It's a slippery slope when I forget to practice my program.

Yet t's easy to do when there is no active A in my face every day. My day to day life is filled with ordinary challenges, mostly reasonable people and if anything the only enemy I have is a boredom and dissatisfaction (perhaps with the lack of drama?). This was so evident when I spent some time with ABF and jumped so willingly and eagerly back into the role of drama-manager. I felt quite invigorated and satisfied when he was the drama and I felt in control! Ugh. And then I felt bored and empty when he left.

But weeks pass, and without any drama to complain about I drift away from program and become anxious, irritable and stressed, and then tired and depressed for no reason. Until a morning like today arrives when I feel I am really at the end of my rope and remember to go back to the program and dive in head-first to find relief.

I wonder if I will ever learn to just practice it daily and let it be a comfortable tool that I carry with me, or if I will forget and find it again over and over. Like some twisted al-anon version of 50 first dates where I get to discover and fall in love with my program every day for the rest of my life.

I suppose after a lifetime of thriving on drama and stress, and always getting my business done 'behind the scenes" while other people take center stage, it's bound to feel odd and...well, boring. Boredom is really strangling me at the moment although I have plenty to do.

We DID have a mini drama to take the edge off....I managed to get riled up about that for a day or so...daughter wanted to go to a concert with a friend, and I told her a) I could not afford the tickets and b) no way on this green earth she could go without an adult by her side. She learned that her friend's father was taking her so she then moved on to the next stage of the problem solving exercise and called and asked her father to pay for the ticket as an early Christmas present. He then called me immediately (our very first phone conversation since I told him I would record our conversations from now on) to have an argument about the fact that the concert was on "his" weekend and so I would have to make the time up to him. I pointed out that the concert takes place right near where he lives and so he could easily take her to it and collect her on "HIS weekend" and he responded with 'why should I have to do that when she won't even BE here for the whole time" and you can guess the rest. "That's what parenting is", "you don't understand anything, you recalcitrant sack of spoiled goat cheese", "why should I when you haven't listened to a word I have said since the beginning of time", "Go fornicate with a rattlesnake " and so on. 

Anyway this other girl's father is also a part-time single dad (I don't mean that to be derogatory as I've never met him, just that he doesn't live with my daughter's friend and only has her for fortnightly visits). And the girls father called MY girl's father and apparently they talked for HOURS and got along like a house on fire. And then faceache called me again to announce that he had decided he WOULD take daughter to the concert after all and not only that, he had bought both he and her a ticket and he would be going too, and how did I like THAT?

I responded that I thought it was a bloody fabulous idea. With genuine delighted surprise I told him, "Faceache, I think that's a fantastic solution. Good on you, the girls will have a great time". 

And then I told daughter, with real enthusiasm, that I think it's absolutely awesome if her dad has made friends with her friend's dad who happens to live near him, because maybe now if she visits they might organise some get-togethers or something? Wicked! What a win! And then I told my mother and she pointed out that all the two men will probably do is speak evil about their ex-wives to one another, as if that is something I should worry about and try to put a stop to. Andf once upon a time this would ave really angered me, and I would have been projecting all over the place about what "well I suppose he will say" and so on.

And I thought gleefully....but what other people think of me is none of my business! So it's a win and I can just enjoy it!

So what a great result. Daughter is finally getting something for Christmas from her father that is actually for her. He's going to devote a Saturday night to doing something only with her. And he's made friends apparently with daughter's friends father who, daughter's-friend-told-daughter-and-then-daughter-told-me..."is totally in love with your dad, he thinks he's the funniest guy he has ever met". lol. So maybe this guy will inspire ex AH to do more things with his daughter and perhaps there might even be future group outings. I like that possibility very much. In any event it was a very unexpected and pleasing turn of events. Well done, Faceache.

Now, back to little old me and my calm and anxious for no reason life.

Does everyone go through this?

Does it get better?

Does boredom and listless agitation eventually give way to genuine serenity?

Is there a particular step that helps with this hurdle?

Thoughts are welcome.

And (((everyone))) and thanks for reading