For Liesa

Liesa - this post is for you. There I typed a new sentence and kept it in place of the one I usually write first: I don't know what to write.

The worst part of not knowing what to write is that I get nervous about what is going to come right out of my heart and onto the page courtesy my fingers while my mind is distracted elsewhere. It can feel like playing a game of jacks and missing both the little red bouncy ball and the handful of jacks and having someone else snatch them right out from under me. I do like to be in control. Just ask my kids.

And my kids are the ones who have been weighing heavy on my mind of late. Well, one of them in particular. I hate feeling like a failure as a parent. I can't believe how I can make parenting all about me. Parenthood can be very selfish. I thought I was past this. But I am not. I want my child to smarten up why? So I can feel better. Secondary is that it would make his life go smoother but in all honesty I want to feel better first. Man, I didn't know a person could hyperventilate to this extent, long after the labour and delivery were over. I am talking nearly 20 years post labour here!

I can't believe how much I make my world all about me, myself and I. Today I asked myself how could I still be this dysfunctional this late in the game? You'd think after nearly 17 years of sobriety I'd know better. Does this mean I don't walk my talk? I can't tell anymore. There are days when I think I have spent 17 years on a dry drunk. Ugh.

I will often look anywhere other than the mirror so that I can feel better about me. I know enough to know that is such sick thinking. But still I keep these thoughts for company, averting my gaze from the mirror. "Would you just smarten up already?!" I want to tell my son.

But eventually I do start asking myself what exactly has to change in my circumstances for me to feel better. Nine times out of ten it is someone else's behaviour needs to come within my range of sight. Ok, once I put that into words I can see it for the sick thinking that it is and I am ultimately left once again with knowing that only I can do anything about ME. I know that if I am waiting for someone else to change before I get happy I doom myself to a life of unhappiness. Shit. I don't want to give someone else that much power in my life.

Out of my heart and onto the page, courtesy my fingers. Ok, time to go look in the mirror.