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...