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.
hey... so last night my daughter and I were watching the American Idol final and when the winner was announced she cried because her guy didn't win. She just didn't understand that the world wasn't going to end....Made me remember that when I was that age how things like that were bigger than life to me too. Just thought I'd share.
How sweet. I wish to go back to those days. It's funny, but it seems like nothing to us but to them it really is the end of the world! Those "little" things are just as real and big to them as our real big stuff is to us.
Great way to realize how devastating it is to be a child living with an active A or several active A's or A's not in recovery.
I remember I'd turn little things into the end of the world as a child, too - so I can imagine how some of the subtle things my parents may have done or said when I was a child impacted me so heavily as to have me drag it along with me into my adulthood.
hey... so last night my daughter and I were watching the American Idol final and when the winner was announced she cried because her guy didn't win. She just didn't understand that the world wasn't going to end....Made me remember that when I was that age how things like that were bigger than life to me too. Just thought I'd share.
When I was a young teenager, I was a rabid baseball fan. I saw my team get close to a championship several times. I was devastated when they didn't win. I remember as one season came to an end, I scraped my coins together and bought a baseball cap to wear to bed and keep for the winter... and wait until next year. I remember literally praying - that just for once in my life, I wanted to know what it was like for my team to win. I remember making sort of a bargain with God. Just once, I won't ask any more. I got my wish eventually. And then again. And once more.
I did the same thing in my early 20s. I was a nerdy virgin and I prayed that same prayer: just once God, I want to know what it's like to be really loved for who I am. God answered that prayer too, and I had a 10 year relationship. When it ended, I felt I had used up my chance. I got what I wanted, and I lost it and I felt it was my fault. I felt it wasn't my place to ask again, and I felt ashamed whenever I was compelled to ask again.
I remember telling this to my therapist. She posed the following question: what if my granddaughter asked me please, please may I have an ice cream cone. If you buy me an ice cream cone I'll never ever ask for anything again. She asked me if I'd hold my granddaughter to that promise. Well... of course not!
Over those intervening years, I came to know love in so many more ways. The love of friends, my stepkids, grandchildren. And then - a little more than a year ago, he put a wonderful woman in my life. You know, it was only a couple weeks ago that it sunk into my thick skull. My first wife was NOT the answer to my prayer!
God gives us second chances, third chances, fourth chances. But - perhaps it's not as it seems. What we may think are goals reached are just steps along the way. He wants us to keep moving. Standing still is not an option. I wanted to know love, and I didn't even know what I was asking for. It's just so much more than I could have imagined.
