Blah, blah, blah.

What do ya do when you get the blahs??? I don't feel like doing much. I don't feel like doing much of anything at all. House cleaning?? Pffft!  No. Reading? I'm too blah-ish to read. Nothing is holding my interest or attention. Don't feel like journaling. Don't feel like talking or texting. My meeting is tonight and I am seriously considering not going to that either. Just feeling down and poopy. Not depressed mind you...just sort of ....well...blah. I suppose that means then that I should go to my meeting. See if a good topic is raised that might hold my interest. I haven't been in a couple of weeks due to circumstances beyond my control. So maybe I need to get back into the swing of things, get myself back into the groove. Ugh!! I just don't want to go. Maybe I need to find a new meeting. I like the convenience of the Tuesday night meeting...it is close to home and I am comfortable with all of the people there (with the exception of Dave, who I just cannot get myself to like). I love all of the ladies, and I know all of their stories and maybe that is it. It's always Dave and the same ladies who show up every week. It's always the same people who are speaking. Now mind you, we get the occasional new comer but even they are only there for a little while before they too seem to find another meeting to go to somewhere else. Are we boring on Tuesday nights? Is there a better meeting in another town? Should I force myself out of my comfort zone and go somewhere else too? What to do.......
To be continued.

Maybe

Since I last posted, I have read and re-read what my Blogger friend Annette had said over on her blog. (Since you are the only one reading my blog thus far....I didn't think it would be necessary to add a link ;).
I felt like I had been/have been hovering around the first three steps for about a year now. Someday's I felt stuck; frozen, unable to go on or proceed further, not able to do one more damn thing to better myself or my situation. I stopped pressuring myself and figured that I would just coast for a while. Sort of see where the flow of life took me. I read my Courage to Change every single day. I go to my Tuesday night meetings, I go out for coffee with my women friends from my home group. What I wasn't doing was that Step 4 inventory book called Blueprint for Progress. I had started it, but only filled out the first 6 pages. It was not an easy thing for me to do. Not because I wasn't worthy or didn't deserve to be free of the shit that was hidden in my head. It was because I didn't feel like I could/should/would answer some of those questions. It just seemed...I don't know...hard sort of. Some of the questions just seemed unanswerable. Some of the questions on those first 6 pages were left blank. In the back of my head, I could hear a voice (who's I don't know) telling me that I needed to get back to that and finish up. I felt like that book was haunting me. I felt guilty whenever I looked at it, so I hid it under a pile of papers. I would remember it was there every once in a while and I would feel bad because I hadn't finished what I had started. I felt like my recovery was all tied up in that damn book. I felt like I hadn't gone forward, that I was still hovering on steps one, two and three continually. Until today, when I read the 12 steps to myself, in the quiet of my own living room. We read the 12 steps out loud every Tuesday night followed by the 12 traditions. Somewhere along the way they became for me something like white noise. Blah, blah, blah. I hear them being read out loud every single week but I wasn't hearing them. There wasn't any connection there for me. So you can imagine my surprise when I read them today, really read them and understood them as they pertained to me and realized that I had been, have been doing all of those steps ( and for quite a while now) with the exception of step number 8. I felt relieved! I felt like I could have jumped for joy! I wasn't stuck down there with only 1, 2 and 3 that keep me going around in circles. I was much more advanced in the program than I knew. More advanced than I even gave myself credit for. I remember someone telling me that what works for one, doesn't work for all. Take what you like and leave the rest. I think that maybe I will continue with what I am doing and skip finishing that Blueprint for Progress. Maybe I don't need to finish it. Maybe I'll be just fine with out it. Another lesson learned.

Spotted

The healthier I become, the more I'm beginning to take notice of the mean people around me. Mean, angry people in the grocery store, angry and sullen worshipers at church, rude and nasty drivers on the road. I am also noticing that my sister just so happens to be one of those mean people. She has become very angry and snippy about certain members of our immediate family and is vocally outspoken about her dislike of them.  She spends a lot of time judging these people. What they say or do, how they act, who they date has all of a sudden become her business. I take that back. It isn't all of a sudden. She has always been like that. She has always judged people and found most of them to be beneath her standards. I saw a look of pride wash across her face the other day and it was sooo haughty....Wow! It really caught me off guard. You could (I could) actually see on her face the fact that she thought that she was better than the person that she was complaining about. I know that she is not aware that her face reflects this, and she would be mortified if she knew. She likes to think of herself as a humanitarian, you know the type....They always help out others with donations of money, food and they donate their time to worthy causes and such. She IS one of those people who give freely from what God has blessed them with. But she also judges people relentlessly and sometimes she forgets what it is like to be down and out or down trodden or down on your luck or just plain down. The things that I hear her say she dislikes about someone else usually can be traced back to the very things that I can see are her own character flaws. Like the Alanon slogan says- "If you spot it, You got it".  So, if I "spot it" in her, then do I also have the same inclinations?? Am I mean and angry, snippy and haughty?? Good Lord, I certainly hope not! But it is a good lesson for me to learn. To remember to watch what I think about other people and especially to try to watch so my thoughts don't translate onto my own facial expressions. Or maybe the lesson here is to not have those kinds of thoughts anymore about other people. No judging them or complaining about them. More of a live and let live kinda thing.
I like this quote by Plato- "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle". I'll give that a try.

Angry and Sad

My son is angry and sad because his girlfriend wants to break up with him again. Yes, again. This is the third time she has ended it between them and I told him that the "third time's the charm". I'm trying to keep my opinion of what I think about  her to myself. She has hurt his heart many many times.  I do not believe that she is the girl for him. He on the other hand would like to propose to her. As in propose marriage. My daughters, his sisters, do not like this girl. My husband really doesn't like her either. I tolerate her, mainly because she doesn't seem to be that bad of a person, just a little chilly in the emotions department. Plus, I know that he loves her, so I give her some leeway. So now what do I do? He is hurting. Down in the dumps and feeling blue cuz his girl left him again. AGAIN! Pffft! I know what I want to do. I want to open my mouth and let her have it. I want to yell at him that enough is enough! I want to dive head first into his personal business and "save" him from hurting and crying and having to go thru the pain of another break up with this girl. Thank you God for my Alanon program!  My cute lil codependent self knows better now. I know how to keep my mouth shut, and to keep my nose outta his business. It is hard though. I really, really, really want to save him from the agony of heartbreak. I know that I really badly want to tell him what I think about her and her treatment of him and I want to tell her to go to...... well, let's just say someplace really warm. What I really and truly do know is that I can love him and support him by listening to him, hugging him as he cries and just being there for him in a way that helps him (and not me) feel better. I am angry at her and sad for him. But I am also angry at him for letting this girl break up with him 3 F-ing times, and still wanting to get back together with her. Enough already my boy. Let go. Let go of her and let go of your pain. Let go of your plans and your dreams that you had with this girl. Let yourself cry and rant and rail at the injustice of it all and then give yourself the time to let yourself heal. But Just. Let. Go.
Easier said than done, I know. It's so hard to watch him go thru shit like this. It's hard to see a nearly grown man cry over his broken heart. In a perfect world, I would fix it for him so he wouldn't have to go through this and hurt so much. But this Momma loves her boy. So I will let him learn and live through his own life lessons, even the lessons that are painful.  Here is a quote for my beautiful boy who I love beyond all reason..... "The only way out is through."~Robert Frost
One day he'll realize that the blessings in life come from learning those painful life lessons.

Step one...again

Last night my Tuesday night meeting lasted an hour longer than usual. We had 3 newcomers join us. One of the ladies had been to a Monday night meeting, but the other two were brand new to Alanon. It still amazes me to see how alcohol addiction can affect so many people. I am no longer a newbie to these rooms and I now realize that I can offer hope to some of these fellow travelers. Hope that things will get better in time. The sort of advice that says to them in their hopelessness that  "If I can do it, so can you".
My codependency rendered me mute with my qualifier. I lost my voice, or the ability to use it to defend myself or ask for anything; whatever I thought I wanted or needed. I gave him the ability to silence me. He didn't take that from me...I gave it to him. And I saw that same thing last night with two of the new women. Sometimes the silence can be sooo very loud when you are in that place. And sometimes that silence speaks to you in an ugly whisper...reminding you always of how very small you are. Reminding you to keep silent to keep the peace. Reminding you of the ugliness that is your life. My heart broke for these women just getting started in their journey. I remember my first days in Alanon as being the beginning of the best AND worst days of my life. I remember what it felt like to be so raw and so wounded and so silent. Unable to find the words to ask for help. Unwilling to unclench enough to be able to let go and to get help for myself. It strikes me as funny that after only 15 months in Alanon, I feel like I have years of experience under my belt. I felt like I had something constructive to offer these ladies. Like what I said to them mattered. And you know what?? It does matter. I do matter. Alanon saved me in more ways than one. It gave me my voice back. It gave me my life back. It gave me my Higher Power. It gave me fellow Alanonics who shared my pain and knew what I was going through. I hope I can pass on to these ladies even a smidgeon of the life lessons I have learned from these people. Maybe that is why Alanon and my HP gave me my voice back...so I could help others when their time came to break their silence and to reach out and ask for help. Lovin' my Tuesday nights at Alanon  where Lessons and Blessings abound.