda says, "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering". That he remembered this line was a surprise to me but that he was able to see how it fit into our conversation was what grabbed me. During his birth I was not relaxed or open to what was going to come, but instead I was ruled by my fear of the unknown or maybe it was the known, the most obvious of which was being ripped apart in my neither regions. He is the child who was roaring like a lion when he was pulled free of me, pink and pudgy and so it is no surprise that he sometimes appears fearless to me.

As I go through my own process of recovery at my own pace, the thought of giving birth to myself keeps coming back and I suppose its all about reinventing, recreating or simply embracing who I was all along, who I refused to be or perhaps have refused to see. So like labor my progress in recovery stalls now and then and I feed her some ice chips and rub her back, whisper soothingly into her ear, hold a cold cloth to her head and remind myself to cheer her on, because this birthing process, it takes time and the hours of walking the floors is done, the labor is full on, contractions are coming closer together and soon, very soon it will be time to push and I am betting on me this time and I am working on being fearless and actually living this life.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-06-03T10:16:00.000-05:00

On surviving

2009-06-01T08:30:00.012-05:00

As a mother it was always important to me to share my love of the written word with my children. I began reading to them in the first days of their lives and every day until they were able to read to me or to one another. Later, as they became interested in reading books on their own, my heart fluttered a bit because I was proud and I knew all the things that reading and words would open up to them. Both of my boys are creative and brilliant, perhaps wise beyond their teen years in some things. But lately my oldest, David has shown a change in the topics of his writing and again I am nudged by that fluttering feeling in my heart as I read what he creates.

He is becoming more comfortable writing about his young life and the difficult things he has witnessed and if writing catches him like it did me, then once you begin with it, its difficult to turn off. All of the frustration, rage, anger, confusion and emotion swells out of you and onto the blank canvas of paper, like an artist you do your best to piece it together so it makes sense to you but often times reality is not as attractive as art can be and the writing process can help bring you to a place where that is O.K.

Cheering my son on to discover this place in himself where as he writes things out the hurt rescinds a little at a time is something that is high on my list of priorities in life. He wrote a poem that moved me to tears recently and I searched out a venue for it, because I want other people to know how a child who has lived with Alcoholism and domestic violence can be changed forever.

How could he not be? The confusion and terror in such young minds of not feeling safe with the people who they should feel safest with, but hardest probably is the not being able to prevent it part. Seeing someone they love being hurt and not having the power to change what is happening. That, clearly has left its mark on my children.

This is something I do not talk much about but the fact that my son is talking about this means he is ready and with this I hope will come growth and healing and that can only bring goodness to his life.

I found Violence Unsilenced when Maggie started it months back and was impressed with the venue, even submitting my own story. So naturally I started there and submitted my son's piece. If you have a chance, please click the link and share your thoughts.

Flash Friday 55

2009-05-28T16:47:00.004-05:00

There is beauty in the quiet moment left
untended. Like a garden over taken with weeds
that set in bloom. A wild thing of its own.
I work to tame it, to train it to live with it.

Its time to blossom, get out in the sun
this shade I am in its come undone.

Flash 55 hosted by g-man.

Flash Friday 55

2009-05-21T19:48:00.003-05:00

At three years of age he drew in crayon on the living-room walls.

Devouring every open space available

between the sofa and the chair.

Diaper clad, he created

his masterpiece of swirls, dips and curls

in shades of yellow, green, blue and orange

and it was on

that day

that he was born

an artist.

Every Friday, compose a short story of 55 words - no more, no less. if you want to join in the fun and games and give it a try...post your story and report to the boss G-Man!

Special Guest post today

2009-05-20T08:24:00.004-05:00

I'm not going to rap against someone
I'm going to rap to see if I can get something done
Forget your cellphones, your pagers and gossip
Forget your clicks, the preps, the jocks and the Gothic
Come together as a whole
let me dust off my mic and hope my rhymes can still roll
because this one goes out to all of you who need it
to the ones who sit and cry alone through all of the bullshit
who cry about the things your shrinks, parents and friends don't get
The therapist says our family is broken,
but it can be fixed
when she doesn't know that the problem is mixed
its the fathers absence while hes off drinking absinthe
its the mothers desperation to keep her family together
its older sibling hiding in his imagination
to protect the last pure thing in the world
his younger brother
And in the back of their minds,
they think everything's perfect
Even when they hear the curses hurled from mother to father
They don't realize the children they affect
So they get older and fucked up in the head
The oldest one begins to cut, and wishes he was dead
The younger one blasts the music to drown out the fighting while he lays in bed
We all got our reasons
And its like our lives are clouded in a rainy season
We band together, experiment with drugs, drinks and sex
Drowning out our emotions, insecurities and everything with a bottle of becks
So they send us to shrinks and wards and all sorts of shit
just because we self medicate with another hit
So we're sent to the hospitals and they examine our wrist
They talk to our parents and shit, might as well say, another teenager, get the gist?
So we are put on anti depressions and medications
When all it does is add to our frustrations
I hate it when I see people back stabbing and talkin some mad shit
Whats so hard to get?
We all live our lives our own way
Lets stop talking shit, and live another fuckin day.
I just wish it was as easy as Even Stevens or Boy Meets World
where in the end they are all happy
Growing up with the T.V as my father,
I guess my vision on what life should be is twirled
Theres kids in this world that get me pissed,
they don't know kids like me exist.
Maybe its better they don't know?
Hopefully we can all get older and grow
Out of this shit hole of a life
No more slips with the knife
I don't know why I wrote this
But hopefully theres a message in here you wont miss

David - 16 years old

People do change

2009-05-19T16:29:00.001-05:00

Our family sessions are going to be coming to an end here in a few weeks. We are starting to cut back to one day a week - its been almost four months and progress has been made. Our oldest attends school now, does no homework, but he attends school. He adheres to the house rules, which are in writing now, we no longer avoid topics because of fear from conflict, everything seems to have fallen nicely into place, he is not quick to anger or blow, the drama is almost non -existent if that is even possible in the life of a teen, he and my husband can communicate now, appropriately, without yelling, screaming or physical altercations. Defensive mode for my oldest which was the only gear he had for a long time is now getting a rest.

Please head over to the Second Road to read the rest

Flash Friday 55

2009-05-15T10:19:00.004-05:00

When my regrets replace my dreams
that is when I know its time to change my game plan.
I have purchased a book on
how to 'run away' as an adult.
I will get my passport,
make a plan,
and set the rest of my life in motion
again,
in due time.

One of the things I carry with me...

2009-05-11T12:24:00.005-05:00

The view of the world from where I live in my head can sometimes be distorted and appear out of shape, surreal even. Whatever it's real form is becomes lost to my brain's ability to grasp that things are not so bad in this life, in my life. Making the sheer miracle that I am alive at all seem as if it is nothing, the facts that I have healthy, mostly happy children that love me and a husband who supports me does not even factor into my head when the darkness comes for me. Needless to say, life in my head can sometimes be a dreadful place, as the cycle of lows come on, I feel it, but ignore that it can bring me to my knees until, suddenly it invades like a tsunami washing over everything I can see, changing my vision of who I am, what my life is about and those people around me, everything seems knocked around and shattered, broken.

Of course my sane brain tells me that I know better, that I am fortunate and lucky to be here, in the place where I am today. More often than not that is pushed aside easily by the anguish that eats at me like a glutton, devouring every spare space that was light with the darkness.

This is one of the things I carry with me, regardless of my outside appearances, or my mental stability at times, I seem to have a dip or crevice in my brain that slants toward the dark things. It swallows me up and debilitates me, no matter how many life lines I get thrown, no matter how many ropes I know are waiting on the other end of a well meaning gesture, I cannot reach out when I am here and instead I cocoon myself away, until it passes. This has been with me since my teen years to one degree or another it has plagued me randomly through out my life and is one of the family traits I inherited.

In my desire to stop the eating pain I look for a way out - A physical way out of who I am at this moment and find myself reminiscing about how life was when I could pick up and go, leaving at a whim, traveling, on my own, learning and being distracted by the outside world to such a degree that my inside world would be thrown off. There was little chance of darkness catching up back then because I would run around the outskirts of that crevice in my mind, skirting and jumping over it as I paid attention to new and exciting adventures and while life was not great, all the time, it had upsides that I miss. New things to learn, new people to meet, new adventures I took on, new places to travel to and knowing this has me feeling even more trapped in my current situation.

Depression takes prisoners. Sometimes I can fight the good fight, remain standing and other times, I have to fall to my knees, bury my face in my hands and admit defeat. For me at this stage, it becomes apparent that I am debilitated by depression and as I age it seems that once a year on average it comes for me, searches me out to drown me. Over the past week or so I have been struggling to hold up under the on-coming waves of this and yesterday I broke and surrendered in the only way I know how, by closing my door and having a good cry.

There is one thing I am certain of when in this place, this pain, real or imagined takes me to a place where I am not myself.

Photo credit

Thursday Transformations

2009-05-07T09:25:00.005-05:00

(A positive spin on my Monday Bullets)

* I have felt a bit blue this past weekend and I am starting to come out of it.
* I am so glad I did not call in sick all week, continued to see people, stay involved in life. I think this has helped me get over my slump faster.
* Biking to work really helps me to feel good through out the day, It’s a good way to begin and end a work day.
* Dixie our foster dog was telling us that she was not OK, giving us warning to not place her and I am grateful that we listened before it could have gotten more serious.
* Rodger and I will take a much needed break from fostering and pay attention to our own bully instead.
* My husband is making money at bowling, which is an added bonus.
* His friends in his bowling league support his sobriety.
* I need to remember not to consider so much when I feel blue from now on.
* I am excited about my mothers day coming up, my boys are making me breakfast, a healthy version and I am taking them to the Star Trek movie.
* Jamie my 18 year old, newly added in family member is participating and I am glad he has a place to be, even if it is not with his own mom for the day.
* I found a new meeting to attend on those mornings when I do not ride my bike to work this Spring and Summer and now that I have a good assistant again I can begin taking my Tuesday and Friday back for my noon meetings.
* I am back on track with eating right and taking care of myself and I feel pretty good about my sticking to it.
* I decided that setting a goal for myself could help me stay motivated and have committed to do a (Fleet Feet) Super sprint, which takes place on Saturday, August 29th at Foster Avenue Beach in Chicago. The distances are half of a sprint distance (375 meter Swim/10K Bike and 2.5 K Run)
* I like that when I set my mind to do something, it gets done.
* I am excited about this new goal in my life.
* I am so blessed and grateful to have the community support that I have.

(not sure where picture came from)

Wordless Wednesday

2009-05-06T10:10:00.001-05:00

Monday Bullets

2009-05-04T09:19:00.004-05:00

* I have felt a bit blue this weekend.

* I wanted to call in sick today.

* Instead I got up early and biked to work.

* I am glad I got out of bed today.

* Dixie our foster dog is in quarantine for 10 days after having bitten a 12 year old boy in our home.

* After her 10 days she will be put to sleep, since the rescue organization cannot place a dog that has bitten. (The rescue organization cannot knowingly re- home a dog with a bite history, it is not the responsible thing to do and there is a legal issue with doing this - which I totally support and understand.)

* My husband and I feel badly that she did what she did.

* The boy is fine - with one tooth bite in his arm.

* I have unresolved resentments about the amount of money my husband blew on himself in our past.

* I told him this and am working on letting them go.

* I am considering pulling some of my invested money out of retirement to pay bills off and file for bankruptcy.

* I am considering filing for food stamps.

* I am considering selling my car.

* I am considering a lot these days.

* I got a card from a friend I have been out of touch with.

* I am out of practice at being a good friend.

* The embarrassment factor kicks in after a while which keeps me even more distant.

* I will call her this week, apologize, connect.

* Another day with sunshine is a good day.

* Is it just me or does Coffee taste so much better on Monday morning than any other day of the week?

I need to believe

2009-04-30T12:08:00.004-05:00

Photo Credit

"I will just let him talk and I will listen," my husband said to me last night, as we walked our dogs in the cool night air. He seemed resigned to not talking during the meeting, resigned to controlling how things should go, but more than this I heard him expressing his fear of this new situation.

Tonight my husband and oldest son have an appointment alone with the MST (family) therapist and my youngest and I are excused, to go off and play somewhere else. There is much apprehension from both of them about this alone time and the codie in my head wants to throw them both life jackets but I know better and I will instead head to a bookstore, a welcome distraction and form of letting go for me.

Over the last year I have come to understand the sheer amount of work that relationships take. I understand that the only reason I have good relationships with my boys is because I have put years of work into those relationships. Because I have been willing to love them unconditionally, no matter what. They were and are my priority but this choice I made stems from my own upbringing and my crippled relationship with my mother. From childhood I learned what was not acceptable behavior for being a good mother and I carried those lessons with me to my own motherhood. That is not to say I am without fault, as I have made many mistakes as a mother and likely will make many more before the end of my days.

For many bitter years while my husband actively drank, I was rage filled because of all he was missing in his life, or more truthfully put all that he was neglecting in my children's lives - all that they were missing out on because of his behavior. As I write, I am shaking my head that somehow in my sick and unforgiving mind I had thought I could control the happiness of my children based on my own behavior. Whats worse? I thought this the whole while they were growing up and my husband was staying drunk, totally discounting any harm my husband was doing because I was working so much harder to make up for his lack in their lives. My resentments towards my husband grew as more time went by and I became a big oak tree, standing firmly in place between him and his children. I kept them seperated, my husband was banished to watching from a distance. I invited my boys to take shade in my shadow, to find comfort, to climb and hide behind me if needed and in my realization of this today I am left contemplating my own role in my husband and oldest son's crippled relationship, and can't help but wonder if I am not the wall between the two of them now.

As I came in from my walk with my husband last night, my son, laying on the sofa watching a TV show said to me, "I don't want to be alone with him tomorrow in the meeting, what is the point…" he trailed off. I responded by kissing his forehead, because that is how the mother in me works, I reach out to my boys, I touch them, reassure them, comfort them. I brushed his brown hair off of his forehead and leaning over the back of the sofa, told him that I loved him and knew he would do the right thing, whatever that meant for him. He of course, being almost 17, rolled his eyes and looked unsatisfied with that, so I leaned my body on my forearms, hovered my face close to his and whispered that I had no earthly wisdom to give him but that he should be honest, be open and be prepared to not only talk but to listen. The long lashes of his big brown eyes slowed their up and down motion and he seemed to understand what I was trying to say. He took my hand in his, now larger than my own, my man child and he kissed it mumbling his love for me into my hand as he held it there, pressed to his lips.

Perhaps there was a time when being the strong oak paid off for my children, when they indeed needed a protector to shield them, but I believe that those days are gone now. I need to believe that what I did, I did in order to survive, like a mother lion would protect her young, but my cubs are grown up enough now that they really need to manage parts of their life on their own, with me watching in the background, loving them no matter what and hoping, always there is hoping.

Maybe...

2009-04-29T08:59:00.005-05:00

Photo Credit

Maybe.

Maybe, I am just on a down swing for the moment, but within the last 24 hours almost everything imaginable that could go wrong, did go wrong. From my husband losing his mind temporarily, to being put in the middle of the teenager and the husband, to our foster dog biting a 12 year old visitor, last night was bad.

This morning I woke up with a new day attitude, I left the house early and of course because I did that, I arrived at the same time as always to work. There were delays everywhere I turned and it seems they were all in my path. Half way to work, I contemplated just turning around, going home to hide my head in the sand maybe? No. To climb into my bed and, well ok hide my head in the sand…That was the old me.

I have this dull heaviness hanging over me as if the cloud from the last weeks worth of rain that the heavens have dumped on our area are following me around today, weighing me down. I made a mental note to find a meeting - even though I normally don’t attend on Wednesdays, to hit the health club hard tonight, after work and to figure out a way to relax the stress and knots tied up in my neck and shoulders. So those are some simple goals today that I can achieve and that will help me get out of this slump.

Taking care of myself is proving to be a little easier than it was on my worst days years ago. Even though I still feel shitty and weighed down I have these things I can do, things I need to do in order to lift some of the weight off of myself. And I am all too aware that I do not feel like this can push me over the way other crises have in my past. I feel capable of managing this and shrugging off the last 24 hours because I know that the dark days never stick around for long and I have the power to make my life what I want it to be, so maybe I will keep my eyes peeled for a fork in the road or maybe when the heavens open up to rain on my parade I will just grab an umbrella and keep on marching.

Happy Sober 18 Months Rodger

2009-04-27T14:08:00.003-05:00

The best excuse to eat cake is to celebrate your 18 months sober!

I cannot find the link from google for this picture - but trust me - I did not make this cake!

AA Awareness month - My Story

2009-04-22T08:35:00.002-05:00

Read my story here.

Craving chaos?

2009-04-20T12:05:00.003-05:00

There is strangeness in the peace filled halls of my home. Strange because it is unfamiliar. Strange too because it leaves me feeling like I am craving what is missing. Craving chaos? I shudder a bit reminded of how my sick mind works. Perhaps it is a pause, waiting for what is next to come. Or a transitioning, such as a bridge we are passing over, each walking at our own pace, peering over the side, looking to the sky but moving forward together. We are working on communication in our family therapy, it is going rather well, even though it is difficult; communication always is. My boys , husband and I, we are sharing, talking and interacting. Investing in the process of a healthier us. We are healing as a family, we are stronger now, more determined and committed. Loyal dare I say, yes we are loyal.

While meeting with my puzzle master the other day I was asked to examine how I am different than my own parents were and it immediately occurred to me that my parents never brought us to a bridge like the one I am at now with my family. We were all so far away from each other, separated, disjointed, hurt. Heading off into different directions, not looking back at the ruble of what was our first family. There was no talking, only attempts at controlling and when that failed manipulation kicked in and then outright desperate attempts to leave a scar on the psyche of the person who was not with the program.

Calm has moved in where once there was chaos, peace replaces panic and hope where doubt once resided and life feels right, really right for the first time ever. And the newness of this strange place I am at has taken me off guard because I did not expect to feel this way. Uncomfortable with the newness of it, as if it is not good enough. But it is, that little voice in my head insists because this is what I have always wanted, what I have reached for all these years, this is what normal must feel like. No chaos, no conflict, no disorganization, no drama or screaming or yelling or bruising. Just everything taking up its own space and everyone doing what needs to be done, a family fluidly moving in and out of one another's lives working together, living together, laughing. And after a little practice I think I could get used to being in this strange new place.

Thankful on Thursday

2009-04-16T13:49:00.002-05:00

The sunshine is out today
My oldest seems happy
My husband remains sober
My youngest is as bright as the sunshine
My life is not chaotic or unorganized
I feel happy on a regular basis
I am one step closer to commuting to work via bike again
The weekend is close
I feel like playing at the gym today