An Invincible Summer - A Woman's Journey

Al-Anon has given me the gift of acceptance. It was a gift I did not know that I needed but I needed more than I can express. How acceptance manifests itself in my life is interesting and lovely.  Acceptance has allowed me to love my children exactly how they are.  Their strengths and flaws...I can love them equally, beauty in the imperfections. I can sit back and allow them to live their lives, rejoice and mourn with them, without judging their decisions or motivations. Not perfectly, but with determination I try. My only regret is that I did not learn this sooner, so that they felt unconditional love from the very beginning. Knowing that I did the best I could with the tools I had helps with that feeling of regret but the deep desire to be the best parent I could, to provide the stable childhood I did not have, whispers to me at times "Shame on you" for your failures. Luckily for me, all four of my kids are kind and loving and never make me feel like less of a person...

When struggling with an issue, big or small, it is so much easier to do so having the "Just for Today" attitude. I often struggle with control....needing everything to be alright. It mainly plays out with the people I am closest to. I don't need to rearrange someones flowers or flip a friends roll of toilet paper. But if I am willing to admit it, deep down, I want the behaviors of my people to be such that, when all is said and done, I am happy and content. How presumptuous of me to think that my comfort should be placed above someone else's right to make good or bad choices for themselves. When did this need to control start? I don't really know for sure but what I do know is that it is destructive. Aside from messing up any chance of serenity I may hope to possess, it also damages my relationships. When the bar is set too high, people will avoid, rebel or just plain hide behaviors that might come under the scrutiny of a hard to please person. So, I try th...

A few days have passed since I last blogged.  I would love to think that's because I am busy living life and healing and being positive.  I was busy trying. Bringing out Xmas boxes, while necessary, was hard. As was attempting to string hundreds of light strands in the yard alone.  Well not completely alone. I had a little help but her lack of opposable thumbs was much less a hindrance than the unexpected and much needed rain that lightly misted me for awhile. Eventually the rain decided it was serious; at which time, all of us (moist boxes, two cats, one dog and a frizzy haired woman) made a mad dash for cover. Escaping from the turmoil in my head, the car and I headed over to a "Meetup" that was suppose to be a movie and dinner with 14 strangers. My car and I sat in the parking lot and waffled back and forth. Finally the car won and drove away with me in it. NO movie and NO dinner. That's OK. It's not a failure....it's just life right now and it ...