Ridiculous optimism is something I have been accused of many times. And I suppose it really has been excessive; when other people have been throwing their hands in the air and screaming "the sky is falling" I've always been the one saying "all right, don't get your knickers in a twist. It'll be OK". And sometimes the sky really was falling, and I let myself sit in harms way because I didn't want to abandon my belief that everything would work out just fine. Or maybe I just liked being the calm voice of reason. Maybe I thought it made me likeable. It probably did. Who wouldn't want to keep someone around who would take abuse, suffer other people's consequences for them and then say "don't worry about it. Everything is going to be fine, you'll see".

But I still don't see it as a defect. I just lacked the tools to protect myself properly before. In fact as I spend more and more of my time thinking in an "alanon" kind of way, and learn to like and appreciate myself (funny how I was always able to cheerfully see the good in everyone else yet despise myself so deeply before), the more I can appreciate that part of my nature. It's a good trait. It allows me to feel happy and positive when things are uncomfortable or not going exactly as planned, because there's always something good to focus on, something to laugh at and something to look forward to. It works better for me now that I have a sense of self-preservation to go along with it.

So, I look at my life and I have to be honest, it's been pretty consistently painful up until now. I wanted to believe that things would turn out well and love would conquer all but instead I've spent most of my time being hurt and rejected and used because I had absolutely no inkling that there was any other way to be. I hated me and hid behind mean, damaged people so that I wouldn't have to deal with myself (and in that sense I used them right back). But to my way of thinking, I got the painful stuff out of the way early, and now I have a whole new way of being and it's awesome and I get to really enjoy it. Like when i was a kid I would always eat the vegetables first so I could enjoy the yummy part of the dinner, when I was a teenager I would always do my homework on week-nights so I could enjoy the weekend, even now I like to get absolutely every possible household chore done in the afternoon/evening so that I can relax at night and take it easy in the morning. So the super-optimist in me thinks that maybe, I felt all of the misery early in life so that I could get to alanon and learn to enjoy peace and serenity and LIKING myself in my twilight years, lol. 

So anyway, the point is that to my way of thinking, I have been given a gift. Not everyone gets to enjoy these tools or this program and to me, it's pretty special and something to be very grateful for. So maybe I am lucky and I made the choices I did to lead me to this point in my life. I've thought for a while now that maybe the reason I chose a man who is so sick, so damaged and so outrageously mean to me (with basically no benefits whatsoever) because I needed to push myself to breaking point and start getting well.

Now I look at my daughter, and I can never erase or excuse the fact that I have made her live with my awful relationship with this guy. I think back on the fact that I recovered from my failed marriage, rented a place alone and started out a new life with her and then INVITED this guy into our lives and our home and played out all of that misery with him  right in front of her. But then again, I can't erase my relationship with her father either, and that was pretty terrible too. If I over-think this too much I'll think her right out of existence lol. My dad was awful and I like to despise him and think poorly of my mother for having married him but I wouldn't be here if she wasn't who she was and he wasn't who he was...I came into being because my 16 year old mother wanted to escape her abusive father and went out and found a duplicate messed up addict to make a baby with so that she could start a life and family that she could control. (Those are her words, not inventory-taking on my behalf). So, you know. Children don't always come into the world under perfect circumstances or into loving or nurturing homes. I'd like to stop beating myself up over my daughter's life because she's an awesome person and an absolute gift to the world and if I regret all of the choices I made, she wouldn't even exist. Plus beating myself up doesn't make me a better mother. Once again, I'm not looking to excuse myself, just to look for the positives because I think that's a better direction to look in.

So anyway, I like to think that although she's had a lot of negative experiences, as I grow and learn I'm able to teach her amazing tools that other kids don't get to experience. And now that she's willing to go to alateen, maybe in some ways she gets to start out her life with some brilliant survival tools and a capacity for self determination that will equip her for a really amazing life, and maybe  that is a blessing HP has given her. She already has such a great outlook. 

So what lead me to think about this is the fact that I was discussing my alanon learnings with my  friend (who works with abused women) and she is so  full of wisdom, and she told me that when she was a kid, her mother had an alcoholic boyfriend and went to alanon and made her go to the meetings with her. And she said, she was so glad that I wasn't making my child go with me because when she was a kid, she had to go to alanon meetings and they were SO boring and she doesn't see why she had to go, since her mother was the one with the alcoholic boyfriend and there was no reason for her to be there because she hadn't done anything "wrong". Now this lady is the most grounded, self-sufficient and emotionally stable person I know. And she had to go to alanon meetings when she was a kid and she says it was unfair and a negative experience. 

So, I wonder?