My meeting this morning was on the 2nd step and reacting. Someone brought up the fact that they react to their kids as they were reacted to in their family. With anger and frustration. Boy oh boy could I relate!!! I have been such a b**** to my kids. And my kids are exceptionally good kids. Probably because they don't want to get me mad! The thing is, I saw this in myself and I didn't like it. I talked about it with councliors and in meetings and nothing changed. I didn't get it. When I finally left my ex, I became a much better mother. I would rather my kids have a normal, functional family, but the reality is never going to be that. So, the best I can do is be the best mother I can be and that became so much easier once I was done with the abuse from my ex. I would take out my anger for him on the kids because that is all I knew as a child. My mother took out all of her anger and frustration on me. She is a workaholic and her relationships were bad and whatever, it was always all my fault. That is hard to take when you are only 9 years old. I had no respect for my mother. She didn't ask for, command, demand it. My kids would never speak to me that way I spoke to my mother. I would never allow it and I don't think they would think of it. One of my daughter's best friend's is more like me when I was a kid. And my daughter changes when she is with her. Well, she trys to change but I don't put up with the attitude. It is simply uncalled for. I treat them with respect, and I expect that they treat me and the other kids with respect. Daughter's best friend is being raised in an active alcoholic home. Lots of love but very obvious dysfunction.

 On step 2, I am still having problems with the "came to believe" part. I still take it back. I forget to turn it over. I struggle with things, I hold my anger and resentment and I truly forget to give it up to HP. I am a very good delegator. I can tell the kids what to do all day long. I actually get up in the morning and think of what I have to do and what the kids can help with. Now, why can't I do that with my HP? It doesn't seem as clear. I know telling my HP what to do hasn't worked yet. Even asking HP specifically (please make ex be busted, I NEED the check in the mail, do NOT let Gracie die) has not worked either. But my faith is still returning and I am having faith in the moment (when I remember to) and in hindsight I am seeing I was taken care of (even if not in a way I recognised at the time). I believe in HP I just forget that HP will take care of me if I let him, if I believe.

 There is a couple in my meeting whom I just love. I really respect their journey and their spirit. Each one of them directed what they said to me. The wife touched my heart as she always does. She related on the feeling of fear within meaning that she has not really let go. She might think she did but if she is really connected to her HP then she would not feel the shakey, jittery fear within. And the husband always speaks to my stinkin thinkin. He said that finding himself in the victim mode was where he had to be, he had to recoginze it and accept that he was a victim. Then he moved on to the survivor mode and he took strength that he was now a survivor. And now he is neither and it has just become a part of his story. He went thru what he went thru to get where he is and he is grateful for having gone thru it. It was what he had to do to become human.

 That hit home. I remember comming into this program and learning that I was indeed human just like the rest of you. It seriously was a shock to me. For many reasons and on many levels. It was a real blessing today to hear what comes after suvivor mode. That is all equals being a part of the human race. I belong. I am just like you and you are just like me. We have feelings and thought and we love and get hurt and grieve. We are more alike than we are different and that is a blessing to me. Lonley does not begin to cover what I have felt. And within my lonliness I have done some really stupid hurtful things. I am no longer lonley (for today). I am alone, and maybe a bit too comfortable and content with that fact. But I am not lonley.