An Invincible Summer - A Woman's Journey

We are eating lunch in a health food restaurant. We are planning out the rest of our day, enjoying the cool weather and the gorgeous rain. He's sitting across from me with his Oregon weather clothing. My previously natty husband now prefers Carhartt shirts (layered for warmth), thick denim pants and boots. Not the fancy expensive boots of his past though. Portland boots. The ones that keep your tootsies dry. We talked of love and friendship, weather, guests, family and holidays. As we sat in the intimate little corner, next to two giant windows, a preschool class walked by. Three and 4 year olds in their rain gear, boots and knit hats all holding on to the rope that began and ended with a teacher. Boy Scout says to me with a big smile, "Look at them".  I look over and noticed the little group of 8 or 9 tots.  He adores children and they return the gift ten-fold.  Not being quite as enamored with them as he is, I  quickly  turned back to see his face tighten and ...

The solution is to become your own loving parent.  In ACA, we recognize that our parents fell short in many ways. They may have been alcoholics or addicts, they may have been physically or verbally abusive or may have simply lacked the tools to care for us in a loving, nurturing way. Or, like my father, abandoning the family in every sense of the word.  While all that was happening, we, being little tiny children, developed tools to deal with the life we were handed. Often times, those tools saved us. Whether it was knowing when to hide or be scarce, or figuring out how to feed ourselves as a 4 year old, or knowing how to gauge the adults mood at any given time, or just learning how to not show emotion because the reaction to that would be cruel or dismissive. These tools worked well until they didn’t.  Now we get the choice to change the narrative. We get to figure out what those ill adaptive tools are. That can be hard work because they have been with us for such a long...