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.
It's been a while since I have been here and the thing that has been jumping out at me lately is the fact that everything changes. When I first came here I was in despair because I had just walked out with three children and left my AH. Now, almost four years later it seems like something so small and insignificant in the story of my life. Then I fell in love with a "manchild" as some had put it... and he broke my heart. I thought I would never recover. Here, 8 months later I can see the whole picture, the good, the bad and the ugly. Now, I am getting to the point where I am happy being single. I am still working and going to school. I am making new friends left and right and life seems so much better. I am focusing on me, becoming healthier, doing what I want to do with my time, trying to use my time more wisely and be a better mother.
Teenage daughter has still not gotten married, although it's not totally out of the picture. We have been getting along better lately. I'm really working on being pushy, impatient and needy and trying to give time time which is something I have never mastered. Just letting go and seeing how things turn out instead of having to know what everyone is thinking and doing all the time and trying to direct it the way I want it to go. It's so hard to let go, so hard to be cool and sit back and wait to see what happens. My life is feeling much happier lately though so I think I'll keep working at it. I have been spending a lot of time at the beach, I lost 50 lbs in the last 8 months, I talked to my son's teacher about volunteering in the classroom on my day off for an hour or two, I spend my time socializing with people from school and other friends and doing things I love like singing karaoke and dancing.
Funny thing is... the more I have this attitude, the more people seem to be attracted to spending time with me and so I never run out of things to do or people to hang out with. My life feels very full right now and as much as I'd love to find love, I think I'm doing great with spending time with my friends who I LOVE to be around! I think I can almost say that I'm at the point where I'm done really looking and just enjoying the people around me. A buddhist friend of mine said that it is the striving that causes a problem in our lives. She said stop striving to make something happen and just go with the flow. She also believes that everyone crosses our path for a reason. I agree, I think we have something to learn from every person put in our path. Sometimes they are tough lessons, but the faster we learn them the faster we move on to the next great thing in our lives. I find myself stepping back more now, when my mind starts racing about the wedding after the first date I think do I really WANT this person? Why do I want them? What do they offer? Is it THEM I want or just to be with someone - anyone? Sometimes I spend time with people I don't really enjoy to avoid being alone. That has pretty much stopped. I am really feeling very happy lately, despite any chaos going on around me :)
One of the things that comes to mind for me reading this is that I had to learn over and over again to engage in a very limited fashion if at all with an alcoholic (who isn't trying to recover that is). I really never saw that one of the reasons they were in my path was because I was permitting them to be there.
I will probably always have alcoholics and addicts around as they are everywhere but I have a lot of control over how much I let them affect me.
