Me

My sponsor told me to read my blog from the perspective of reading something written by someone I am sponsoring, rather than something I wrote myself. What do I see? The thing that jumps out at me, more than anything else, is this idea that the person who wrote these things wants to be someone else.
I have always wanted to be someone else. When I was little, I desperately wanted to be a little girl...ANY little girl...who was on TV, because the girls on TV had parents who cared for them and loved them no matter what and never abandon them. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club because she was so interesting and strange and quirky and then I wanted to be Lori Singer from Footloose, because she was thin and beautiful and wore red cowboy boots and got to kiss Kevin Bacon and she went to the prom with her boyfriend, NOT with some guy that only said yes because someone else told him I had asked 10 other guys who had all said no. Sorry...where was I?
When I was in my 20's, I think I still wanted to be offshoots of the same characters, quirky, interesting, strange, sexy, pretty, thin...with alcohol and sex to boot!
Then when I got married, it honestly felt like it was the first time I could be myself. But what I quickly found out is that HE wanted to be married to someone else. Someone who probably resembled who I had wanted to be before I met him...definitely someone thin, pretty and sexy, someone who would accompany him on his tangents and rants against society, the government, organized religion, organized politics and encouraged him to move to New Zealand, where life is beautiful all the time. Ironically, being myself caused me A LOT grief for 12 years.
So now, perhaps I'm struggling because I feel like I don't know who I am, when in reality, I just want to be someone else. And sometimes, I don't know who that someone else is and sometimes, when I do know who I want to be, it flies directly in the face of who I am. And I'm fighting against who I really am. (Okay I'm really confused now!)
So who am I?

I am interesting and a little quirky and I have a good sense of humor. These are good things about me. But I am also a middle aged mother of 1 who lives in the suburbs and drives a Spectra to volleyball games and glee club rehearsals and liking those things about myself does not negate the other things or make me any less interesting.

I am probably never going to look like a Sports Illustrated model, but I am not bad looking. Yes, I want to lose weight and I want the most optimal health I can, yes I would prefer to NOT die before I'm 70, but I can't mourn the face that I never will be and have never been 120 pounds.

I like my job. This is something I've touched on before. It feels like I should be doing something that I love and am obsessively passionate about. Something creative and freeing, but that's not the path I'm on. I can count on 1 hand the number of people I know who are doing that. I don't know that I could handle a career that I was obsessively passionate about without it negatively impacting my child or my ability to sustain my family. There is nothing wrong with my job. I enjoy it, I'm good at it, I'm making a decent living and I want to accept that. There is nothing wrong with a stable job and interesting hobbies or outside interests.

Sometimes I cry. My mother cries A LOT!! My daughter cries even more. Hell, my ex-husband probably cried more than I ever did. But I hate it. Crying makes me feel weak but I want to accept that sometimes I need that outlet for my negative energy.

I was surprised to find that I want a relationship at some point. I am single and I am free and I want things to be...well not anonymous, but without expectation or commitment involved and it turns out that those desires are not lining up with who I am. I was not prepared to find that out about myself. A desire for intimacy, a desire for a connection to another person...these are not things I wanted to want. In fact, NO intimacy and NO connections were going to be the cornerstones of what I built my new single life on! What the hell!?!?!? I can't say where I stand on the idea of monogamy. I can't say I'm leaning towards getting married again. But it seems I do want more than a physical release. I want to be with a person I care about who cares about me. When you don't think you want that and you find out you do, it can kind of blow. But when you get it, I've heard this urban legend that it can be pretty amazing.

I am capable of improving. Money has improved. Organizational skills have improved. Job performance has improved. Boundaries have improved. Things are better. And continuing to improve upon them or holding steady and doing what I should be doing to keep moving forward is not nearly as much work as putting out all the fires I've had to in the past. That is the reality I continue to turn my back on. It's not more work to stay on the right path.

I do have spiritual beliefs. Maybe right now, I'm a little murky on what they are exactly, but I do have them. I do believe that something greater than me, bigger than me, led me to where I am right now. I am grateful to whatever it is for all I've learned and all that I have. I know I believe in some sort of afterlife and I believe in kindness to others and striving to do the right thing.

All of these things are part of me. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to gloss over the negatives, because they are certainly there. I'm someone who is an addict and I've got just about every trait you find in an addict. I'm someone desperate to shake the addiction, yet terrified to give it up. I don't want to make the sacrifice, even though I know the payoff is greater than I can imagine.

I'm impatient sometimes and in denial about it most of the time, until my kid mentions it in her therapy! I could work harder at being better at some things. I could make things less complicated. My sponsor told me that I have more rules for life than anyone she's ever met. (She didn't meant this as a compliment, necessarily). I just look at my past and what hasn't worked and I want something different. Better. On paper that doesn't seem like a bad thing. But I guess I need to accept that there are some things about me I can't change and some things I can.

Hmmm...I think I'm onto something! Accepting the things I cannot change...courage to change the things I can...wisdom to know the difference...Someone should really write that down and use it again...

Fear

My 9 year old is afraid of the basement. Even when all the lights are on. Even when it's daytime. At first, it was really annoying and I thought she was just trying to get out of feeding the cat, but it seems to be legitimate. And I started thinking about my own fears and decided that a list perhaps might offer me some insight.

I fear becoming my parents (I think this fear is pretty exclusively mine...no one else feels this way)
I fear anything having to do with bone marrow
I fear the feelings of deprivation
I occasionally fear sleeping alone in my house
I occasionally fear heights, if I feel they are unstable (learned that Friday at the City Museum)
I fear that my daughter will end up like her father (And I accept that she probably won't want to end up like me when she's older!)
I fear dying before my daughter is an adult and leaving her alone
Sometimes I fear dying period
I fear putting on 40 pounds again
I fear that my sponsor will fire me if I don't get my program together
I fear being in a bad relationship again

Right now, that's what is coming to mind.

I'm struggling with Step 3 at the moment. Food is not great. I'm struggling with a lot of things, even though I know that not accepting and not turning it over to the Universe will lead to the ultimate demise of everything I've worked for.

I know my child wants good grades. It is important to her. So I've stopped yelling at her and nagging her to do her homework. I just tell her that I love her no matter what, its ultimately her choice and she knows the consequences of not doing her homework (or inaction).

I'm getting that message from the Universe right now. There is love and acceptance around me in amounts too great to measure, regardless of my actions, but I know the consequences of inaction. If I want what I say I want, the action will need to begin.

Battles

My body feels like the enemy these days. It's trying to hurt me or kill me. I feel like I'm in this battle with it. If I'm not battling with it to lose weight and get healthy and exercise more and harder and fighting, day in and day out to NOT eat everything my body wants, then I'm punishing it with food. Why am I punishing it? Because it won't do what I want it to do, which is to be thin and not be addicted and not want food so much. It's like, "You want the food so badly? Here take it!" and then I feel sick but it feels like my body deserves that misery for making me feel so bad emotionally and mentally and spiritually.

My body image is such that I never notice when I'm gaining weight or losing weight. I mean, I notice as far as my clothes go, eventually, but if I look in the mirror, it always looks the same. 190, 240, no difference. I happened upon one of those TV shows the other day where people are on teams trying to lose weight. I had never watched any of them before. And they showed these very large people, men in shorts, women in shorts and sports bras, being turned around and showing their weights. So I'm watching, thinking, "What? She weighs 250 maybe?" and the woman weighed almost 400 pounds. I have no reality perception, which is why I can't look at myself and say "Hmmm...looks like I'm putting on a little weight..."

All I know is that it feels like my body is getting what it wants, which is for me to be fat and out of control. And it feels like my problem, like something I have to fix, not like something I can turn over, which is ridiculous, because there's really nothing I can't turn over. There's nothing I can't ask for help with.

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, without an inkling of hesitation, that I am divorced because of program. I know that I would still be in the same horrible situation, if I had not walked through those doors 4 years ago. I know that I would either have lost the job I have now or at the very least would still be taking money for working my job at maybe 25% capacity. Now I am efficient and I feel with confidence that they are getting their moneys worth with me. I would still be where I was with managing money and although that is a slower go than some things, it is progressing and I am proud of that. I know that I would still be entering into relationships that were in no way what I needed. All these things are because the Universe led me to my 12 Step Program and I very clearly see that.

So why aren't my current actions in line with what I know and what I see? Because it feels like too much. The progress and the good things, they all require upkeep. They all require this continuous forward motion, so I keep working on them and I keep working both my jobs and I keep working towards raising my child and setting my boundaries with my ex and my mother and doing all this is already guaranteeing me no more than 5 hours of sleep a night! It feels like the program is just another thing to do, another thing to work on, another task, another chore and I'm so exhausted. And it's slipping away I know, I know, I know that if it does, everything else falls apart. All of it. Why doesn't that scare me more?

Today is new and today has no mistakes and all I have to do is make it through today. One day at a time. One day at a time. Turn it all over, even if it feels weak. Ask for help, even if it feels wrong. Today I am off work, today many of the responsibilities are on hold, so it's not an extra burden to do some work in the area that made all the other areas possible. Act as if, one day at a time...my body just says blah, blah, blah...

My mind says, "Do you want to die?" Maybe that's the battle to fight. I don't want to die today. I don't want to dig another hole in my grave. Today, I want to turn it over and stop worrying about it. I can simplify things by realizing that I don't have to deal with any of this crap. It's all going to fall apart if I just ignore it. But turning it over is not ignoring it. Letting something/someone bigger and certainly better equipped handle it. So that is my goal for today. Take off the armor and get ready...to not battle anymore.

40

It's here. 40. I may have made a few self deprecating comments about dreading 40...turning 39 "for the second time" but in reality, I've never been so excited. The hysterical sobbing is just an off shoot of that. Emotions are all messed up, but that's okay. I've only got an hour left of this old life. This is the danger. I will put too much stock in turning 40. I will pin all my hopes on this birthday. And then I'll get in a car wreck or I'll run my stockings or something. I want to start something tomorrow. I want a new page. I want a new start.
I want to be better and I want to do better...at everything. That's a tall order. How do I not let myself down with that? When I wake up tomorrow and I look in the mirror, who am I going to see? The same person I saw this morning. If I wasn't happy with this mornings me, how can I be happy with tomorrow's me?
Okay, so what am I doing correctly, right now, at the age of 39?
I did a "grown up" thing today and went to the doctor to hear the magical words, "That lump is nothing and should be gone within a week."
I went to a meeting tonight
I walked 3 miles to get to that meeting
I recognized that love is all around me and available to me in unconditional form, if I am willing to open up to it
I did the best I could today as a mother
I worked hard at my job today
I am not married
I am seeking a better relationship with my child

So that's not such a bad list of things to carry with me into the next decade. Or to just carry with me tomorrow, as I accept good wishes from the wonderful people I love and dodge cake at all costs. What can I build tomorrow? What can I create tomorrow? What can I do, for that 1 day, that is, in reality, just like every other day?
That's a good question. I'll have to ask myself that when I wake up 40.

Ruth

She came of age during the Depression. She looked like Linda Darnell (Google that name and you'll see how stunningly beautiful Linda Darnell was). She could jitterbug like a professional. She would insert dirty words into the stories she read to her grandchildren to make them giggle. She never went beyond the 5th grade, yet she ran her own business for more than 30 yeares and raised two children mostly as a single mother in an era when single mothers were not the norm. She married an alcoholic and learned to be fully self sufficient for her family. She single-handedly cared for her aging mother for 10 years. She never turned away her grandchildren who were dumped unceremoniously on her doorstep for years. She was sensible and frugal and kind and loving. At the age of 60, she found God and fell madly in love with the her spiritual side she had never entertained. She died 22 years ago today.
Every year my grandmother would call me on my birthday. No matter where I had been dragged to, I always got a phone call. Sometimes a card, sometimes a little money, but always a phone call. My father didn't even call me every year on my birthday, but my grandmother (my mother's mother) would never dream of missing it.
My mother and her mother fought like cats and dogs from moment my mother came out of the womb (after 48 hours of labor!). My mother was like her father. A dreamer, someone who couldn't stay in 1 place, someone who couldn't hold onto money. Everyone always said I was like my grandmother, sensible, down to Earth and no matter where I was being dragged to by my mother, I always knew that my rock and my stability was in a two story house in Piedmont, MO. I can't speak to her strengths as a mother, but as a grandmother, she was wonderful and never failing in her love.
When I was 17, I returned to Missouri for Thanksgiving and she was there, as always. We had some talks and later, I was laying in bed and I could see her, sitting on the couch, watching TV. And I remember thinking how out of touch she seemed, how her opinions and view seemed wrong. It made me sad to feel so disconnected from the woman I had always considered my best friend.
A little over 3 months later, 11 days before I turned 18, she died. Her heart gave out. She was in the hospital less than a week before she died. I was living out of state, but I couldn't bring myself to come back to see her in the hospital. I couldn't bring myself to see her hooked up to tubes and wires.
I realized, after she died, that I was waiting for a phone call. I think, in a way, I still do. It's amazing to me that it's been 22 years. Life goes on and no one understood that more than my grandmother. She would have never wanted anyone to wallow and dwell on the fact that she was gone, but the fact that I graduated high school, went to college, worked, got married, had a child without her...is odd. Like maybe I should have ceased to exist when she did. It just doesn't seem natural, when it's really the most natural thing in the world. But as each year passes and each generation arrives, it feels that the memories of her are growing dimmer. My daughter will have her memories of my mother, who is her best friend and she may remember a few stories I've told her about my grandmother. God willing, someday, there will be at least 1 little one who will remember me as their best friend. This is the cycle of life, exactly the kind of thing my grandmother would have appreciated.

Hangover

Slept in my makeup, didn’t get my teeth brushed, slept on the couch and now my mouth taste like yesterday’s news… Wake Up Older by Julie Roberts

It’s been awhile since I was hung over. Today, I am hung over. I wonder if people realize how similar an alcohol hangover can be to a food hangover. My head hurts, my stomach is all over the place, I look like a raccoon because I didn’t go to sleep last night. I literally passed out. I passed out on a recliner in front of the TV, woke up to stumble to the couch before waking up again to finally fall into bed.
I had to drive to get my daughter this morning and of course, God’s flashlight was right there, assaulting me. I know what you did!!! the Sun was screaming at me.
I was out of breath and agitated and tearing my car apart at every red light in a desperate search for my sunglasses. Once I finally found them, I was upset because I had forgotten my phone. And the thought actually entered my mind once I retrieved the offspring, “I should not be driving with my kid in the car…”
Dropped her off at school and went home and tentatively ate a small bowl of cottage cheese and sipped some juice to get something on my stomach. It stayed down. I grabbed an orange and a piece of vegetarian lasagna for lunch, but at this point, still not sure how that’s going to work out.
The elevator’s out at work and I have to climb 4 flights of stairs to get to my office...still not sure how I made it up those steps. My boss appeared at my cubicle to ask me a question and I think I jumped 10 feet. I wish I could keep my sunglasses on all day.
I am still that person. Still the person I don’t want to be. I am still not turning things over. I am still getting buried in everything that gets thrown at me. It’s a lot. I know there are people worse off and there always will be, but sometimes even my sponsor admits, “I wish you could get a break!”
And I knew it was coming. Screaming “Mother fucker” when I drop my spoon, rather than picking it up and rinsing it off, that means something is coming. Impatience, anger bordering on rage which I usually don’t get…it means that it’s all building up inside me and at some point it’s going to blow.
I want a solution to my situation with my ex-husband. I ask friends, I ask family, I ask my therapist, my counselor…and no one can give me the answer I want. I don’t want to know how to change my behavior. I don’t want to know how to disengage myself. I don’t want to learn how to accept that he won’t change ever. I want to know how to change him. I couldn’t make him the husband I needed (and the husband I needed was basically a guy who needed to just not treat my like crap! Tall order I know!). I’ve truly accepted that. Now, my energy is focused on making him the ex-husband I need. Someone who is working with me to raise our kid, who communicates and who listens and respects my opinion but I DO NOT want to wait 14 years to get the message that this man is incapable of being that person.
Living with my mother is pretty much what I expected. Some days I measure the success of this arrangement by the fact that I haven’t pushed her head into a wall, and some days its fine. I’ve accepted that she’s not going to change.
40 is coming. And I don’t know what I wanted it to look like. Maybe my usual, unrealistic delusions of grandeur whereby things were all in line, I was at a consistent level of peace and serenity, dealing with all things as they came.
Why do I keep doing this? This is a life. It is never going to be consistently anything…consistently changing maybe. That’s the human condition, for everyone. It’s time to stop waiting for everything to be different and start working with what’s in front of me. And I keep making these promises to myself and never following through on them.
I used to love playing Russian roulette. I love seeing how close I can get to the edge and still pull myself back. My brand of Russian roulette were things like seeing how close I could get to the cancellation date of my car insurance policy without paying the bill. Seeing how many work projects I could put off before anyone caught on. Seeing how much food I could steal, hoard and binge on without people noticing. And I’ve really turned a corner in all these things. Now, apparently, I’m just playing it with my life and with my health. I’m not 22 anymore. I can’t even sleep on my couch without waking up having lost complete use of all my neck muscles. My cholesterol is up. It’s not the end of the world and probably easily rectified but maybe it’s a message. These things are only going to get worse. Your body is not going to hold up forever. I am getting older.
But I think I can dodge the bullet some more. And I can’t. I may live to be 90. I may keel over and die tomorrow. I have no idea and would go completely insane if I did know. Today. Today. All I can worry about is today. Not my birthday. Not next Christmas. Not my daughter’s graduation or wedding. Not even tomorrow. The ONLY thing I know about tomorrow is that I am supposed to have my daughter’s sleep over guest home by 11am. That is it. And for all I know, my car will break down, so I can’t even call THAT a certainty.
I am going to be abstinent today. I have no grand plan for my entire life. Today the Universe loves me…good and bad. Today, I am going to turn it all over because I still feel like crap and am incapable of doing anything else apparently! Today I am going to do the next right thing and deal with tomorrow…tomorrow.

The Seventh Step Prayer
My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen

Career

My mother’s career was the focal point of her entire life. She loved it, she nurtured it, she cherished it about everything else, including her children. And when it appeared that the career she had chosen forsook her, 30 years in, she was devastated and to this day grieves and mourns its loss and is, to this day, 10 years later, constantly grasping for those glory days.
I have never had a job like that. I worked in 1 industry for 12 years and changed to a different industry 3 years ago. Some jobs were better than others, I worked to support my family and as I changed jobs and get older, my income has increased at a moderate rate I am satisfied with. Am I missing something by not having the passion of my mother? I’m missing out on being a negligent mother, because my career always comes first, that’s for sure! J But am I missing out on having that all consuming passion for something I truly love?My entire adolescence revolved around music. Music theory, music performance, music history. My senior year of high school I was in three separate bands and my college degree is in music. But at the end of college, I had to face reality. I was not talented enough to perform and I did not wish to teach. That left me with a piece of paper and a chunk of life I could not build on.
Now, I’m getting ready to turn 40. This would be a great ending to the movie of the week about my life that is constantly replaying in my mind. In a world gone stagnant, she threw off the shackles of cubicledom! She broke out and blazed her own path to help the world and to do something she had always wanted to do…
But what is that? I have no idea. Every time I leave my therapist’s office or my child’s therapist’s office, I am consumed with this desire to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and parlay that into a career as a therapist. It seems noble, it seems interesting, it seems like something I might be good at.
I actually spent a period of time in Human Resources and enjoyed that. And if I were able to do that, I could even, possibly stay with the company I’m at now.
Both these ideas require returning to school, which requires money. These would also remind me that in 9 years, I have to start paying for a college education!
I have always loved to write and could pursue that, without giving up my current job of course. I have no illusions that I would become famous or anything, so that strikes me more as a hobby than an actual career path.
And the thing is, I don’t hate my job. In fact, since I’ve actually been doing what they pay me to do in the last 6 months, I find myself rather enjoying it. No, it’s not a life’s passion, but that’s because other things are more important. Like my child, my recovery, my friends. I can be happy in other areas (and I’m not Unhappy in the career area) and I can make a difference without a grand, life long commitment. I can accept that and be proud of what I do, which is helping people, albeit three or four times removed, all over the country. So maybe the Universe has me right where I need to be.
But damn, discovering the cure for something would have been a kick ass ending to the movie!!

Health

Someone I know had her husband die within the last few days. She and I aren’t particularly close. I would say we are acquaintances. I never met her husband. But he was in his mid-50’s and by all accounts in picture perfect health. He just keeled over and died and they aren’t sure why yet. He exercised and ate right and according to one person, was big into the whole holistic movement. (Whatever that means).
A co-worker who is in top physical form had a stroke right around Thanksgiving last year. He returned to work a week ago or so.
These things mess with my head, big time. The idea of Aneurysms terrifies me.
But all this makes me start wondering why I even bother eating what I think is good for me and exercising. These things especially hit me when I find out that no meat, no sugar, no fried foods, no caffeine, no sodas, reduced wheat still results in an elevated LDL level and a Vitamin D deficiency for me. I still believe my 40’s will be great, but being in my 40’s also means I’m not 22 anymore, as my sponsor keeps telling me!
Not being 22 means that my eyes are starting to slowly deteriorate, so that even moving into the light with some things still doesn’t guarantee I’ll be able to read them.
It means that a 7 mile walk may result in shin splints.
It means I can’t sit on the ground with my legs tucked under me after a period of time and expect to jump up and be on my merry way. I will get up rather quickly, but yes, there will be some moaning and groaning and the forward motion will come gradually.
It means that a simple, low impact Yoga class could render me completely unable to stand erect for 3 days.
It means more tests, more often. It means pills and eye drops and glasses that apparently need to be stronger than they were last year, when I first started wearing glasses.
It means that sitting at a computer typing for more than 10 minutes is going to cause a burning ache between my shoulder blades.
It means that 4 ½ hours of sleep isn’t going to make me tired yet functional
It means that losing more weight and further restricting the amount of food I eat and exercising may still result in keeling over at the age of 50 in the street.
It’s hard to reconcile that. And yes, I could live to be 95. I could be in the physical shape of an Olympic athlete and get hit by a car tomorrow. Or I could exercise and eat right and meditate and die in 12 years.
I want to say that I have come to the conclusion that I need to grab a hold of each day and live it as if it were my last because it truly could be. Typing those words helps, even if I don’t quite believe them. It also helps to type that lying face down in the food won’t help, because I don’t know that I believe that either right now.
Today I read Ask “What’s possible” not “What’s wrong”. Keep asking.
Maybe that’ll work…tomorrow. Yes, I’m thankful to be alive, yes I’m thankful for all that I have, including my health and yes, there are some things about my health that require my action and there are things about my health I am powerless over.

Sometimes, worrying actually feels like less work!