Reasoning Again

Reason, season, life time….. I think it’s time to write about this topic again. Some of my friends are disappearing as I grow and change.. I’m not sure it’s because I have changed and am slowly moving away from unhealthy people. Or if it’s that I am happier and many people feel the way I did. They are hating happy people because they are so sick and tired of the shit that their lives have become. Course it’s non of my business what they are thinking. And I shouldn’t let their cold indifferent behavior bug me, but I do for a second or two, write about here and give it to god. I know it is nothing I did. Just being me and focusing on being healthy. Why ,I wonder, does it bug people to see that. Why has their behavior changed toward me. Could be reason, season, life time? Maybe their job is done and we are moving on. Maybe I met them, we learned from each other, and now it’s time to go forward. I never know what my Higher Power has planned for me. Maybe better closer healthier friends are coming my way? I need to give unloving moody people to god and let them go Ego to me is edging God out and that is what I’m doing when I let people bother me.

Family Matters

I decided I need to write about my sister. Ever since she was arrested I have been feeling restless, insecure, and not one of God’s children. I actually said to someone I feel like I am nothing special. I imagine that my sister ’s arrest is making me feel this way. I’m trying to figure out why. I have great love for my sister. When I was younger she was my role model. My god. She could do no wrong. I think searching for my approval started with her. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t like me. Why she would hurt me and hit me. I kept thinking that it’s something I must have done. Some ugly part in my personality that needed to go away. I just didn’t know what part. I also remember that she used to say hurtful things as well. Like “Your brown eyes mean you are full of shit.” Everyone else in the family has blue eyes. Also “You’re such a nark.” I tried to take up for her and the repercussion were extreme usually from my dad. I tried to get her approval by doing what she did. I stole cigarettes for her and I got caught. I stole earrings and she black mailed me for months to do her chores. I eventually told my dad what I did. I figured his punishment was less then what I had already experienced. I still don’t understand why I wanted her approval, when everything I associated with her was painful. I think because she was my older sister. And now she in jail and I am resisting the urge to call my brother in law to find out what she is doing. I know I can’t help her and that it’s just going to make me crazy with worry. So I sit here and pray. And I keep going to meetings. And I will talk to my sponsor about it tonight. And I hope my sister is ok and learning more about herself with this experience.

Good Memories

Many times I write about the horrible childhood I had. But there were happy memories too. One was when we moved to Cincinnati. I had no friends and we were living in a very low income area. An area with families just trying to survive. At that time I wasn’t aware if there were drugs around me or not. I was seven and a latch key kid. I was home alone a lot. We lived in an apartment complex and as a white girl I was a minority. Again, I really wasn’t aware of that. I made friends with a sweet little black girl. I don’t even remember her name, what I do remember is her family. .She brought me home, and she had a huge family. I spent the summer with them What attracted me to them was the love and unity. The older girls taking care of the younger ones. The teasing, the corn row braiding in a line from oldest to youngest. They found things to do that were fun and cost no money. I learned to do all the seventies disco moves from them. They created a love for dancing in me. I also learned about prejudice from them. They would call each other the “N” word. I used it once and they told me I wasn’t allowed. I asked why? And they told me about prejudice. And how some white people treated them. I was ashamed for my race and I cried that this loving sweet family was treated with hate. They told me I could use it. Even at that age I realized the enormity of telling me it was ok to use that word. How forgiving that was too me, and that I was accepted. But I told then I would never use that word and I haven’t. I miss that family. I still dream about them and their kitchen table. I think I understood what family was supposed to be from them. I realized that I didn’t have a “normal” family but at least for a little while I was part of one.

Life on Life’s Terms

I think living “Life on Life’s terms” is accepting whatever life throws at me and dealing with it the best I can. Using the tools I have learned from my 12 step program. Life has not been kind to me lately. Falling out of love with my active qualifier, Dad getting cancer and is terminal and now my sister has been arrested for drug possession of Crystal Meth. I suppose I could just give up and put the covers over my head. Yell and scream at God. But that would just make me feel worse. I knew this was coming with my sister. She has always been the black sheep in the family. She was very abusive to me when I was young. and an out of control teenager. She has been doing some type of drug since she was a teenager, and has been addicted to crank for 25 years. I know that there is/was nothing I can do. Since she has been arrested it has been hard on my mom. She is having to deny her when she asks her to bail her out. She knows my sister will run and she will owe 10,000 bail. My sister has a disease and she will do anything to continue using . She has lied to my mom and I so many times. Why would we believe her now, when she says she won’t run? I knew that something like this was going to happen. She was either going to get arrested or die. I was hoping maybe she would get arrested because there is hope there she might get clean and healthy, before this drug kills her. My heart hurts for her children. They are in custody. That is really what is the hardest. My niece and nephew have been taken by the state. I have to accept that I can not do anything. I don’t have the money to go get them because I went to see my dad. That in itself must be for a reason. I’m glad I already went and saw my dad. I would hate to have to choose between the two. So I am accepting life on lives terms and I am praying. I know this is for a reason. I do hope she will get clean but if not there is nothing I can do about it. I accept that.

Your Not God?

A friend suggested I write on the topic of “False Dependence“. An emotional dependence upon other people and making them responsible for my progress instead of God. Wow, have I done this. For a split second I thought, wow, I must be pretty easy to read. And then I thought if I am, who cares, it’s true! I have depended on others all my life to tell me who I am. Too save me from myself. To make me well. When I first started the program I searched for the 12 step God in a person. Of course I didn’t find him or her. Why can’t anyone live up to my expectations? They all come crashing down from the pedestal I put them on. Of course when you put people on a pedestal the only place they can go is down. Unfortunately or fortunately, they always fall short of my expectations. Wonder why? What they aren’t God?

Bill W. states in his letter to a fellow AA member; "My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came so did my depression.”

Bill W. also came to believe that a power greater than his “God” could restore him to sanity and not people in his life. I realize that this false dependence on others is because I don’t trust myself. And my spiritual foundation was not a very strong one. I have always prayed and felt a connection to a Higher Power, but trusting that power and surrendering to him/her has been hard. There is a fear of the unknown. What if I don’t like what God has planned? And facing that lack of control and surrendering was and is really hard. I remind myself that the control I had over my life was false. I have no control. So I surrender daily to God. I have to be diligent. I take back control all the time and have to surrender it again. I catch a thought, maybe this person has all the answer. Again, I have to stop, pray, and give that job to God. There is a constant daily battle between my control, false dependence and then surrendering to God. But I will continue to redo step 3 because I am getting better at surrendering. I feel myself getting healthier and more spiritually fit. And that is because I’m relying on God, not people to be responsible for my progress.

Let Me Live

Live and let live seems to be my Higher Power theme for me this week. I pulled it as a topic, Thursday, and shared my feelings about it. How I need to stay out of people business. But that damn topic keeps coming up again. I am surprised in the way HP is showing me his/hers intention. I would think it would be about me getting into others business and trying to “help” them fix whatever is wrong. But instead it others getting into my business and telling me how to fix my life and how to act. And saying they are trying to help me. I don’t understand how some take my inventory and when I call them on they are unable to see that what they did was not ok. I understand that the underlying motivation is concern and caring about me at the same time I need to make my mistakes on my own. I need to decide what’s “best” for me. And if that means my action are probably going to cause me pain then that’s my path. My character flaws are mine to work out no one else’s business. Especially, if what I am doing is hurting no one. I am grateful now for people taking my inventory because it has made me stronger in my recovery. I now have the ability to see that what I do is my business and if you want to judge me thats your choice. Just keep it to yourself. I have my own program I’m doing and it’s no ones business but mine how I chose to work it. So I say fuck off busy bodies. Deal with your own problems and let me deal with mine.