Hole in My Sidewalk

I was given a copy of this at my last counseling appointment and I have been meaning to put it up ever since. People... THIS is my life....

Chapter One

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost .... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit ... but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter Four

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter Five

I walk down another street

- There's a Hole in My Sidewalk

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Portia Nelson

Moving Forward

Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don't have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don't need to suffer with them.

It doesn't help.

It doesn't help for us to stay stuck just because someone we love is stuck. The potential for helping others is far greater when we detach, work on ourselves, and stop trying to force others to change with us.

Changing ourselves, allowing ourselves to grow while others seek their own path, is how we have the most beneficial impact on people we love. We're accountable for ourselves. They're accountable for themselves. We let them go, and let ourselves grow.

Today, I will affirm that it is my right to grow and change, even though someone I love may not be growing and changing alongside me.

- The Language of Letting Go

Melody Beattie

Stupid Boy

Breathe

This song spoke to me today. I'm REALLY struggling today. On Saturday things with Jake went from bad to worse. An argument while he was over visiting Zack that ended with him throwing something at my head, braking a picture that rained glass down on my son, threatening my life, trying to punch me, throwing something else at my head and eventually leaving only to be escorted by the friendly officer, who told me on the phone she chewed his ass all the way to the nice jail building. Where, he continues to sit and think about his choices as of late.

I'm not sure I can adequately explain battered woman's syndrome to you but I can tell you that I have it. And I am SERIOUSLY struggling with it. I want to do what is best for me, I want to do what is best for Zack but I'm not sure whether some of the choices I'm making are accomplishing much in either direction.

As much as I want to just write him off I can't. I don't know if that is because I am addicted to him or because he is the father of my son. As a sober person, Jake is a great guy. As a meth addict, he is... well... unpredictable and hostile at best, homicidal at worst.

Right now, the restraining order is in place keeping me from him. Keeping me from myself. From falling back into the pattern of forgiving him of making things better. That, my friends, is the illness. If you think that I am strong and I am brave, you are wrong. I am scared and I am sick and I fight a huge war within myself every day to go forward with this divorce and to make the best decisions that I can.

Every day I don't talk to him, I get stronger. Every day he is gone and I learn a little more about the life he has been living, I get stronger. Him and I are over. We are getting a divorce. But I struggle with Zack. IF he gets clean, IF he stays sober, I want him in my son's life.

Some days I make decisions that probably make the people in my life want to shake me. (Trust me when I tell you, doing that will NOT help. If you try to tell me what to do or tell me I'm doing it wrong I will just shut down and not tell you.) But I want them to know that I am struggling. I am TRYING!! The best I know how. Towards the end of this song it says:

There's a light at each end of this tunnel

You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out

And these mistakes you've made you'll just make them again

If you only try turning around

That's where I'm at. I HAVE to go forward. I have to move towards the light at the end of the tunnel. The one that I see but every once and awhile I still struggle. I still want to turn around and look back, maybe to remember how far I've come, maybe because it is SOO hard to continue to go forward.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song

If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me

Threatening the life it belongs to

And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd

Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud

And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

That is the rest of where I'm at. I'm not sure that any of this makes any sense but if I keep it inside of me it eats at me. That's why I started the other blog but I haven't been able to be there much with all of this going on and with work being so busy. I'm hoping to devote huge chunks of my time there once tax season is over. Try to get all of this stuff down and out so that it stops eating me inside.

Until then, please be gentle with me. I might not be making the same choices you would be but I am making the best ones that I know how to make and the ones that I think are the best for me and my son. I might stumble and fall flat in the mud but at least I'm moving forward in a positive direction.

One day at a time, breathing in and out....

Cry, Cry

I know a girl she was a waitress
Had a big spirit till she let her boyfriend break it
He always talked her down
Took her pride and kicked it around
Took it as long as she could take it
She left a note on the dresser and hung up her apron

Cry cry till the sun shines baby
Cry cry till the sun shines
It's gonna be alright
It's gonna be alright baby

I know a man who tried to ease his mind
Chased his regrets with any bottle he could find
Life cut him down so low
Took his pride and broke his soul
Till he forgave himself and let it go

Cry cry till the sun shines baby
Cry cry till the sun shines
It's gonna be alright
It's gonna be alright baby

We're all here just trying to live our lives
Pay our electric bills and spending up our time
There ain't a friend to be found
Who can't break through the concrete clouds
When the rain when the rain comes crashing down

Cry cry till the sun shines baby
Cry cry till the sun shines
It's gonna be alright
It's gonna be alright

- Cry, Cry (Till The Sun Shines)

Heidi Newfield

F%$#

He.
Got.
Fired.

.
.
.
.

Dear Jake-

Two years ago you and I were given the greatest gift imaginable. As I write this he is sleeping in the other room and you are off somewhere doing God knows what. In the past eight days you have spent a grand total of four hours with him. Half of that trying to figure out how to leave him without him getting too upset.

As I watched you hold him and cry last night, promising him that you would do better, I thought perhaps... just maybe... you could understand a little of what you were missing. Yet this evening, as almost every other day in the past eight, you were too tired to visit. You needed to stay home and "relax."

A friend of mine told me perhaps it is because you didn't want a child as badly as I. Perhaps you don't really miss what you were never really sure you wanted. Yet somehow, I don't think that is the case. Perhaps he was my heart's desire but when I saw you with him, when you were you and not the disease, you were just as in love with him as I.

But now, you are the disease. When I close my eyes I see you in a long dark tunnel. When you look around you, all you see is darkness and despair but if you look far enough, squint hard enough you will see a small light at the end of that tunnel. Every night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up I pray that you find your way to that light. To that place of peace and happiness that you had a year ago.

But for now, I want you to know that somewhere in the past eight days, your son has learned what an oval is. And while he might confuse the triangle for the square, he knows that there is such a thing as both a triangle and a square and that, my friend, is living proof that I am living with one of the most amazing people I could ever imagine.

Some day, when he is grown, he will form his own opinion of you, and why you were not here. I hope that he, unlike me, is able to see that daddy had a disease and that disease took him away. Because right now, I'm struggling. There is a deep sadness within me and a deep despair at the loss of the man that just a year ago I thought would be in my life forever. I am struggling to understand how you could choose that life over this one and how the disease could "win" when just a year ago we thought we had it beaten.

So, in case I forget to tell you, through all the anger and the sadness and the tears, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You have given me the greatest gift I could ever imagine and I promise that I will take care of him in a way that I only wish you could. Someday, when you find your way to the light at the end of the tunnel, I hope it is not too late for him to forgive you for all that you missed.

Heather