An Invincible Summer - A Woman's Journey

I currently attend 3 Adult Children of Alcoholics and Disfunction meetings.  London, Helsinki and Munich are my consistent go to’s. Somehow I ended up chairing the Munich meeting. It is full of a group of lovely Germans but the one American is hosting it. This meeting is structured, with a specific focus on the survival traits we developed in the family home and how those affect us now. It suits me well. The other week, for some strange reason, there wasn’t a single man in the meeting. It suddenly, by default, became a women’s meeting. The dynamics changed. It was quite  lovely to watch. We became a sisterhood of support and encouragement that had not been present otherwise.   This week the men were back. I’m glad that they were there as I’ve grown to care for them but I missed what we had the week before. It was special. 

Today, while in a retail establishment, I got to chatting with the owner. First niceties and pleasantries and then a warm conversation that led to.......Sisterhood. Somehow (God, of course), we stumbled upon the fact that Al-Anon had saved both of our lives. Mine from bitterness and anger, hers from heartbreak and sorrow; both of us from struggling with the craziness of controlling the freak out of the ones we love. Our qualifiers are different and the same but that doesn't really matter does it? Our backgrounds are polar opposites. It's what we do with the lessons we learn in the Al-Anon rooms that connect us in a way that few other things do. The beauty of sharing each others "recovery" and, maybe, bolstering each other up in it, was awesome. I left with a bag full of something pretty and a heart full of knowing lots of us walk this planet...trying hard to heal and do better and be brave, Living and Let Live, knowing it's Progress, Not Perfection, and tak...