The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I have been in north Idaho long enough for this little slogan to not make me want to throw up anymore :D.
When I lived in San Diego, it would have been the Nike slogan: Just Do It!
It's been four months yesterday since my exA has been off the farm and out of my immediate life. The first month was just blessed relief mixed with vigilance. The second month, clarity began to return, and I saw I had been in a verbally and physically abusive relationship with a methamphetamine addict for seven years. At first it was SO validating and reinforcing to admit to myself and supportive others that I was right on, I wasn't crazy myself or imagining things about my relationship with him.
Then the last two months have really been hellish. We really do walk through these things alone -- with support and loving concern from others, of course -- but there is no denying that this path through is a solitary one.
Something else is cooking here. I am "getting there". At a place of acceptance of myself, and what happened. Of the way things are.
How I know this is that I am getting bored and restless with the continuous introspection into "what happened". I am picking at my daily routine, which unfortunately is STIFLINGLY unchanging, like a deep groove I keep falling into for lack of strength to stay out. I find myself trying to unravel it, "take a risk, Kim! You'll live if you do something different . . ."
Perhaps the cocoon is just getting a little too tight.
I am no longer being battered by the disease or it's source . The arguments in my head with him are getting faint, hard to hear. Instead of staying "low" and riding out the storm, I'm wanting to see some blue sky and feel the air on my face. Staying down here with all the broken pieces of my life is no longer "enough", and that is as it should be.
I used to journal daily, since I was a kid. I must have dozens of notebooks in boxes in the loft. But in the last two years, when the A's disease and abuses were at their worst, I stopped being able to face myself. I'm starting to journal again, but I feel shy with myself! Like, who are you, anyway? What have you become, and where are you going?
The exA is trying to set up a meeting with our lawyers to work out a "reconciliation". I know this from mutual friends of ours, but do not know any more details than that, they are good people but a bit on the flaky side. I have an RO with the ex and thus never speak to or see him. There is no correspondence whatsoever, like from him or his lawyer, so it's all just a kind of phantasm bugging me.
And since it's all so recent and emotional, I am again refocussing on "it".
But what is different this time is . . . I don't care! No, I do care, but not about his wants and needs. I don't even feel "pulled" internally by his demands to come back home. Not that I have wavered in my decision to end the relationship. But I feel pulled by my own living wish to make my statement to him, make myself KNOWN to him. At this point, he isn't even HERE so I know that it is NOT "him" I wish to speak my piece to, but myself.
To myself, who colluded with his disease, however innocently.
No. No. It is over, it is done. I'm sorry that it all happened. And I look forward to the day I look back and am grateful for the teaching.
Since this new "self" of mine is fragile and precious, I am going to ignore any attempts by the exA to get together, even with lawyers present.
I sent away our mutual friends with this: "I am not interested in discussing reconciliation. I will talk to you next July (when the RO expires). And I will not accept or respond to any further messages from you until then."
So I'm looking toward winter, which is a thing of it's own up here. Chopping and splitting wood myself . . . he he. I am a city girl, and used to turning a thermostat dial for heat. I am not strong enough to actually split the wood with an ax, I must use one of those metal thingies (my generic term for whatever object I'm not used to using) to pound in and split the sucker for me. It is quite a job. It is slowwww . . . it is not just brute strength but technique, too, and I am teaching myself that by trial and error. It's working!
Is there anything in the world like a fire in the woodstove, the tinkling and crackling sounds and the warm waves emanating??
All by my own efforts. My tools and weapons used to be a pen, my education in nursing and psychiatry, my intellect. Applying new tools, and old ones in a different way, are where my focus is now.
I don't know anymore if this is where I want to be or what I want to be doing. Normally this would terrify me. Today, it's OK.
It's just time to move on, you know? I don't know where . . . just let the current carry me forward, wherever that is. Let go of clinging to what WAS. It is now more painful to cling than it is to let go. I was praying for this.
I like the metaphor ao the cocoon getting too tight. It really fits how I have been feeling over the last few months. I think it is totally a part of our recovery process for situations that were ok, to become no longer bearable as we learn and grow. I know there are things I have noticed lately that bother the heck out of me, that I never used to notice at all, much less be uncomfortable with. It sometimes feels like someone turned on the light, so now I can see the stuff I've been tripping over all this time.
Glad to hear you are enjoying the wood splitting adventure. It's great therapy, esp when your angry or like me sometimes really needing a good exercize workout. (We should get Diva over she'd be a wood splitting tornado right now.LOL) I have a little bit of wood in and a new (to me) stove. So I'm feeling a little better about that even if it's only about a month worth of wood. I'm not cold so that always helps my outlook on life.lol
Anyway good to hear from you. Hope you have a great day!
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~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
Y'all are amazing. I lived out in the country (well as country as I can go) for 5 years before moving back in town into my own home. I hated like heck having to haul the wood in for my wood stove. My house was so big w/an addition on it that stayed freezing that I had to have a fire rolling all winter just to keep from blowing up my heat pumps. I eventually began to loath the sound of a crackling fire and the smell of smoke and ash. I hated having to haul in loads of wood every day just to keep us warm. And all of this was in the prime of my AH's addictions and binges. So it was chores mainly left to me.'
Now I look forward to getting propane tank filled so I can flip the switch to my gas logs for instant heat. What an amazing invention. Of course I have to come up w/the money to get that tank filled before flipping that switch. LOL.
Kim - You sound so strong now. I wish I could get where you are. Instead I am dabbling w/an on again off again relationship w/my AH. Right now we are on but I don't know for how long. I am not even really sure if it is what I want or if I am just too tired to continue fighting my AH on the break up. It is exhausting either way. Thanks for your share. You are amazing. Sincerely, QOD
I hope I get where you are someday. I feel like I have the chance of starting anew. This week is one of the first I've felt where I have a chance to get up and out from under the A's mess. They do leave a huge mess don't they. I like the idea of a journal too.
I feel too new at this being alone stuff to comment. I do know its less stressful and my stress was terrible. Now I have the A gone (and I've been separated for 6 months) in theory I want to clean up the rest of my life.
Wow! Thanks for sharing those thoughts. I need those to keep me going.
I am awaiting the day where I not only want to truly be free but to accept the emotions, thought processes and actions that I will need to to get me there.
I was just talking with someone this morning about the slow process of awakening we must go through to get to the point where we can do what we need to do for ourselves.
I wish I could just walk away right now, but I can't. I want to feel "done".
I also realize that my ah may eventually get sober and want our marriage but I may not have it in me to trust, forgive and move on.
Anyway, you are sounding sure and strong. Do you ever imagine the metal thingie is something other than a tool to split wood? Seems like a great way to get out some aggression!
Thanks for the words of wisdom and sharing your journey. It puts some sunshine in the dark days, that is for sure!
Blessings, Lou
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Every new day begins with new possibilities. It's up to us to fill it with the things that move us toward progress and peace. ~ Ronald Reagan~
Sometimes what you want to do has to fail, so you won't ~Marguerite Bro~
It's posts like these that used to help guide me thru the process of getting where I needed to be. It's so hard sometimes in the chaos to sort it all out for ourselves. You (maybe without being aware) outlined a process of recovery someone.
Namaste' Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
I very much like your description of yourself as being fragile. I feel fragile. For the first time in months I am not heading into a weekend feeling aboslutley totally trashed. I was feeling exhausted for months. I know much of it is what the A dragged me through. I went along there because I felt responsible. I was responsible for our dogs but that's about it. He trashed the truck, cars, our life together. I did not.
I need your reminder that I am fragile so I don't trhow myself to the wolves and beat myself up for not being futher along. It is a process and for me maybe it will be a long one. It took me two long years to get out of his way.
You sound so good! I love the images you painted of your life in the country, splitting the wood....doing the work to move forward outwardly and inwardly. Getting to acceptance...wanting more....relaxing finally after a hard days work and just floating down the stream at its pace, where ever it takes you.
Beautifully written and expressed.
I agree with Ms Christie....you have written so eloquently the feelings of going through recovery.
Oh, and don't forget . . . I am still broke, need more wood, feed and hay, have four puppies left to rehome and winter is coming. I hope there is enough gas in my car to get to the gas station too.
But I still somehow feel alright. Not "high", still concerned, still aware things aren't so stable and won't be for a while.
Tomorrow I may be examining my navel and angry and hurt and . . . but this feeling of "alrightness" is real, and realistic. I can remember it when I "don't" feel it.
I've been in a lot of pain that I could do NOTHING about. All I could do is go through it. There have been days and weeks that are just grey with the pain. But I'm still here. It didn't kill me or make me crazy. In fact, it did the opposite. Just like the program promises, eh?
I've read through the responses several times. I feel so validated, so much more myself thanks to all of you. I'm glad I could communicate and be received for exactly what I mean from people I love and respect :)
. The arguments in my head with him are getting faint, hard to hear. Instead of staying "low" and riding out the storm, I'm wanting to see some blue sky and feel the air on my face. Staying down here with all the broken pieces of my life is no longer "enough", and that is as it should be.