be still

so I was coming *here* to rant about a relationship not going the way I want it to. It's not working for me. And then I took some time to get quiet and be still with myself and my God (s) and i realsied that what is troubling me is fear. I want things to stay the same. I don't want them to change. I am afraid of that change. I've done a lot of changing lately and changed a lot of people in my life. this is tricky for me cause I can choose to not let people in on what's going on in my head and if they don't really know me all that well they might just think I'm okay. Then I can get a little crazy. I need to be honest with the other people in my life and if I do not have solid relationships with them then that seems sorta risky. Fortunately I belong to a fellowship where there is a primary purpose and a theme and a bond built in each persons' own living hell transformed into something new and useful. So if I talk to someone that I don't necessarily know all that well the chances are pretty good that they will understand exactly what I am talking about. Even if you have no idea at this point.
In Alcoholics Anonymous we have a bond with each other formed from our former lives live in a hellish prison and transformed by working the steps. This is a bond that is qwuite awesome to behold.
All that was because tomorrow I must tell my sponsor that I need to change sponsors. This can go well, or badly. but I will try to make *I* statements and not make it about what I think went wrong or what I think she should be doing. Cause she is doing her best and she means well and she HAS helped me along. It is just not working for me anymore and now I clearly see why and how and I need to make a change. this does not mean that I have a new sponsor. No. I do not. But one of the problems with the one I have now is that she is REALLY hard to get a hold of and since we are meeting tomorrow I am going to tell her then. I have been having a difficult time getting her to talk to me on the phone and when we meet in person we do not actually finish a converstation...at least I don't, before she turns to someone else and starts talking. Last week when se were supposed to meet to do a fifth step she started playing with an app on her phone and asking someone else how to download music to this app. Odd.
and she seems to have some reticence about the things I need to talk about. I do not understand. Other people do not have the same reticence. So, it seems best for me to move on.
I hope this was not a rant. I did not intend it to be.

The President's Day Snow

Okay! So it's really snowing. Really. Like 6 inches in the last five hours.

I lost my phone but now it is found except it is still not with me. And with all this snow I son't know when I will have it back. Hopefully tomorrow. But maybe not. Gods I feel lost without it. like I lost a limb or something. I don't know any phone numbers. I feel really disconnected.

I'm still trying to work out a meeting with my sponsor to do a fifth step. I feel like she is being evasive. Like she really doesn't want to do this. i wish she would just say that if it's so. That would be okay. But this crazy dodging is not okay. I am supposed to have therapy tomorrow but I don't know what will happen with all the snow. I guess we'll jsut have to see. It might be okay by 4 pm tomorrow when I would have to start on my way. Hope so.
That was off topic but on my mind.
My sponsor said that:
* I am happy to assist you with a 5th step. However, if some of these things are out of my realm I will again refer you back to your therapist. I can only help you with what I have expereince with in regards to the steps. *
Okay. What does she think I have to tell her? That I am an axe murderer on alternate Tuesdays?
This makes me wonder. And it makes me feel like I am so broken she cannot bear to listen to what has gone on in my life. Which may be true. I just wish she would say so.
I am confused and hurt and feeling like she doesn't really want to be my sponsor. Which would be fine but I need to know that.

On being an ass

I was an ass today. You're shocked, I know. But it's true.
I wrote a fourth step yesterday about some difficult stuff for me that has been working on me. I was abusive, just as my troublesome staff person is now only a few years ago. Children really do learn what they live and then that's all I could see. I was not abusive on purpose. I was not even always abusive in ways that our society would say was abusive. but it is. And this whole thing with this staff person and parents wanting her fired caused a bit of a firestorm of fear in ME. Cause that WAS me not that long ago.
Anyway, how was I an ass, you ask? Well, after the fourth step (a searching and fearless moral inventory) there is the fifth step (admitted to god, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs). So, I called my sponsor and made arrangemnets to tell her the exact nature of my wrongs. At 8:30 on a sunday morning! That's called *going to any lengths*.
Well, she came in and sat down and we talked for a few minutes and she began to play with her phone and ask this girl across the table from us how to download music to a new app she has. And I waited. Cause, bascially, it took all the humility I had just to ask her to listen. I didn't think I could ask her again, or ask to go somewhere else, or whatever. So I didn't. And things went badly from there. See, I assumed that she didn't want to hear what I had to say for whatever reason and then I got angry. I blew up at a different friend because I did not know how to ask my sponsor to do something different. This friend told me I needed to let her (my sponsor) know what was going on. I did eventually. But she never did listen to *the exact nature of my wrongs*. Which leaves me wondering why. Cause that leaves things undone. I'm not good with that. Now I need to find someone else to tell this stuff to and sheesh, it was hard enough the once. Now I will have to get up the courage to do this again. And figure out who.

Potential

Try this again. I had a trying day. We had another incident at work with a staff person who I think is abusive. she does not see it that way. Not everyone does. I think I can speak to this because I used to be just like her. I was badly mothered and had no idea how to take care of children or be respectful of them. I did some damage in the past. I had a lot of people who helped me get to the other side of that and learn not only how to be kinder to children but to myself as well.
And I was willing at some point to learn how to be different.
I don't think she's there yet.

She is not going to be fired. she is going to be moved to a different school. This reminds me of what the Catholic church does/did. Firing her could be the kindest thing we do for her and for the children. Maybe it will help her to realize what she is doing. But that is unlikely to happen yet.

I am torn. she may be a good teacher someday. But whose kids does she get to practise on?

Potential

I am recovering from bronchitis and a sinus infection. Blargh!

But I consciously chose the cough medicine without the codeine. Yep. Good choice for me.

And while I have been ill I have not been idle in my head. Oh no.

I'm working around accepting that *toxic* is what we call how my family system works. I'm working with that because when I hear that I hear *my family system is evil* and then I judge not just the system but myself and then I feel guilty because my family system is broken. (It's a lovely space inside my head. Especially when i am ill and sleep a lot.)

My family system IS toxic. It IS broken. a lot of really insane stuff has been passed to me and, naturally, I assumed that this is the way the rest of the humans operate too. I am finding that while the rest of the humans may have some sort of broken system of their own, the one I grew up in was quite nasty.

That's actually okay. Cause I'm trying NOT to pass on the nastiness and trying to see it and change it for myself.

I tell people that I was raised by wolves. I would probably function better on a social level if I had been. If my dogs are anything to go by.

Right now, I am trying not to harrass myself about this but to find the quiet space in myself and let the healing work. Cause I think I make it worse for myself by thinking I need to stir things up and really, the universe does not need my help. Just my willingness.

I live in a toxic house. Okay. I have only recently seen how this is so. It still causes me much confusion, fear, and something else. Possibly guilt. Because I particiapted. Okay. But it was the only thing I've known. all the relationships I have had have followed this model because it was the only model I had. I'm still learning what other models look like.
I want to live peacefully. I want to live in sanity. I want to live where love isn't manipulative or come with strings.
I want that to be in this house where my name is on the deed. Is that my dream. Today it is.
I have to be very careful here because I will slip into my fears and stop dreaming of sanity and love.
My dream includes my two dogs. They are very dear to me. I have never been able to see a way out without losing them and I am not prepared to do that. But that is a fear. I can dream of a different life WITH my dogs.
this has no middle and no end. I guess I just had to get that out. I don't want to live in fear but that too takes time.

honesty

*What the angel of death can teach us is how to be truly alive.* ~The Four Agreements

This was not what I was planning to write about, I don't think. But maybe it is in some way. I've had people I love die. One in my arms. Many from addiction. But I never let myself feel anything of it. I don't think I knew how.
The topic at the meeting tonight was *hoesty, open-mindedness, and willingness* (HOW) and so we had a conversation at dinner tonight that sprung from that. About how we don't share our deepest saddneses because we want everyone to think that sobriety is so wonderful and if they can sober and stay that way life will be great. But that is a lie. In an honest program. Life is life. It is messy. It hurts. But one of the gifts of sobriety is the ability to stay with the pain and feel it and move on through it to a different place. And if we share honestly about what it is like for us when things hurt then the newcomer will learn that they too can live through the pain sober.
I can't count how many times people have thanked me for sitting in a meeting sobbing speechlessly. Cause I'm there and I'm sober. Even if I'm in pain. And when i can talk about it I get thanked too. Cause we don't share the pain as we accrue years because we don't want to scare anyone.
I can testify to how scary it is to BE in pain many years sober thinking I'm doing it wrong or worse, there is something wrong with me because I am in pain. I felt so broken and I was afraid to talk about it because it shouldn['t be that way.
Well, it just is what it is and wherever I am is where I am and how I feel is how I feel and that's not broken.
Being in pain and NOT sharing...that's broken.