Tiggerin'

"It's okay, I'm not passing judgement on you."

I don't know if I'm saying it more for her benefit or mine although I do know I mean it. Saying those words I needed to hear when I was her age but never did. Never heard or saw it in action, either. Still don't. I've accepted that to expect attitudes and actions from people unable to deliver them is crazy making. I don't long for it like I once did. Eventually I learned to give it to myself and there have been a host of people who have modeled it for me until I was able to receive it.

In any case I say it upfront and it feels good to do so. Part of me thinks that if I'd really evolved I wouldn't have to say it at all except only daughter and I both know I have too many years of judgemental attitudes under my belt for that to be the case. She moved away from home while I was still majoring heavily on passing judgement and spouting opinions without much of a valve on my mouth.

Only daughter is here to house/Pug sit for us while we fly away on an airplane this week. She has her own cute little puppy who is in the house training stage. That puppy bounces on her feet like Tigger. What energy.

When I was only daughter's age I had three preschoolers and I put all my energy when I was visiting my mom into gaining approval and avoiding disapproval. The only problem was that I couldn't read my mom's mind but I sure thought I could read both her mind and body language. After all, I had had 25 years of practice already. And it was all about me. She frowned? It was something I did. She showed any hint of exasperation? It was my fault. This went on for the whole time my kids were growing up.

I was 38 when I stopped looking to my Mom for the lowdown on how I was doing as a parent. It only came after a nervous breakdown and a pain filled year where I cried an awful lot. I would never sign up to go through that kind of pain again. I would never trade the growth either.

I can't speak for my daughter although I doubt that hers has been any less painful of a journey to individuation. I do see her as miles ahead of where I was at her age. I don't hold myself in judgement over that either. It is what it is.

I am grateful for the open communication we can have about this stuff though. It's not all serious either.(Rule 62) When I asked her to come read this before I posted it I told her that I had written and deleted a sentence about how having a puppy is like having kids. Don't gasp, it is. She then said at least with a puppy she didn't have to feel bad about putting it in its pen and walking away when she'd had enough and how it wasn't going to end up in puppy therapy years down the road because of it.

Thank God puppies don't pass judgement on us either.(Adds only daughter.)



Photo Credit

Change Is In the Air

My own bed.
It will feel so wonderful to sleep in tonight.
I already slept in it for 5 hours today.
I was wiped from being with 50+ people for the past two days.
I realized over the weekend that I've been gone from home for 3 out of the 5 weeks I've had off from work so far. Another two weeks and it will be back to work. I'm hoping to stick closer to home for the remainder. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining - I consider being able to go anywhere a privilege. Often when I am out for a walk and see the traffic going by in the distance I wonder if the people in those vehicles consider it a privilege to be able to get up and go at the turn of a key in the ignition. I do.

This will be a week of change.
Youngest son is moving out.
I will miss him.
We've had some turbulent times, and I've always been grateful for a second chance with him.

This afternoon he was talking to me about music, normally he listens to songs I can't decipher the lyrics to, but every so often he comes and tells me there's this song he likes that he thinks I'll like. He hadn't watched the video but nonetheless I sat here and had tears streaming down my face as I listened:

Erasing The Tapes

"I shared how I moved out of the house because you and I had a falling out."

Youngest son is telling me about his personal sharing in a talk he is preparing for a men's weekend coming up. I nod my head and act normal but inside me old, worn tapes are gearing up to go around and around. The kind of tapes that tell me a pity party is my only sane choice. I totally forget what an old friend used to tell me - "enjoy that pity pot while you're on it Hope, 'cause you won't be there forever." At which I used to look at him with a FU glare for raining on my parade and then continue on with my pity party.

Which is what I was preparing to do on Friday. The old tapes in my head go something like this: "I am so sick of being the bitch. Being the parent that gave our kids so much baggage they can hardly put one foot in front of the other. Dearest one, isn't it your turn for a while? Why can't you be the parent they have issues with for a change?"

And on and on.
No wonder the tape is worn.
I've hit replay countless times since my kids reached adulthood.

And I would have played it again on Friday night but just as I was giving dearest one a hug and was getting ready to vent, a thought popped into my head. "What if you simply accepted reality? That you really were the bag who gave them that baggage? What if you did that instead of looking to side step reality?"

That thought was so swift and in my face that I stopped the tape before it had a chance to begin. For the first time I had a different conversation in my head. I admitted that well, dearest one, hadn't been a whatever the male equivalent of being a bitch is, to the kids. He hadn't been physically, emotionally or verbally abusive like I had been. Nor had he been control freakish or mean. I can't carry their baggage for them nor can I heal it. But I can stop having pity parties over reality. No doubt my chilluns have their own issues with their dad but their issues with me are there for a reason. By the grace of God my ego deflated enough for me to admit this and the old familiar tape not only stopped but I chucked it.
Well, almost.
Ego deflation doesn't leave without a fight.

I could not help myself. I later asked youngest son if he had at least told the men somewhere in his talk that I had changed and that things were different now. He looked at me and said, "Nope. To do so would have meant telling your story (of addiction and recovery) and that's not my business."

Lord have mercy.

Building A Child

"It is infinitely easier to build a child than repair an adult."
via

If you click on the above link and then choose the very short video Baseball Season: Johnny and his Dad you'll hear more of what Earnie Larsen has to say surrounding the above quote. Every video under that section is worth a listen.

I don't have much else to say except that
I was one of those 'finding 5 things wrong parent'.
I'm grateful that life's given me enough time to learn a different perspective.
I'm also grateful for the people in my life who constantly cheer me on.
We all need a bit of that.

To Have Relationship

Last night I was cooking up a storm for oldest son's stag party today. In less than a month he will marry and I will officially become a mother-in-law. I do hope to not be one of those horror story mother-in-laws. Without recovery I am quite sure I could be.

My own mother-in-law has set me a terrific example. I've often told her that I look up to her in that regard. She has loved me through some rather difficult to love me times. Dearest one's family was my first experience with Christian people and back then I was an atheist and a sarcastic one to boot. I spent a goodly amount of time baiting them and combine that with huge cultural differences, well, let's just say they gave me a first hand lesson of grace in action.

Twenty six years have passed since then and now my mother-in-law and I enjoy a good relationship. She is one of my favourite people to visit with. She is honest about her struggle as a human being and if you ask her a question she'll give an honest answer no matter what it makes her look like. She has a great sense of humour, too. We also share a love of reading. One of the things I love the most about her is her huge capacity for accepting children as children and not as minature adults. She's more likely to laugh at their behaviour than anything. Nothing much fizzes her in that department and I'm grateful.

She's never made me feel wretched for being a terrible housekeeper. I remember her once being in my home when it was a mess and I was worrying out loud about it. She looked around and told me that it was nothing that 15 minutes wouldn't fix and that there was a huge difference between messy and dirty. She knew I'd rather be reading than cleaning and while her culture wouldn't allow the room for her to do that freely, she didn't hold it against me when I simply read instead of cleaned.

She read to her (11!) children every night before bed and because of that tradition I did the same for mine. Even some of the same books. I expect that tradition will be one that will be passed down to the next generation, too. It's such a wonderful tradition.

Last month we worked together in my garden, visiting side by side as we pulled weeds. She kicked off her shoes and walked barefoot as she wielded the hoe, fully enjoying the dirt between her toes. She is nearing 80 now and has leukemia. I've made a point of telling her what I need to....told her how grateful I am for the example she set for me. She tries to protest a bit only because of the inner struggle she had to love and accept me when doing so meant saying farewell to the chance that her son would ever be a member of their ultra conservative church. A church that espouses membership as the only guarantee one will see heaven. So, she let go of a lot in order to have relationship.

The years have mellowed us both.

Of Stewardship and Legacy Part Two

You can read part one here.

I had purposely not reread the script before we went to see the play. Maybe because of that or maybe it was just the head space I was in that made the watching of the play so painful. I worked out beforehand with my therapist what I needed to do to feel safe. I chose a seat in the theatre where dearest one was on one side of me and a railing on the other. (No, it wasn't so I could jump if I needed to.) I just didn't want a stranger to sit beside me while I watched. I needed to feel in control of something and where I sat was about the only option.

If you're a parent you know you say the same stuff over and over again to your kids. Some of it might even sound cute or evoke a laugh, a groan, a rolling of the eyes. Some of it might not. The mother in the play held her body in such a rigid way. It matched her words perfectly. Two minutes into the play I heard my words coming out of an actor's mouth. Dysfunctional, control freak lines, 98% of which, had come straight from my mouth at one time or other. (Oy, fucking, vey.)

What hadn't was my daughter's responses. Lines full of anger. Seething anger. I got to hear what would have been healthy and necessary responses on her part had she been given the chance as a kid. As I sat there shaking in my seat a thought flashed through my mind, "At least she's found a way to give voice to her story in a way I haven't been able to do with my mom." That single moment of clarity would later inspire me but at the time I just wanted to put my hands over my ears. And my heart.

At one point in the play the mother relives being raped. My daughter knows none of those details of my own but the scene was so vivid it was as if I was being raped all over again. Damn. I sat there and sobbed as quietly as I could. My body just wouldn't stop shaking. There's nothing worse than being glued to your seat while your brain is screaming, "Run, you fool, run!"

But you know what? I survived.
Not only the initial rape but the triggering of it, too.

I can write that now because I've had 6 weeks of distance between the play and today. It wasn't my initial response. Initially I was on automatic pilot. In survival mode because the pain was so intense I wanted to escape my body. It took several trips of walking around the small town where only daughter lives, before I could work the shakes out of my body. I dreamed that night of the play and the rape and woke up the next morning absolutely drained.

By the grace of God
I didn't binge.
I didn't drink.
I didn't numb out in sexually addictive behaviour.
I stayed in the feelings.
It wasn't pretty.
There was no perfection
other than being
perfectly fucked up.

I came home more determined than ever to face what needs facing so that the abuse loses its punch. I may be at this the rest of my life, my therapist assures me I won't. She assures me that healing can happen to the extent that I won't always be triggered by my past.

As I face telling my story in the radio documentary I'm working on I realized last week that only daughter is the one who has paved the way for me to have the courage to do it. Here is what I wrote to her last week:

"What I really wanted to tell you is that you are the one who is paving the way for me to have the courage to do my story for the radio. That you trusted the creative process over hurting family members with your play and how that really is breaking the cycle for who knows how many generations... of not revealing family secrets or at least not talking about them in such a public way. Not that I think my sexual history is such a secret but it was a very brave piece for you to do and you found the courage to give your story a voice despite my voice echoing in your head. ..... at some level the abuse has to be alluded to in the piece and I am breaking a huge taboo in my family by doing so. And because the communication is not open about the abuse there is no way for me to prepare my parents about what the piece is really going to be about. So I feel like I'm jumping off the edge of a cliff willingly. Or possibly tying my own noose. Yet I know I will be okay no matter what the backlash could be. Anyway I just wanted you to know that I am taking courage for my story and for using my voice from the precedent you've set. And it makes me very teary to type that because watching your play was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. But there really is a bigger picture in life and now this is all unfolding in my own. It doesn't mean that I feel all that courageous yet my gut instinct tells me I have to be true to the story. That it isn't an accident that my pitch was accepted, that the producer poked and prodded in the interview to uncover the abuse and how I felt about the land and that this is the direction the piece is headed. Father Charlie is always talking about the ripple effect in our families when transformation happens. I am very grateful for the ripple effect of your transformation on me."

God help me be a good steward of my pain.

Of Stewardship and Legacy Part One

"I thought a lot about what the stewardship of pain means; the ways in which we deal with pain. Beside being a steward of it, there are alternatives. The most tempting is to forget it, to hide it, to cover it over, to pretend it never happened, because it is too hard to deal with. It is too unsettling to remember.

I think the world is always asking us to do it that way. Our families are always, in a way, part of the family system and so apt to say, "Don't talk about things that cause pain. You can't trust the world with those secrets. Those are family secrets. Keep them hidden. Keep them hidden from each other. Keep them hidden from yourself. Don't allow yourself to feel them." ~ Frederick Buechner (ht to Mich)

Twenty years ago I sat across the table from a friend and broke the silence and secrecy around the abuse I experienced as a child. Physical, emotional, verbal, sexual. In the telling I had a moment of utter clarity where I realized if I didn't change, my then 3 year old daughter was going to sit across the table from someone one day and tell nearly the same story. Utter panic. Utter despair. That's how I felt when that moment of insight flashed through me. By my daughter's tender age I had already heaped physical, emotional and verbal abuse on her and her one year old brother. The newborn in my arms was yet unscathed. It was that moment of clarity, combined with my inability to change on my own strength, that eventually led me straight to the arms of God. The few months between that clarity and my surrender were a living hell.

I can trace my motivation to change back to the day I broke the silence. I so hope to leave a legacy of healing for my children and their children. I hope to see the generational cycles of addiction, abuse and silence broken. This is what motivates me to continue to do whatever I must in order to heal and therefore make the path easier for those who come after me. I don't always like doing the work. In reality I rarely do. But I do like being able to look in the mirror and like what I see. I don't miss the cloak of guilt, shame and self hatred that I used to wear 24/7. And so, no matter how painful the journey, I continue to embrace it. Even though I sometimes whimper, wail and protest first, I've never forgotten that moment of clarity and it still motivates me to choose healing. And while I like to think I'm paving the way for my children to heal, sometimes it happens the other way around.

Six weeks ago we traveled south to see only daughter produce and perform a one act play she'd written. A play about breaking the silence. About telling secrets. About showing what happens when secrets stay hidden and how they can unintentionally harm others. She chose to send me a copy of the script, a way of preparing me for what was to come. That she sent it after I'd been to treatment was a godsend. I read it and thought, "Yep, that's the way it was. Not pretty, but the truth." The play dealt with the warped messages about sexuality I'd given to only daughter growing up as a result of unhealed and unspoken (to her) sexual abuse in my life.

Between that reading of the script and the play being produced I began therapy that was geared to dealing with and healing the effects of being sexually abused as a child. If you've ever tried to wash the face of a toddler who doesn't want their face washed and tries like everything to get out of your grip, that's what the therapy has felt like at times. When the truth gets revealed I want to twist and turn away from the process as much as a toddler wants to escape having a clean face.

The hardest part of the process has been the feelings. Feelings like sadness, anger, more sadness, intense anger. Fear. Insecurity. My body has shaken with memory and I've had showers of grief wash over me from head to toe. I know my feelings won't kill me but I also understand why people choose not to feel them. It's safer that way.

I went to opening night of only daughter's play knowing it could trigger a whole lot of feelings. What I couldn't predict was that in the midst of experiencing body memory and intense emotional pain I'd have a moment of clarity that would pave the way for me to tell my own story.

No plastics required

"Put a smile on your face."

I turned as I heard a father say those words this past weekend to his young son, a boy about 8 years old. The son obediently put on one of those plastic smiles and they carried on their way. I stood there a bit dumbfounded. A simply exchange between father and son. Both the request and the response happened mid stride. The father not even stopping as he threw the request back at his son and the son complied. How weird is that?

No weirder than my own history of thinking my kids were not only an extension of myself but a reflection, too. If you looked at them at any given moment I was sure you would see me reflected there and because I defined myself in negative terms, well, I needed all the help I could get. If that meant they stuff whatever their reality was in exchange for a plastic smile, so be it. It adds a whole new sick dimension to the phrase, "If momma ain't happy, then nobody's happy." It was more like, "If momma ain't happy, pretend you are anyway, her reputation is at stake."

One of the gifts of recovery is that I no longer see my kids as an extension of me. They are free to be themselves. As adults especially, they were free to do that before I entered the treatment centre but I didn't quite accept it then. I no longer beat myself up for what my reality was then, either. Staying in today demands that I let it go, that I forgive myself and focus on the here and now. Today I free them from my expectations. I free myself from expectations, too, especially the expectation to be perfect. Accepting life on life's terms is what I try to do.

Another gift of recovery is that I no longer let myself be defined in negative terms. When I catch myself calling myself down in my head I remember that I am so much more than the sum of my failings. I still get a bit giddy when I remember that I get to define me. No one else. Not even my behaviour has the power to define me. I get to choose how I see myself. And though the struggle has seemed mountainous lately, it's a gift of recovery that I can still look in the mirror at the end of the day and say, "Thank you for being you." It never fails that as those words come out of my mouth a huge smile erupts and my eyes twinkle. I stop for a moment and check within myself to see if my words and my inner attitude are in sync. Denial has so long been a coping mechanism that it's taking me a while to trust myself. An addict can lie to anyone, especially themselves, effortlessly. So it's felt like a miracle that every time I've checked, my inner and outer realities match.
No plastics required.

Coherency

I can't seem to put together a coherent post.
I'm not without things to write about.
But, is it worth the energy to write?
My sister tells me my best posts
look flawless.
I tell her it's a 2 to 3 hour
time investment
to make it look that way.
If it ever does.

Here is the short version:

Dearest one resigned from his answer to prayer job.
Too much stress.
Too many politics.
Too little time.
He is back working night shifts and
hating every minute
of the long drive home afterwards.
Especially after he nearly tangled with a semi
one morning last week driving home.
He's looking at his options.
I hate change.
Well, change I'm not in control of.
It gets complicated because I often
think I'm in control of all change.


Youngest son broke up with his girlfriend
almost a month ago.
I feel relieved.

I believe that those who
push our buttons
are our greatest teachers.
His girlfriend was one such person to me.
I don't think I learned
what I might have.
But I did learn some.


Fr. Charlie is being transferred
to another parish
many hours away.
I was blissfully unaware, and
absent from church
when this was announced
to our small church community.
Everyone in church ended up in tears,
including Fr. Charlie.
I don't do tears very well in public.
Let me rephrase that.
I don't do tears very well in front of anyone.

The day I last had injections
I also had freezing at the dentist.
It was too much of a good thing.
I ended up in ER the following day.
The pain was wretched.
All is well.
But it didn't feel that way at the time.

Dearest one threatened to call the ambulance.
The thought of the EMS people
trying to make their way
to my bedroom,
through the mess my house is in,
motivated me last week to use all my spoons and then some
cleaning it up.
Well, the parts you can see.
I'm not talking about the closet, or bedroom,
the office
or porch
or anything like that.
Living room, kitchen, dining room only.
It's very nice to see clean spaces again.
Ha.
I just remembered
the parts EMS would have to navigate
are more messy than ever now.
I mean, where do you think all the
I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it stuff
went?

My intake assessment interview
for rehab
happens this week.
I'm more scared than anything
although I do have moments
of overwhelming gratitude
But they pass.

I suspect that

*hating change I'm not in control of;
*believing those who push our buttons
are our greatest teachers;
*not doing tears well in front of anyone;
*experiencing wretched pain
and
*cleaning up the mess no one sees

will all be addressed
when I'm in rehab.

Lucky me.

On The Pity Pot

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

It seems these days that I often go around thinking to myself, "oh, for fuck's sake." Sometimes it ends up being a quasi prayer as in "what the hell do you have for me next, God? Can't you see I'm on a coffee break?"

I've written about youngest son's girlfriend before. They recently celebrated two years together and considering they are now 16 and 19, two years is a long time. I knew the proper thing to do was to say, 'congratulations' but I just didn't want to. How can I say congrats about a relationship I still resent?

There's something about her that I don't like in myself. I can't put my finger on it yet and a little part of me hopes I never do. Some days it's hard to figure out the difference between working my recovery program and navel gazing. Some days I want the hard work chalked up to navel gazing so I can avert my eyes and the easy stuff to be classified as working my program.

Yesterday youngest son came to me and wondered, out of curiousity, he said, why I didn't like his girlfriend. This was the second time in less than a month that the topic was brought up. After a convoluted conversation I told dearest one later on in the day that the next time I was going to say, "I don't know." That was most likely closer to the truth than what I ended up telling him.

Tonight I spoke with my sponsor about this situation and she encouraged me to take an honest look at it. That when someone pushes our buttons like that there is a reason and the reason is found within us not within the other person. I no sooner hung up the phone from talking to her when youngest son pulled me in a room and said he wanted to talk to me. Actually his girlfriend wanted to talk to me. The topic of the day was once again why didn't I like her. Oh, for fuck's sake.

I was honest and the conversation ended with her walking out of the room in tears. Pressure. I feel pressure to be someone I'm not. To be somewhere else on the journey than I find myself. And what's bothering me the most right now is that with this girl in my life I am faced on a regular basis with my inability to love her. I end up feeling then like my whole Christian walk is a facade.

I ended up telling her that something in her triggers something in me. I told her it wasn't her fault, it was my problem and that I was working on it. I'm sick of working on me. The last AA meeting I went to I heard people talk about how they didn't take themselves so seriously as they did when they first sobered up and I left thinking I must then still be in the kindergarten of sobriety and I felt ashamed.

Several years ago when I was facilitating an adult Sunday school class there was this man in the group that rubbed me the wrong way. He disagreed with the course material and he voiced his opposition at every turn. It was exhausting to lead a class with him in it. Eventually he opted to leave the class. I gave the briefest sigh of relief before I remembered that those who rub me the wrong way are my greatest teachers. I missed a chance to learn from him....to do some soul searching as to what it was in him that I didn't like in me. I went to him and told him as much. He didn't come back to class and I have often regretted the whole situation.

But do I regret it enough to step up to the plate when given another chance? Because here I am again, same scenario,different people. Much more at stake. How many times have I wished youngest son would just break up with her and poof! the stress of her and my relationship would be gone. I wouldn't have to do the hard work of sorting through what it is in her that I don't like in me. But I know if I turn the other way from this opportunity I will have missed out on something. I hate having to type that. I want to be a sixth grader again and point fingers and say it's all her fault. If I was still drinking that's exactly what I'd do. I'd put my hand up and tell God my excuse for not looking inward, for not doing the hard work. And while everything within me wants to do that, drink or not, I know better.

Before he nodded off to sleep tonight dearest one prayed outloud for me. I didn't want him to. I was looking up at the stars in the sky as he prayed and what came to me was that I was to keep my heart open to God in all this. And while I was tempted to say "oh, for fuck's sake" - I didn't.

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.

Remember When/I Loved Her First

When I was little, licking off one of the egg beaters when my mom was baking was a real treat. Mom would call out that there were beaters for the taking and whoever showed up, got one. I often wished I didn't have to share and could have them both to myself. You gotta be a real sugar addict to appreciate licking off cookie or cake dough from a beater. I carried on the tradition of calling out there were beaters for the taking with my own kids. This afternoon I was making a double batch of fudge and found myself alone in the kitchen, licking off both beaters. It was enough to make the tears flow for the umpteenth time today.

I was in town this morning before daylight, hoping to get last minute stuff done before my AA meeting. Stores were getting busy at 8 AM, if you can believe it. I headed to my meeting with nearly everything done on my list, only to find the Saturday morning meetings cancelled for the next two weeks. I've missed the last three meetings and was really looking forward to being at one today. In the moment of walking up to the door I found myself full of gratitude for where I was on my journey, thankful for sobriety and a group of people who 'get it' without a word having to pass between us. Sometimes I think if one alcoholic stood up and played charades to share their experience, strength and hope at a meeting, the rest of us would all be sticking our hands in the air in unison to shout out the answer. That's how much words are often unnecessary as we acknowledge our common humanity with one another. I am so thankful for the people I journey with in recovery. I made my way back to the van and as I started it, the CD player kicked in. The gratitude of a few moments before turned to tears almost instantly.

Before I go any further you need to know that once a song gets stuck in my head I play it over and over again, 20 times in a row if the fancy strikes me. Just ask my family. They all look at one another and groan when that happens, because the song could be by anyone from Josh Groban to Leonard Cohen or Savage Garden. They all pray I get the song of the moment out of my system fast. There's a first time for everything. It just hasn't happened with my music habits yet.

Before I went to the meeting I stopped to see our oldest son. Seeing him in his first apartment felt bittersweet. It reminded me how much time has passed since dearest one and I were in our first apartment. I asked him to burn me two songs from the internet, something oldest son can do in minutes, compared to the hours it takes me with dial up internet. These two songs have struck a chord with me lately and now that I have them both on the same disk, that's what's on repeat as I type. One of the songs I've wanted to share with dearest one. It says so much. You can listen to it here. On the way home from town I was listening to it and sobbing as I drove. How could so many of those years be behind us? I can't wrap my head around it much of the time. This grieving the empty nest feels like a bottomless pit. The pain of it isn't getting any easier. I often feel full of self pity when I cry for what was, but I also recognise that if these tears aren't allowed to surface and flow, I will store them in my body instead.

When other song(listen here) came on the radio a few days ago I asked dearest one to stop and listen to it. He did, although he had to wipe tears from his eyes by the end, cursing slightly whoever wrote such a song. Yesterday, when it came on the radio again, I ended up sobbing anew. Dearest one has a key that fits into only daughter's locket and when the day comes for dearest one to hand the key to only daughter's beloved that tear jerker song will become a tear jerker reality for him.

Earlier in the week I had a session with Father Charlie and in the midst of telling him that I was learning to simply state what had happened in the past without judging myself for it, I started to cry. Those damn tears. They were telling me that I've got a ways to go to forgive myself for some of the memories that the song Remember When brings up. If tears are a form of prayer, like Sister Doreen told me years ago, then I've been doing a lot of praying this past week.

I think the kids coming home for Christmas has been triggering those prayers. While I feel like a contented mother hen at the thought of having them all under one roof again, it's also a tangible reminder that the life we knew as a family is in the past. Perhaps once we get through a full year of firsts, like experiencing a death, the pain won't be so sharp. Maybe the grief will fade as each celebration comes and goes, empty of its rhythm we once knew as a family.

I do look forward to the day when I can honour the past, take responsibility for what is mine to own, and let the rest go. When I can tell Father Charlie I am walking the talk of accepting the past, without it reducing me to tears. The Promises in AA's Big Book state that we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. When that day comes I will whip up some batter with my egg beaters. Afterwards, while I lick them both off, I might even let some of the dough fall on that particular page of the Big Book to ever remind me that if we work for them, the promises really do come true.

What Was I Trying To Say?

I had this clever-to-me blog post in the draft vault and I was in the midst of polishing it up and showing it to you when I realized I hadn't the foggiest idea what the point of the piece was anymore and there was no one to ask, "What was I was trying to say?" So that piece is back in the vault, waiting to either be ressurected or put in the forever dead pile.

Isn't that a gorgeous sunrise? As we inch closer to the shortest daylight day of the year (7 hours of daylight here) I still don't know what I'm trying to say.

A Work Of Grace

I am grateful for the mysterious happening called letting go. God knows I can't seem to make it happen on my own.

Last night our youngest son came over with his girlfriend. A girl I have had a real hard time liking. Thoughts such as you've got my son by the balls and I'm onto your games have been at the forefront of my mind for much of their relationship. Ya. Not the proudest of that, but it's the truth. I had had a breakthrough with my attitude towards her earlier this year but my attitude didn't last. No angel halo for me.

So last night (at the end of an 18 hour spoonless day, no less) I was pleasantly surprised to find no ill will within me towards her. Instead a calm acceptance. Somewhere between last night and I don't know when, I realized I had stopped expecting things she can't deliver. Things like acting more than her age (15) or not acting out in behaviours that she could only change through hard work, healing grace and much love.

And while I was pleasantly surprised not to have that below the surface pissyness towards her I was also unsettled. Because I know a change in attitude towards her means I most likely have a softer attitude towards myself, too. A work of grace. And for this control loving woman, not being able to put a finger on where and when and how it all happened, and that it happened without my orchestrating it all - well - that's an answer to someone's prayers! Including my own.

Something(s) To Be Glad About

A day with enough spoons to get done what needed to be done. I am grateful. Thank you for your prayers. No news on dearest one's CT scan and we are hoping no news is good news. Wish the need for pain killers wasn't so constant. He does too. So much so that he doesn't always take them, even though he needs them. Did I mention he is stubborn? A nice stubborn most of the time though. :)

Youngest son is moving into his own place today. That is truly something to celebrate. In the spring he moved in with his 15 year old girlfriend and her family. It was devastating. Many tears. Many prayers. To see him gaining his independence in a healthier way today is an answer to prayer.

It's been a good day.

Swimming

I will be away from the computer, as far as I can tell, for the next week. My dad has this habit of coming and sitting right beside me as I type or check email when I'm in his house. He just wants to be with me and I just want to be alone when I'm online! So, we'll see how that goes. If I'm silent, you'll know why.

Last evening was spent at one of dearest one's siblings, celebrating their 25th anniversary. Have I ever told you dearest one has 11 siblings? We were the lone non ultra conservative Mennonites there in a crowd of 100 plus people. That was okay. After almost 25 years of marriage ourselves most of the people in the crowd know who I am. There was a time in my journey where my dress and head covering was not much different than these people. That is a long story.

This morning I went to my AA meeting and later had coffee with both sons. There is something very comforting to me that despite them making decisions that are contrary to how we raised them, they come and ask us for prayer. I am so thankful for that.

Last night youngest son and his girlfriend came with us to the anniversary celebration. If you can picture all these women wearing modest dresses and head coverings and my son's girlfriend walking around with a low, low top, belt buckle that had LED readout of her name and tight, tight jeans. I was pretty proud of how she made herself at home in the crowd. I thought back 25 years to me being in that exact situation and now I know why everyone knew who I was. It's hard to be anonymous when you stick out so much!

My mother-in-law did not want dearest one and I to marry all those years ago. I don't blame her. Last night as I greeted her and we talked about her own upcoming holidays I lamented with her about how she was going to spend hers. She whispered to me that I knew her better than some of her own children. And later on in the evening I went to say goodbye to her and I spontaneously said, "I love you." And I had to think of all that has transpired in the past 25 years and if there was(is)hope for me there is hope for anyone. She has been a beautiful example to me of what a mother-in-law can be. I love her for her honesty, compassion and her sense of humour. She had 11 babies in 14 years and kept her sense of humour through it all. And even though she had to stop having babies her heart ached for one more and so they adopted another child. She has understood my own heart ache for more children when I too, had to stop having them.

Tomorrow is another 25th anniversary celebration and then Monday morning I leave bright and early. I will be visiting a friend who is in a hospital between here and where I am headed. She was transferred there a week ago. She had a double lung transplant two and a bit years ago and she is in rejection. Thankfully her body has rallied and she is better than she was a week ago. Her name is Karen if you feel led to pray for her. Through my own lung issues she has been a beacon of light and hope for me. Someone I could phone when I ran out of spoons and not have to explain a thing....she simply understood. We know one another so well now that we can tell by each other's greeting on the phone how limited the other's spoons are.

Tomorrow I will receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation before Mass. Here is a prayer by Catherine Doherty that speaks to my heart. God bless you.

O Lord of Hosts,
I stand before you
with a heart full of tears
and a soul filled with repentance
for all the moments I have been away from you.
Sins of my past life stand before me
in all their horrible nakedness.
And I have only your mercy to fall back upon.
But, then, it is an infinite mercy,
so I throw myself into its sea
and swim to the shore of your love.
Amen

Choosing What Matters

"You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart - now, that matters. The whole problem with people is - "

"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May (my sister), but it was still so hard to choose (to paint the house) Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

I read this bit in the book The Secret Life Of Bees the other day and thought to myself, "oh shit." Life would be hunky dory if other people's words didn't mess with my head.

Next Monday I leave for a week long getaway full of business and pleasure. I visit an old friend, have an appointment with a cardiologist, see only daughter and end the week with the celebration of my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. It will be a 2500 km round trip. My husband and kids will join me for the anniversary celebration.

Many of you know that youngest son chose to move in with his 15 year old girlfriend this past March and how heartbreakingly difficult that was for me. I initially wrote about his relationship with her here and about the heartbreak of him moving out here.

Last weekend youngest son's girlfriend came up with the brainwave that instead of coming with youngest son and his dad on the weekend maybe she could come with me instead. The friend I am going to visit used to be her bus driver and she has a love for only daughter. Plus she figured it would give her and I a chance to get to know one another better.

My initial reaction? No. Fucking. Way. I treasure my solitude. I love driving on long trips by myself. This girl talks non stop. I told only daughter it would be so much easier to decide what to do if I wasn't a praying person. Much easier if I didn't read these words in my big book every day: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." If all that didn't mean anything to me I would do whatever the heck I pleased. It felt like pulling teeth to pray about taking her with me. I thought to myself, "God, you have a fucked up sense of humour." Yep, the f bombs were ricocheting around in my head and I felt like having a temper tantrum that resembled a tap dance performance.

In my more lucid moments I thought to myself...."God, isn't it supposed to be me that is reaching out to her?" It doesn't seem to matter how much I struggle in my relationship with her, she keeps coming back. I thought of my pithy words to youngest son when he first started dating her, "Your relationship with her is temporary and what I want her to take with her from being with our family is that God loves her as she is." Ha. Those words flowed effortlessly from my lips. Then I got to try and live them out. I still suck at it.

And so I struggled. Could I say no without feeling guilty? Could I say yes with abandon? And I squirmed around not wanting to really face God about it. And it's not that I think everything that we initially blanch at turns out to be God's will. There's this thing called boundaries that comes into play too.

I look at my mom and see a woman who spent her life saying yes to things that sucked the life out of her. Saw her pour her life out for others without looking after her own needs. She now says no to just about everything. If she doesn't feel like it, she doesn't do it. The consequences of this is that she ends up saying no to relationships too. With her kids, with her neighbours, with herself. It's sad to see what looked like sacrifice in the beginning got exchanged for sacrificing what really matters.

Not too long ago I told my sister that one of my biggest challenges, since my kids have left home, is seeing myself leaning towards following in my mom's footsteps. I too, gave of myself, said yes to things out of obligation and fear; out of a need for control, and it sucked the life out of me. With the freedom to say no to anything now I can see how easy it would be to do just that. And I see what a lonely path that could be. Having said yes without discernment for 25 years often makes any yes/no decision today confusing.

And so I took this request of youngest son's girlfriend and asked God for knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out. Said it not quite through gritted teeth, but almost. And over the course of a few days my heart started to soften. I stepped back and looked at the big picture. I looked at what I would be saying no to. And what I would be saying yes to as well.

You need to know this about youngest son's girlfriend. She is a typical 15 year old in many ways. Makeup, clothes, and boys (my boy) fill a lot of her headspace. She lives in a home so dysfunctional that it makes me sad, mad and like a mother bear at times. Her mother never misses an opportunity to slam her verbally in front of anyone. My son often parents her more than her parents do. She has a general mistrust of any adult. She has a spunk that is admiral even though it gets channeled in ways that cause her problems. Her eyes follow a person, wary, always watching. She is quite sure she is unloveable. That she will never measure up. She often makes choices to try and prove those statements true. And my God, sometimes it is hard to love her.

But God won't let me give up on her. For as many times as my attiude towards her has reinforced her feelings of being unloveable I keep getting reminded of what matters.

And so yesterday I stopped at her house, put my arm around her shoulder and said, "I hear you are coming with me next week." She looked at me and said, "I am?" "Yes, you are," I told her. And we hugged and her eyes lost that wary look while hope flickered to life in them instead. I drove away a few minutes later and went to thank God for giving me the power to do His will. My words got swallowed up in big gulping tears.

When I was making my decision I had an overwhelming sense that this was not about me. It was not a time to choose to do what I wanted to do. It was a time to set that aside for someone else. For her. I felt like I was standing at a pivotal point in my journey. That by choosing to take her with me I was cutting off the tendrils that threatened to wrap themselves around me. The tendrils that wanted to take root in my life. That wanted me so desperately to follow in my mom's footsteps.

"You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart - now, that matters. The whole problem with people is - "

"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May (my sister), but it was still so hard to choose (to paint the house) Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

Update: Her dad decided she couldn't come with me so she is flying with dearest one and youngest son in time for the anniversary celebration.

"Listen, Listen"

Often, when my kids were younger, one of them could be found chattering my ear off. Little tidbits of mental woolgathering would make its way out of their heads and into my ears. On days when I was tempted to zone them out completely I was often reminded in my spirit to "listen, listen." I knew the window of opportunity was short and if I didn't pay attention to what was on their hearts they would find someone else to talk to. Permanently. I wanted it to be me. Other days I wanted it to be anyone but me. It was so much more work to listen than to ignore. Often, for instance, as I was setting the table they would start talking to me and I would find my mind drifting off about some detail about life when the words, "listen, listen" would make me jump inside as if they had been spoken through a megaphone from God's spirit to my own. Sometimes I would tell my kids I couldn't give them my full attention at the moment so they either could choose to have me mindlessly say, "uh, huh" to whatever they just had to tell me or they could wait until I could given them my undivided attention. Often I would put aside what I was thinking about to listen to them. And yes, there were times when I simply did the "uh, huh" routine while they were (almost)none the wiser.

My kids range from newly adult to fully submerged in adulthood these days and now I am faced with a new person who has thoughts begging to be heard. That would be me. This month off from blogging has brought me face to face with myself. Again. I have written more pages in my journal in the past 4 weeks than in the previous 9 months. It's been good. It's been bad. It's been hard. It's been hopeful. It's been. I did a lot of reading, a fair amount of simply sitting in silence and I took time to be child-like with daily views through my new kaleidescope (thanks to only daughter). I turned another year older this past month. I took out my bubble wand and blew bubbles into the sky. I tended to my flowerpots and painted pictures. I felt sad a lot. I also felt hope filled. I found myself confused that sadness and hope could be such bosom buddies but I also cut myself enough slack to simply feel the feelings instead of having to make sense of them before I acknowledged their presence. I refrained from doing anything that smacked of being busy in a religious sense - things I have done in the past that looked like they would bring me closer to God but really were tactics to keep my head full of noise and God's voice out of my range of hearing. I did a lot of listening instead.

In the past month I went back to AA for the first time in 8 or 9 years. At that meeting there was an audible gasp around the table when I said I'd been sober for 18 years but hadn't been to a meeting in over 8. I hate walking into a room full of strangers alone but my fear of falling off the wagon grew bigger than my fear of meeting strangers, so I went. That night the meeting topic was fear. As I listened to the stories around the table I knew I had been closer to a relapse than not.

One Saturday found me unapologetic for once, when I reached out for help instead of isolating and pretending that living on my solitary island would be enough to get me through the day.

A new magnet is holding my latest painting up on the fridge. It says, "She wanted most of all to live from her heart." I'm convinced that the more I listen, listen the more I will live from my heart.

Words To Ponder

This post made me sit here and think OMG. Thank you A. Noel for your continued friendship.

Boxing Her In

When youngest son started dating his girlfriend last year I told him I realized (code word for hoped) the relationship was not permanent and if there was one thing I wanted his girlfriend to go away with from spending time with him and us it was to know in her heart that God loves her as she is.

I felt all loving and sincere and full of warm fuzzies as I said this. Meant it in my heart. I even repeated it to a good friend when she was being very negative about youngest son's girlfriend one day. But as soon as I saw the hold youngest son's girlfriend had on him, my good intentions went the way of the dinosaur. Sure, I wanted her to know God loves her as is, but I sure as hell had no idea how to communicate that when all I really wanted was for her to get out of my son's life. There was a point early on when youngest son said to me that I seemed to believe that we were to love and respect everyone equally as long as the person who didn't share our values wasn't dating someone in the family. Ouch.

After a few months the tension between youngest son and I about his choice of girlfriend was so bad that he decided to go see an old counselor of mine who he trusted to give him the goods on the situation. I wrote about my struggles with his dating life here and especially here.

Between the morning he told me it would be fun to be a dad to the evening when he and I had a frank talk about his active sex life, well, this momma has seen red more than any other colour. No, his girlfriend is not pregnant, although I worry that could become a reality. But I know from experience there is a bond that happens once a relationship becomes sexual. Because of that I know the chances of them going their separate ways now would be much harder and more painful.

They've been dating 13 months. She is only 15 and he 18. And yes, in Canada the whole picture is legal in every which way. Seriously, it is.

If I had to count which has taken precendence in my thoughts and words in the past 13 months when it comes to this relationship I would have to say that anger, control, and nagging beat out any others. A few months ago youngest son got fed up with my nagging and moved in with his girlfriend and her family. I wrote about that here and here.

When I told a group of close friends one night that I had no idea what letting go of this situation looked like one of them responded that thanking youngest son for being where he was in his journey because it was showing me where I was on mine might be the way. The truth can be so painful. There has been no better reality check for me about how I can be when I don't get my way than to be faced with this situation. Of course, I should be concerned. Of course anything less than voicing those concerns to youngest son would be unloving. At one point I told him I didn't want him to come back to me in 10 years and ask why I hadn't warned him he was about to fall off the edge of a cliff.

God hasn't given up on the whole situation. Neither has God given up on me learning to live out what it is to love people as they are. Including youngest son's girlfriend. I'm not sure she has ever experienced unconditional love in her life. I do know she is like a sponge soaking up all the good feelings and positive feedback she gets from us. It has been a long struggle to go from outright hostility towards her to being able to open my heart to the possibility of loving her as she is. Though I have grown to like her I still haven't been able to tell her that I love her. My vision is sometimes clouded by wanting to tell her that I think she has my son by the balls and I resent it.

I have prayed that God would give me a spirit of love towards her. I've learned to hug her and give her encouragement. I've also learned to be direct and honest with her when need be. I have seen her eyes grow from constant wariness in my presence to lighting up when she sees me now. I do feel like I am loving her as best I can. I don't feel very grown up about it. I feel less than spiritual about the whole thing. I know if she was dating someone else I would be less judgemental.

The girl has radar that is so keen I know there is no fooling her. Spirit speaks to spirit and when you have been wounded in certain ways your radar abilities rise to new levels. I may be able to fake it with some people but I know there is no faking it with her. Either I say it when I mean it that I love her or I keep those words inside until they can come from a place of authenticity. I don't know if I long for the day when I can speak them from my heart for her sake or mine.

This past weekend at the retreat a priest talked about the dangers of boxing people in by seeing only one aspect of the truth about them. He said when we did, it became destructive truth. Jesus saw the truth about people but he didn't pigeon hole them by it. The priest said that to see one facet of truth about someone and have that truth enclose and define them with no hope for the greater Truth of who they were, was wrong.

His words challenged me. To see younger son's girlfriend by more than the truths I have defined her by. To see myself by more than my inability to fully love her as she is as well.

I have always thought that I would be some great example of Christian love for the world. Or at least for my world. One of the aspects of this past retreat weekend was that you could receive letters from your family and friends. Notes of encouragement about how they see you in relation to the topics of faith, hope and love. Youngest son's girlfriend wrote to me from her heart. Here are a few excerpts from her letters:

I haven't loved many people and I haven't let many people love me. But I'm glad we have opened up to each other and have an open honest relationship. I love spending time with you and dearest one because I always feel a lot of love from you both. I can't believe I have another family who loves me so much. And I love you with all my heart but I didn't really know how to tell you.

and this

All I want to say is that I hope and pray that we have many more wonderful memories to share. I say it a lot but I also mean it with all I've got but I LOVE YOU. And I can't get over how I can love someone who I'm not related to and who I don't think I'm going to marry - LOL - but I'm glad you are a part of my life.

Here she was saying the words to me that I have been unwilling and unable to say to her. I cried as I read these letters. I never thought the person I was being challenged to love unconditionally would be the instrument God would use to show me that I am loved as I am.

After the end of the closing Mass for the retreat youngest son's girlfriend elbowed her way through the crowd at breakneck speed to get to me and hug me. I was able to tell her that her letters to me were the most meaningful of all I received during the weekend and that they had made me cry. She was instantly concerned that the crying was a bad thing until I told her it was a good kind of crying.

I have no idea if youngest son and his girlfriend will be together for life. I know the odds of it are slim. Not many stay with the partners they had as young teens. There are obstacles galore if they marry as there are for any of us. But if nothing else youngest son's girlfriend has shown me what it looks like not to box someone in by destructive truth. I have much to learn from her.