Thursday, January 04, 2007

It's A Wrap

"Is it really truth that we seek, or just a sweet enough lie to settle our minds so we can sleep at night?"~Lou


I got a crash course on how nursing resentments makes relationships dry up instead of being nourished over the holidays. It wasn't pretty or fun for anyone.

Only daughter was home for mere days before I got this unshakeable feeling that I might not be the easiest person to share a house with. Nothing I could put my finger on, just an inkling that who I thought I was and who I am might very well be two different things. There's nothing like adding more people to the daily mix of life to have multiple character defects rise to the surface for all to see. Damn.

I'm sure whoever was on the other end of the business phone call dearest one was in the middle of when I shouted at the top of my lungs to only daughter "What happened to the fucking training I gave you?" was left wondering whether the clerks at Wal Mart had forgotten to wish us "Happy Holidays".

Crying in the shower is very cleansing. It saves on kleenex, too.

They say timing is everything. I bet God made that one up. Especially when I am about to fall asleep in order to temporarily avoid dealing with aftermath of my own melt down, only to have step 10 surface in my head, "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." To which I immediately thought, "oh for fuck's sake" before I ignored it and went to sleep.

Deciding I didn't need progesterone cream to help regulate my hormones this month was possibly the worst decision I've made in regards to my health all year. Especially when those much needed hormones reached a crescendo hours before I started acting like a screaming banshee.

The one time only daughter and I actually agreed with one another in the past 10 days was when she told me that she had never had a time at home of seeing her flaws so in her face. I told her I felt the same (my own flaws in my own face courtesy of her) and then she said she hadn't enjoyed her time at home very much and I told her I hadn't enjoyed it much either.

A lifetime of codependent behaviour is not fixed overnight. There are times when I wish there was a courier company who would guarantee next day delivery on that though.

Things I do know:

I have 6845 days of sobriety. Thanks be to God.
I have 50 days of abstinence from sexual addiction.
I've wanted the relief it brings so badly lately.
Surrendering that to God in the midst of the stress was hard.
But to give in would have solved nothing.
Asking for God's grace in the midst of my bitchiness instead of thinking I had to pretty myself up first was hard, too.
But God will never use a mirror to blackmail me.

Today is never the end of the story.

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

8 comments:

daisymarie said...

Those two statements are so powerful:
God will never use a mirror to blackmail me.
Today is not the end of the story.

I will hold those in my heart today.

Thank you.

Heidi Renee said...

how you took all of that and turned it into a post that made me laugh out loud at least three times is one of your truest gifts hope!

the ability to see the humor in and amidst the trials is incredible. this was the best anne lamott i've read in ages! i just LOVED it!

so sorry that you had to go through this, i can remember my first holiday at home after i went away to school and it was pretty much verbatim, exhausted mother and all.

i don't know if it helps at all, but is is normal. part of the growing up and letting go process. could we really let go if they weren't miserable?!?!?!? :P

i love, love, love you and can't wait to talk today!!

owenswain said...

Hope,
So many of my holidays were like that, only I was your daughter and you were my dad. However, in that scenario he not my mirror was the blackmail artist. The story never ends, not even when the dead are dead and gone. That sounds as if I mean it negatively. No. For only recently has there been real healing in the relationship between my father and I.

Peace to you, my friend.

heidi
Could we really let go if we weren't miserable? I think so. I hope so. 2 Cor 7:15 tells me so, in that the cycle has been broken and it's different with me and my eldest kid, now a university student than it was with dad and me. We are letting go, as we go. So far it's not miserable at all.

HeyJules said...

Hope, had my mother actually made it into town for Christmas this year (instead of being down with the flu in California) it would have been the same thing at my house.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Amen.

Anonymous said...

You blow me away.

Nearly every single day.

Today is - and never will be - the end of the story. Thank God for favors, big AND small, where that's concerned!

beth cioffoletti said...

hope, I only recently discovered "a song not scored for breathing", and I just want to say that your writing is both miracle and magic.

Your words convey wisdom, vulnerability, truth, humor, humility, honesty, awe ... I could go on and on.

Reading your recounting of the holidays was healing for me. I don't know why, but Xmas day always brings forth some sort of unconscious outburst from me, and I end up feeling incredibly guilty and confused by it. You just laid it all out there on the table.

"God will never use a mirror to blackmail me." - I hope I can remember this for a long time.

Anyway, thank you. I'd say you are getting pretty close to something, if you are not right on it.

Hope said...

Daisymarie - you're welcome. Not sure where those sentences came from but I'm hanging onto them too. Writing is so weird some days.

Heidi - glad I made you laugh. And I loved talking with you today. You know how to blow away the chaff and for that I am very grateful.

O - I could never have predicted how miserable things could get. I thought I had broken the cycles and those days were for another generation. I have much to learn.

heyjules - in that case I am really glad your mom got the flu. But for the grace of God it would've been worse here.

jennifer - I had to read your comment several times as I could hardly believe that I blow YOU away. It's the other way around I believe. You continue to inspire me with your humour and honesty. And the way you and words wind yourselves around one another like lovers. You rock.

Beth - thank you for your kind words. It's hard to simply accept them without trying to deflate them a bit, especially in lieu of writing an entry that shows my humanity such as it is. I looked for an email address to write to you personally but couldn't find one.

Curious Servant said...

Oh, Hope.

Life sure is mesy.

My wife has many similar frustrations.

By the way, she just had her fourth AA birthday!

(Just said a little prayer for you.)


God bless.