Children Are Precious…

As I sit here reflecting over the years of my life, a smile always comes to my face when I think of my daughter.  She is celebrating her 27th birthday today.  Plus, she and her husband are expecting their first child in a few weeks.  It is just hard to believe sometimes that all this is happening.  She should still be my little girl.  I know in a sense she is, but she has grown up into this beautiful, intelligent woman.  A woman that knows what she wants in life and how to get it.  She is strong, bright, and loving.  I know, just because she’s my daughter doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have flaws.  I’m sure she does, but they are minor compare to the attitude she has about life.

This time, just right before her birthday, my mind will start to wonder back on how she has grown.  The accomplishments she has and the direction her life is headed.  It always brings tears to my eyes to know that my child is so unselfish, caring, loving and giving of herself to others.  I have so much gratitude for the life she lives today.

She has not had an easy road to ride on.  There have been many obstacles along the way.  She has faced them, learned from them and moved on past them.  That is what I am talking about.  I was not always there for her as I should have been.  There has been another lady that has help to mold my daughter into the woman she is today and for that I am grateful.  Understand that due to my addiction, I could not care for myself, much less care for my daughter.

God is good!!  The three of us understand the others roles and the parts we play in each others lives.  My daughter has been so very blessed and for that I am grateful.  The things that I could not do for her, God laid a path for her to follow and she still follows today.  With God as her guide she can not go wrong.

She is a teacher and loves her students as if they were her own.  She lives for the time that she has with them.  Helping them, guiding them and caring for their well being and their future.  She does everything in her power to teach her students in their studies in order for them to have the grades to graduate from high school.  With the passion she has how can anyone not adore her?  How can anyone not appreciate her and her talents?

And please don’t misunderstand, I say these things because they are true, not because I am her mother. 
Well, some because I am her mother, but more than that she is this person I have described to you.  If you know her, you love her.  If you don’t know her, maybe one day you will have the chance and if that day should ever come take the chance.  She has taught me so much about life, love and myself.  She is such a blessing to me and all that she touches.

When I think of her becoming a mother, I just fill up.  My emotions take over and tears flow down my face.  Not from sadness, but from over abundant love and pride.  Knowing that she is going to be the greatest mom any child could ask for.  She has the conviction that a soon to be mom needs.  The conviction to be the best mother a child could ask for.  Just as strong as her conviction to be the best wife she can to the love of her life.

They both are starting on a path that they both feel strongly about and are excited about the new adventures ahead of them.  Both new at this parenting thing but willing to do what it will take to nourish and teach this child the rights from the wrongs, love from hate, joy from sadness.  Together in this, on this new path they will conquer mountains, the ups and downs that come with this new job.  Bold, bright and daring, together they will work hand in hand so that their child can have a life filled with love, affection and a strong sense of security.

This is what I want for my child and her family.  Thank you God for allowing me to be a part of this woman’s life and for the chance to have someone call me ‘mom’.  Thank you for the gift that you have blessed her with and a chance to hear ‘grandma’ from another.  Dear Lord, please keep them in your care and shower you blessing over them abundantly.  May it be Your will for them to have wonderful experiences of parenting.

Today, the day of her birth, may it be a day to remember and cherish in her life.  May her experience as a parent be both fulfilling and rewarding.
Thank you God for letting me be her mother and for allowing her the same experience that is like no other…Happy Birthday Nicole, I love you Baby Girl!!!

To Make An Amends or Not…

 

Been doing a lot of meditating and praying on how to handle some feelings I felt when reading about a recovering addict and the relationship with their children.  I do have some experience, strength and hope on this subject and others have shared with me, so I think I will share…

In active addiction, I was only thinking of myself, no one else, not even my children.  I was and have always been a people pleaser.  Never wanted anyone to be mad or hate me.  Tried to make everyone happy even if I was or not.  Please understand that the following is a combination of my experience and others that have shared with me, even though it is written as my experience only.  I keep it all on me so others can relate…

When we are in active addiction, it is hard enough trying to care for ourselves much less our children.  Lots of times the children become the adults taking care of us.  I have heard, and at one point in my own recovery, what can I do to make my children understand what I was going through, that I do love and care about them, that they do mean something to me, and so on.  Most of the time the answer is not what we want to hear or believe but it is the truth as far as I am concerned.  Nothing, that’s right, nothing.

We can not make someone think this or that.  Feel this or that. And they cannot understand our mind set in active addiction unless they themselves have experienced it.  Yes, we love our children.  Yes, we did not always do right by them.  Yes, they do matter and mean something to us.  But, for this recovering addict anyway, there is only so much I can do to ‘fix’ things. 

First, I must understand that I cannot make them feel good, bad or indifferent about anything or anyone.  What I can do is not use no matter what.  Live my life as an example of trying to do the right thing for the right reason.  I don’t just need to ‘learn’ spiritual principals, I have to apply them to my life each and every day.  Keep my hands ‘off’ of what it is or who I am trying to fix.

As time goes on things get clearer to us and to the ones who hurt in active addiction.  We remember what things we did or didn’t do, how we treated someone, what things we did for ‘just one more.’  I cannot change the past nor the mistakes that I have made over the years.  I can only try to the best of my ability to do what is right now.  Live my life in a manner in which you can see the change.  Recovery is many things to me but most of all it is a great teacher.  There is so much to learn from others in recovery.  How to or how not to do things.  Coming to terms with myself and the damage I have done, I have to be willing and able to accept that there may never be a relationship where there once was.

Just because I got ‘clean’ does not mean that I am not the same selfish person I was in active addiction, it just means that I stopped using mind and/or mood altering drugs, including alcohol.  Once I entered into recovery, that is where the work on me began and continues to this day.  My children, loved ones will have to decide in their own time, not mine, how they feel about me.  How they want our relationship to grow or move forward or to not exist at all.  I understand today that I am not the only one I hurt in my using.  I have damaged and have destruction with most if not all the things and people that were in my life when I was using.

My addiction was my life.  There was no room for anything or anyone else.  And the funny thing is that I know exactly how I made folks feel because my father has been sober for over 30 years.  Addiction runs through both sides of my family.  I know first hand what it can do and what it does do and you cannot stop it or change it.  That is the hardest part for me, I know what my children have gone through because I have been there and done that.  Addiction strips you until there is nothing left, just a burned out hollow of a person that doesn’t live but only exist. 

My children grew up watching me get high.  Sometimes they even joined in drinking and partying.  Not at all proud of those times, actually I am sicken by the mere thought.  All I wanted to do once I entered into recovery, is make my children love me the way I wanted to be loved.  Soon I realized that it doesn’t work that way.  I must allow them to be where they are, feel what they need to feel, even if it means that they are no longer a part of my life, I must be able to accept the decision they make.  I cannot make it for them.  Prayer goes a long way in my recovery.

With out God in my life, steering my bus, I could still be  completely and utterly unattached with my recovery.  I must ask God what is His will for me and to please give me the power to carry in out, no matter what.  My children, family, loved ones and friends are going to feel how they feel about me regardless of what I might say to them.  The best, now this is just me, thing I can do is apologize for exactly what I have done where they each are concerned.  Live life as honestly and as truthful as I can and maybe in time the wounds will heal.  Thing can get better.  But I must remember that not everyone will be accepting of my amends.

My family is truly one like no other, for me anyway.  After all the lies and broken promises, I have one more chance to be honest, trustworthy, loved.  Today I can do those things and more.  I have been able to make it from one day to the next without the use of drugs or anyone.  Recovery has taught me that even though I have done things that are not so nice, I am not a bad person.  Just a person who has made bad decisions in their life.  I must change and I am happy to say I have changed.  I must allow my children and other family members to be where they are and allow them to process things at their own speed.

I know that for me as long as I do the next right thing for the right reason, every thing will be okay and as it should be.  I can only be responsible for myself and my actions, not someone else and their reactions.

I do hope you got something from this, that it made some kind of sense.  Amends are not easy to do.  But they are for me a necessary element in my recovery.  They keep me honest and open minded to new ideas and new possibilities.  I do my very best not to have any amends today, but there are those times that I do slip up and an amends is needed, so it is given.

Not everyone in your life will be forgiving, but some will.  For those that are not, do not get angry with them, remember it is because of your actions they feel the way they do and to protect themselves from hurt again.  For those that do accept an amends, do not make it just to save face, make it because you are truly sorry for you actions and you are willing to own those actions to see that it doesn’t happen again.  We all have defects of character that we need to work on even for folks that are not addicts.  Everyone has them, they may not know it or think they don’t but we all do and learning to work on them so they don’t show their ugly faces is a life long process, for me it is anyway…

Life on Life’s Terms…

 

Is it a great feeling when life shows up and you are not ready for it or have no idea what to do?  I can relate to life showing up.  Take for example my health.  I have fibromyalgia and a few other things that include solid edema and PTSD.  All these things and then the drug addiction.  Want to talk about life on life’s terms???  Okay, let’s….

With the illnesses that I have, I have to take medication on a timely schedule 4 times each day.  Now, nothing that I take at this time is narcotic, but that does not mean that I will never have to take narcotics.  It’s just that right now I don’t have to.  As each day passes, I sit and wonder what will I do if and when that day arrives.  For now, I just don’t think about it.  I have learned to not dwell on things that I have little or no control over.  The best thing I can do is what my doctor tells me to do and not to do.

Prayer and talking about these type things with another person also helps.  In active addiction, I never made a ‘good’ decision and in recovery I have learned to talk about things before I act on them.  Now, I am only human and I don’t work the ‘perfect program’ but I do work one.  As part of my program I talk to other recovering addicts about different things that happen in my life and in theirs.  That is how we learn about things in recovery by talking to each other about the events in our lives and how we handle them.  You see I don’t have to go through some things because others have already gone through them and I have learned how to get through and what to and what not to do.  And that is how recovery, attending a 12 step program is what I do for my recovery.

Over this past winter, I have had new issues arise in my health.  Being without health insurance and no income at this time, makes it hard to get the health care that I need when I need it.  If it were not for my mom and my sister I don’t know where I would be.  Knowing that RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) runs in my family, I am always a worry wart when I have new aches and pains that can be symptoms of RA.  You see I know that more than likely the pains that I have in my upper legs, arms and back are from the fibro.  But when my hands, feet, toes and fingers go to acting up more than normal, I get concerned.  Today, I went to the doctor for a checkup for the issues with my hands and feet seem to be getting worse.  Knowing that I should have gone months ago, I just could not get comfortable with what I ‘thought’ was wrong or going on.  So, about 2 weeks ago I went in for blood test and today had visit with my doctor to discuss my lab results.

To my happy surprise, labs, blood work reports were all good.  Now for me all good is not like most folks.  All good is that nothing ‘new’ seems to be happening and all my major organs seem to be functioning as they should.  Yes, fibromyalgia can affect major organs and the brain.  It seems that at this point mine is attacking my hands and feet.  My feet have been swollen since before I was diagnosed and now my hands stay swollen 24/7.  Have not been able to wear closed in shoes in about 3 years now.

My newest issues are stabbing pain, numbness and just overall soreness in my hands and feet.  And there you have the reason why ‘RA’ pops in my head.  Now, since I know that it is not RA, I can start trying to come to terms with what ‘is’ going on, my fibro is progressing.  Unfortunately, since the things in the medical world still have no specific cause for fibro, I fear that I will never be as I once was.  I have had to change my life style so much because of my addiction and now health issues that there are times I am not sure I am me.  Sounds crazy, yes, but for those of you out there that are in recovery, deal with health issues daily, I know you understand.

Trust me, I do know that my life would be a lot worse if I did not have God as number one.  He has had me in His hands for a long time.  Although I cannot work, have zero income, no insurance of any kind, I have what I need.  I sit and wonder, from time to time, what my life may be like if it were not for God’s presence, my mom, my sister, my daughter, my family and the family that I have made in my recovery.  I am so very blessed that I haven’t the words to express the amount of gratitude that I have.  God has provided for my every need and I know that He will continue to do so no matter what my health or financial issues may be.

Things are changing with my health and the medications that I use to cope one day to the next.  You see, I have been on a drug plan with the company that makes most of my medicines free of charge.  Now, they are going to be changing the way they do some of their meds and it appears that each one of mine will be affected.  Am I worried, I would be lying if I said no, so yes, I am a little bit concerned about this recent news.  But I know for a fact that as long as I continue to do God’s will for me, all will be well.

There are many of you out there that understand where it is that I come from.  I appreciate all the prayers, blessings and support you offer.  Without you, I know that things may be worse or at least somewhat harder to handle.  I pray for others everyday as I know they pray for me.  Prayer is a very powerful tool and one that I am proud to say I use daily, sometimes I think God may be tired of hearing me in one day and then I tell myself that He is smiling because He is happy to know that I, for one, do get it.

Again, thank you for your continued support and if you have a comment you would like to leave, you do not have to leave your name.  God bless you all and may your days be filled with joy and happiness.

Mom…

 

I love you 

though I have not met you

You love and protect me

teaching me as I grow,

Guiding me and understanding

you see me through each day

You brought me into this world

but you can’t let me go

You know how cruel and beautiful

life will be to me,

I am here and I see you

My mommy to be

As I come up in life

I know I can always count on you

No other can love me or you

like our mothers do

They cry and laugh at us,

with us, teaching us to care and love each other

You’ve did your best to give

me  the tools I need

For when I marry

I have come to learn

That i too will do these

things for the mother I am to be

A little one, so small and tender

I will then as you taught me

To love hard, live strong and

in the end forgive all

To you, Mother, that bond we have

no one can ever break

For  you had me in your heart

long before I could see the dawn break

What A Crazy Week…

Well, it all started last Saturday when the computers would not connect to the internet and it just kept on keeping on from there…

After about an hour working on the phone with our internet provider, it was determined that the wireless router box had stopped working.  It was decided that we would purchase another wireless router to replace the old one.  A family member told us they probably had an extra router and if so, we could have it. Of course, it would not work with our system.  Mind you, this was the day of mom’s 80th birthday party.  Which she did attend after being told that there were folks waiting on her.  She was really surprised to see all the folks that had come together to help her celebrate.  All things concerned, her being sick, the router box and other minor set backs, the party was a huge success.  Mom said she did feel a little better afterwards.

Sunday was spent with my brother and his family, all but one daughter came up with him.  They all came over to our house to fix breakfast.  It was so great to spend time with all of them and the children were so well behaved.  A wonderful visit was had by all.  The rest of the day was spent resting from all the festivities of the weekend.  Oh, I forgot to mention that my computer also died.  Now this is the computer that has ALL the information that I have gathered for making plans for my high school class reunion.  You got it, computer dies before I could copy to a disc, but not before I put all the information in the Dropbox.  If you don’t have it, you need to get one, free.  Dropbox saved my sanity, to say the least.

Now, Monday has arrived and there is business to take care of.  So, mom and I get ready and have a plan for how to get done what is needed…

We are ready to go.  Head out to the car and you guessed it, the car would not start.  Yep, dead as a door nail.  Call was made to our mechanic to come fix the car and to my sister for a ride to take care of what we needed to do in town.  Sis comes to get us and we head to the bank.  Remember I mention that I am working on my class reunion, that was the reason for the trip to the bank, I needed to get an account in order to pay for the reunion.  I had no idea of what information they would need and wouldn't you know it, we did not have everything needed to open an account.  So that was a bust, so we headed back home.

So, when we got home I called and gathered the information needed for the bank and waited on the mechanic to fix the car.  And all I can think of is acceptance, tolerance, and patience.  That appeared to be what my Higher Power was teaching me.  Hard as those three principles are to practice, I had to continue to remind myself throughout the day and this entire week of these principles and to learn from all of them.  See, my week has not been easy to go from one day to the next.

When I was using, things not going my way was in the top of my list of reasons to use and therefore it was always justified.  Now that the ‘drug fog’ has lifted a little, I see that the only reason for my using was because I wanted to.  At first, it started as a way to stop hurting physically.  You see, I had been in a car wreck several years prior to my using and had damage to my body that required the need for very strong pain medication.  Well, the rest is history, as they say and I am moving forward today.

The mechanic had the car fixed by 11:30 that night on Monday that is.  So, Tuesday, we headed out once more to do what we needed to do.  Went by to pay the mechanic, to the bank to open my account and then on to Walmart to purchase a wireless router.  Things were moving along smooth and easy.  Then, once again, I had to call on my Higher Power to help me to have acceptance, tolerance and patience as I was checking out at Walmart.  I always, always try to check out in the ‘self checkout’.  I have nothing against the cashiers, I just prefer the ‘self checkouts’. I just want to say, ‘Walmart, if you want folks to checkout in a certain way in the ‘self checkout’, tell us.  In the course of checking out, a cashier was there to help me before the checkout continued to say ‘Please wait on an attendant.’  It seems for some reason that checkout would not continue if you pickup and move a full bag out of the way to start another bag.  You ‘must’ slide it.  And then when I started to pay, I had to pay with two types of payment.  Again, who knew that there is a specific ‘order’ to pay depending on what type of payment you are using.  I made it through this but only by saying to myself ‘she is just doing her job, but God please let her help someone else cause I don’t know how much longer I can bite my tongue to not say something rude to this women.

As we were leaving the store, mom wanted to know what all that woman was saying to me and I told her that who knew I had been checking out completely incorrectly almost each time I have used the self checkouts at Walmart.  I stated to mom that I am trying to figure out why if their self checkout is suppose to be done a certain way, where are the signs with instructions??  The attendant stood right beside me the whole time I was checking my items.  She continued to tell me, you were suppose to check that out and pay for it before you check your other items.  These machines are very picky to what method of payment you used and the order in which you use your method of payment if you use different methods.  What??? 
For some reason, my checkout machine had no problem with the order of payment that I used.  See, I told you that if something could go wrong it seemed as if it did go wrong.  We left there and went to IHOP to eat.  Unfortunately, it took a while for us to get our food after we ordered.  There were only two servers and one cook, that was the reason for the long wait.  The floor manager was helping the cook get orders out.  Meal was great and after the sever explained to mom the delay, everything else was okay.  The manger even stated he was sorry for it taking a little longer but they had a short staff that evening.

As the week has progressed, things did get better.  Mom and dad were leaving to go visit my brother and his family over the weekend.  They left out on Thursday and my sister called later that day and invited me out to eat with her.  When we got to the restaurant she had a ‘two for one’ coupon, we could not use.  See, here we go again.  When they scanned the coupon it said ‘used’ meaning that coupon had been use and we could not use it again.  So my sister had to pay for both meals.  The food was great and I had enough left over to eat lunch and supper the next day.  Really liked their food and would like to go back one day.  I know mom would love it.

My days were moving along.  Mom and dad were gone, I was home alone and had the key to the truck if I needed to go somewhere.  Thing is I have two bad knees and the truck is straight drive, no way I can drive that.  Had plans for a friend to pick me up to go to my meeting Friday night.  All ready to go, waiting on my ride when the phone rang.  My ride calling to say there was no way she could make it as her mom had fallen and other things she needed to stay home.  I totally understood and told her thanks for calling.  I immediately called another lady who was just about to turn into the meeting and said she would just keep coming and get me.  Great meeting!

Afterwards as we do on many Friday nights after the meeting several of us headed to Shelby to eat.  You guessed, IHOP here we come.  This experience was okay until we got our food.  One of the lady’s food was under cooked and the manager (the same guy that was there Tuesday night) told our sever that he had other things that were more important that needed his attention and that person with under cooked steak would just have to wait.  I could not believe that he said that, much less loud enough for us to hear him.  And once again, acceptance, tolerance, patience, powerlessness, remember your spiritual principles and live life using them.  When he did make it over, he was, in my opinion very condescending in his tone and things he would said.  He came around the entire table asking how everyone’s meal was, needless to say I did not speak.  Knowing that he ‘really’ did not want to hear my opinion so I continued to eat.  Toward the end of our meal, there were two or three more groups that came in.  One being a motorcycle group that had a very ‘rough’ look about them.

To make this long story short, some person in the ‘biker’ group was rude and cussed the sever, the same sever we had.  I was outside smoking and she came out crying.  I tried to lend her a shoulder to cry on because I have had a job as a sever myself, not easy at all.  She was laughing and smiling when I left so I hope I helped in some small way.

I know that I have not always been the best person, nor have I treated everyone that I had met the way I should have.  This is one of the things that recovery has taught me.  That is that no one, no one, is better than anyone else.  It doesn't mean treat the folks that I want to the same, I and everyone should treat everyone else as they want to be treated.  You know ‘The Golden Rule’???  This is something that I had learned when I was younger but lost in my active addiction.  It doesn't matter if someone is like Hugh Hefner or if they are the bag lady that lives under a bridge, we all should treat each other as ‘human beings’ not like poop on the bottom of your shoe.

Ending this week with a cold rainy weekend and yep, the pilot light of the gas furnace went out and I had no heat Saturday night and part of Sunday.  I read and figured out how to relight the pilot light, so I will not get cold tonight.  I will continue to keep myself on the straight and narrow as best I can.  I will continue to ask God to show me His will and the power to carry it out.  There are a lot of folks that would not be able to keep a cheerful outlook on life if they had to face just one or two of the things I did and they would not be able to go forward with a good outlook on life.  Most folks, not saying that I am perfect for I am no where close, would lash out, try to make others hurt as much or more than they were hurting.  They would give up, go back to using thinking that was the answer.

Again, I so appreciate those of you that support me in this part of my life.  I am only trying to help that next addict, person who is having or has had a bad day, bad week.  That person that someone treats as if they were poop on the bottom of their shoe.  My answer to it all, pray.  Yes, you read that correctly, pray.  With and through prayer, your life can be so much more than you could ask for.  Some of y’all already know that, but there are others like me that it seems hard to stay in the ‘good’ mood all the time.  I am not always in a ‘good’ mood, but I know today that the only one responsible for my mood is me.  And just because I am not in a good mood, that does not give me the right to make others feel bad and take them out of their good mood.

Thanks again for the support and happy reading…