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This weekend was the trip back to Illinois and really had a nice time .. it was good to see old friends and watch the kids have fun. I did not see my daughter much as she was out and about with her BFF. I love those kids without question and I feel so badly that they don't have the same relationships here currently .. they will it takes time and these are life long friends so I am grateful for that big time. It was good. it's also the first time I have gotten to visit without having court attached to the visit. It was a nice change. Boy can I see how much life has changed me and how much I have made the decision to change without fighting it .. seeing that old town was sad to me .. there is so much shut down business and I just don't see how they will recover. I kind of figure in another 20 years the whole town will be mostly a ghost town which will be sad. I do see 2 of the 3 major employers leaving during that time .. they are the walmart's of the corporate world .. raid towns of their resources and then walk away with money in their pockets and no regard for the devastation they have left behind. Sounds a little like addiction on some levels.
I got goto an alanon meeting as well as my old open AA meeting and had a nice time. The subject was sponsorship which was ironic and I cried when I thought I was all cried out .. I didn't realize it had been a year since I saw my sponsor last it popped up in Facebook .. sigh .. that kind of sucked and was happy at the same time. I am soooo grateful that my XAH was such an idiot the last year because that meant that I got to see her one last time before she passed away. It is still hard though so I understand my kids feelings of leaving loved ones and knowing that it will be another year before we head back. It might be sooner if my X pulls anything major sooo hmm. Found out that Larcine is coming into town for what I always called the Spring Fling .. so I plan on going back to that and it will be nice to just be a part of the group vs having to put anything together .. LOL!!
Anyway, the drive really was amazing it was about 13 hours the way out and 15 hours the way back .. we left at early AM it was dark .. LOL .. so I had a good laugh about that .. kids slept a good portion of the way and we really did just kind of take our time coming back. Somehow we missed all major traffic and no bad weather so all good.
Glad to be home and in routine and grateful for my friends and people I choose to call family.
Hugs S :)
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Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do "faith". - Brene Brown
"Whatever truth you own doesn't own you" - Gary John Bishop
Serenity, sounds like you had a great trip. I moved away from my hometown years ago. The opposite is happening there where it is very overdeveloped. The farms are gone, it makes me sad but I love where I live now. Glad you and your kids enjoyed yourselves!
Glad you all had a lovely road trip up and back!! I hope you waived as you went through KS!! I have not moved far from my starting point - only about an hour. So - don't have much experience with returning to a place that's had tons of change. In fact, when I went to my 35 year reunion, I was really surprised how little had changed. I can feel your sadness for what was - that does sound hard!
I'm glad you got to go to meetings, see some friends and be 'free' from the legal/court process. It sounds like the kids had fun too! I'm glad you made it home safe and sound and that the routine has started back up. I'm so easily rattled as I age when my routine is disrupted, I'm still regrouping from my parents visit - they left Saturday!
Kudos to you for doing the trip and for having fun...glad you're home! (((Hugs)))
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Glad you all had a great time, and it was a safe trip. I loved your share about your sponsor... she sounds like she was very special to you (more than "just" a sponsor).
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"The wolf that thrives, is the one you feed." - Cherokee legend
"Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields... Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness." Mary Oliver
Such a reflective post. I get that feeling, one of my old home towns was hit by a quake a year after I left. I remember having the urge to leave shortly before I did, I still felt sad though to see boarded up houses in the ghost street where we lived.
Glad you got to relax and really love the described car trip. You and they and the open road. Love.
You know LOL .. I went through 3 states 2x the weekend before to drop the kids off with one of my BFF's and did not hit Kansas .. LOL. Although I keep saying we are going to take a different route that one goes through Arkansas/MO and then IL I believe. Do you know I can get from here to TN in 8 hours? I do not understand why it takes FOREVER to get through to IL??? This last weekend I did 4 states 2x and at least I had a bit of a break .. LOL. If I have a day between I can go for a LONG time I could probably drive the distance to CA if push came to shove although I would be REALLY tired!! It's 19 hours straight through. I need to look at how to get through KS and see about stopping for a bit. OK is easy to do. I have been thinking of a day trip to visit some online folks off FB for a bit.
My sponsor was my friend, the mother I deserved and so much more .. she was my cheer leader when I couldn't get out of bed after my XAH left and who encouraged me to keep going one day at a time. She believed in me when I moved and knew how scared I was and said honey .. do it anyway because you deserve so much more. She understood I wasn't running away, I was running towards. We talked a lot of program however she spoke to me with my language and shared ESH program wise vs always being program. I just really encourage people to get a sponsor because it makes a huge difference in healing and it's no different than any relationship you get out of it what you put in it and sometimes it's a fit and sometimes it's not .. it's an opportunity to experience unconditional acceptance which I think is way better than unconditional love because that goes with the acceptance. Not to be criticized, to be accepted completely and not have to hide some part because inside there is that feeling of shame .. she's the first person who connected with me like that and this is probably the biggest loss I have felt since I lost my grandfather when I was 15. I have had losses .. I did not feel them. Because of her I learned to accept myself as I am even when I feel less than .. I know it's ok because someone told me there was nothing wrong with me because my HP made me the way I am. Yes, I have surfaces that can be smoothed up however I am not empty and I never was, I believed a lie that I told myself and perceptions of situations that were not about me .. that's what her relationship gave me through the program. Alanon taught me to be responsible for me. She taught me how to love me. I don't know if any of that makes sense.
I do not know what is up with me lately .. LOL .. I seriously have been crying at a drop of a hat recently and that is completely not me .. I think my tear ducts have softened up a bit so there for the tears are escaping on their own! Just thinking about her and the piece of my heart she took with her is overwhelming at times. This whole more than one emotion gets on me. Lord help me if this is what hormones do .. YIKES .. LOL!!
As far as the town goes they have this idea of if they build it someone will buy it .. so it's very weird to see all of these new buildings in some areas and both new and old are empty because no one is coming and no one has bothered to tell the construction crews .. it's a little mind blowing to watch. They are loosing farm land that I don't know is fit to farm anymore .. one of the companies there is shooting CO2 into the soil so during the winter those areas you can tell because no snow will stay there .. what we do to ourselves I swear it is mind blowing and unless you have had the pleasure of the smell it's like rotten eggs/sulfur in the air .. ugh .. I'm not sorry to be gone .. I am sorry that this lovely history filled town is dying the death it is. I have a couple of friends as well as my XAH who could be affected by the layoffs at the major employer of the area which is scary because that's my income with the kid/s as well. LONG story there .. LOL. Maybe nothing will come of it however I know my friends will be affected because less people more work. There's a lot of things going on and we are talking about a town with 80k people in it give or take a few .. these are the new towns that are disappearing and no one is talking about .. it's crazy to me. That whole common sense isn't so common any more.
Anyway, now that I'm a mushy ball of goo sitting at my desk. I should probably get to work!!! Thankfully I am alone in my office today and will plug in tune out and work my butt off to whatever happens to be on Spotify. I don't have to interact if I don't want to. It's good to work in accounting .. LOL. Numbers don't talk back.
It is good to be back to my big ol' country town. I missed it a great deal for many reasons. Kids are already back in the swing of things .. so it's all good. :)
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Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do "faith". - Brene Brown
"Whatever truth you own doesn't own you" - Gary John Bishop
Oh girl - so many people consider KS flat, boring and farmland only!!! Your kids would love a trip here - we have Worlds of Fun, Oceans of Fun, the Country Club Plaza and other cool shopping areas as well as museums, historical areas, all professional sports - baseball, soccer, football - and we do NOT have the typical big city traffic congestion.
There is truly tons to do here and I just ASSumed going from TX to IL would have you go thru KS....perhaps so 'as the bird flies'...Let me know if you all dare to venture this way - it would be fun!
As far as tears flowing, our meeting yesterday was about honesty....we were talking about FOO and for many of us, we were taught to suppress emotions and emotional outbursts. We collectively agreed that tears are GREAT and CLEANSING! I pass that to you so you view it as healing vs. wrong - you're doing awesome sweetie!
Have a great day - recovery looks great on you and I am sure your sponsor is so very proud of who you are!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Thank you for your share, Serenity, it made sense to me, and the way you talk about relationship with your sponsor really touched me... Your progress and her help in it is evident... I'm happy for you :)
