Warwick Avenue.

I am having an interesting time with myself. I work for a few hours, and then I listen to a sad song and sob. I work for a few hours, and then I call a friend and tell my story. I work some more.

I'm ok, but nothing feels real. I'd hoped by getting away from my husband for a while, I'd start to be able to know what was real and what wasn't. The most hurtful thing for me in living with his addiction was the lying...and specifically the lying that was meant to twist my understanding of reality. When protecting his addiction is more important to my husband than my sanity, I have to retreat. I did the right thing.

But nothing feels real over here yet, either. It's not different from the before time, this after time. I'm still longing for him. I'm still in pain. I still don't know right and wrong, good and bad, up and down.

I want to be a super-villain. I kind of want to unleash my rage on the world, make everyone pay who ever made me wonder what was real. The super-villain I'd be would have knives for fingers, and I'd use those knives to shape the world the way I wanted it.

I want my husband. I don't know who he is. I want my mother, just not the woman who is my mother. I want to go home, but I don't know where I'd find it.

Sometimes, I feel so supported. I feel little bubbles coming up from deep inside me, buoying me against the heavy, heavy weight. It's my higher power, and each of you sending me kind words were riding on one of those little bursts. I couldn't keep moving without that feeling. Thank you.

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Now playing: Duffy - Warwick Avenue
via FoxyTunes

A Small Peace.

At the last meeting I went to, I spoke about my struggle with resentment and my suspicions that I was clinging to anger because I am afraid of sadness. A friend advised me to pray and spoke about her own experiences praying for and receiving relief.

So guess what? I tried it. It worked.

Imagine that! I can ask for help, and receive it! I don't have to do everything on my own! I asked for help processing my anger and sadness about our present situation, and I woke up the next day with a profound feeling of peace. We have had a lovely weekend. I am still afraid, and there is still a lot of big stuff coming that promises a lot of hurting...but I had a weekend of peace with my husband. That was a small miracle.

It amazes me sometimes how quickly I can forget everything I know. I go to meetings. I work my steps. I call folks in the program when I'm struggling. I do all the stuff I'm supposed to do, and yet when things get messy, it's like I've never heard of a higher power. It's like I never learned about detachment, never read about choosing my own attitudes and emotions.

I am also recognizing that I struggle with the spiritual side of the steps...the spiritual side of me. I am having a hard time asking for my higher power to help me because I'm not sure who my higher power is. I've been working on finding out who it is, and I've had some realizations about what I think about this God...I am struggling with reconciling my emerging understanding of God as being the universal, eternal element of myself, that quiet place that I can turn to within myself when the world gets too loud, too complicated...with the idea of an external being that I can speak to directly and ask for help.

And maybe I'm making a mistake by trying to understand. My mind has stood in the way of my spiritual side for a long time, so maybe I should keep my mind out of it...just listen for the quiet when the inward-manifestation of God is helpful and turn outward for help when I'm not able to find the quiet in me. I honestly don't know, but I know that asking for help in a few urgent words worked to bring me some peace in a difficult time.

I am afraid that I might be facing the hardest part yet. It's been a lot of uphill in this adventure with my husband's addiction, and I keep thinking that the ground will get more level just around the bend. What is coming up is potentially the steepest part yet, and I'm terrified for both of us. I am sorry to be cryptic, my friends. I would probably be really annoyed if someone whose blog I read suddenly had a big secret. As soon as the time is right, I'll spill the whole story...and I swear it's not just a machination to get more readers with a Dickens-like chapter ending.

OK. Time to try to go to bed. Goodnight, folks!

Art by Atul Sharma

Are You My Mommy?

When I'm most upset, I find myself often crying for my mother. Yeah. I cry for my mommy. I do. I cry, and I cry, and in the midst of it, all I want is my mom. Or I think I want her. I think I want her, the actual lady with the soft hair and the nice face. But then, again, I don' t know.

The actual lady is nice in many ways. I've never doubted her love for me. I've also never felt that I'd ever be able to make her happy. I've also spent years of my life repairing the damage that her anger did to my insides. I'm still working on it.

I'm not sure, today, that what I want is her. I'm not sure what I want, which is scary, because it means I don' t know where to go to find it. I'm fairly sure that she, my mother, the actual woman, is not a tool for my recovery. I'm pretty sure that she hurts me.

What do I want? I want love. I want the kind of love that is maybe from a mother, the kind of love that doesn't have a price. I want to give that love, and I want to receive it. Sometimes I get close to filling up that space in myself. I was close for a moment. I think it's god, it's that diamond that is at the center of my heart. It's me, my inmost me...or maybe it's not that. I think I've got that part of my spirituality...the part that is inside me, that is quiet. That is the part that I can call on when my world is in the most turmoil to find quiet and peace, at least for a second. That is where I find the eye of the storm of the rest of me...

But tonight, it seems like that quiet place is a half of something. There is an outside thing, an outside other half to the thing inside of me. There is a Mother that I'm seeking. It's the God that I'm seeking, that I can't quite see and hear. It's the thing outside myself, connected to the thing inside myself, that is protecting me, that I want to trust is there...but that I can't feel. I want to know this Mother. I want to follow her will. I want faith and confidence in her love. I want to know that all the things that are happening to me right now are part of a plan...but I don't trust it yet. I don't hear it, and I don't see it, and I don't feel it, and as much as I want to, I'm not sure of how to let go. I'm not sure of how to hear the response from the person I'm crying to when I'm asking for my mom, my Mom. It's like there's something there, guarding the portal to what I most want and need.



Photo Credit: Cathy Rositano

My Will Be Done.

I've been praying lately, a lot. Most of the time, my prayers are kind of trench prayers..."Help me. Help me. Help me," but sometimes, I get a little more sophisticated:

"Help me. I am afraid. I am trapped, and I need guidance. Please help me to know what I am supposed to do. Please show me what you want for me."

I realized this weekend in my step group while working on the Sixth Step that I might be standing firmly in the way of the plans of who or whatever is on the other side of those prayers. I ask for something to show me what I should be doing, and I get needles. I get a goddamned needle, that ugly orange goddamned needle, that symbol that started my new life when I first found it this time last year. I see that I'm standing in the same room, looking at the same thing, in the same situation.

I hate it. It hurts me and it fills me with rage, and I don't do a damn thing about it. I'm facing an edge of my "entire readiness": I am entirely ready to grow, entirely ready to move out of this impossible situation, but I am absolutely not ready to remove my husband from my life.

I've been reading a lot about God and gods and all the different manifestations of holiness around the world, and I've been finding the Hindu gods to be really illuminating. It's a construction of spirituality that's real distant from anything that I could ever be comfortable with making my own, but learning about the different functions that the various gods perform has given me some insight into the work that my own higher power can do for me. This week, I'm in love with Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, but also the planter of obstacles against which we are meant to test our mettle, to overcome and grow. I'm not sure if I should be invoking the power of removal or respecting the obstacle I've been given and testing my will to love in spite of all.

And also, I just don't want to be without him, my darling, needle-bearing obstacle. I'm not done with the sound of his heartbeat when I put my head on his chest, with his hand in mine, with his arm around me while I'm sleeping.

It's always so confusing, understanding what is right.

God Of My Understanding.

Sometimes, when we fuck, I think about how you're my wife, and what we're doing is something that god made.

Tonight, I'm finishing up my homework for Step 3. Wait: tonight, I'm starting my homework for Step 3. I gotta figure out what god is, give my life to that person, place, or thing, and render some writing about it fit to show folks at tomorrow's meeting. And I'm a nerdy, vicious kind of codie, so I WILL have it done, and all of it, and done well. I'm crazy like that.

But in between trying to solve god, my lovely husband reminded me of the first place where I found an adult understanding of what god means to me. When I'm feeling close to someone, connected in a way that's bigger than each of us alone, I start to feel my heart opening a chink wider to something spiritual.

On the way to work this morning, we were talking about how we'd both had weird, restless dreams, and strangely, we'd both dreamed about the same people...really for no reason, as we'd not been talking or thinking about these people. And then tonight, he interrupts my struggle to wrestle god into submission with his lovely hands and neck and mouth, and he whispers beautiful things to me, reminding me that it isn't always so goddamned complicated. Or it is, it is entirely complicated, but also basic, simple, clear, and raw.

Sometimes, I can just look right in front of me, and I'll remember that god's there, god's here, god's everything and everyone and so ready to give me warmth and sweetness if I can just stop struggling long enough to see.

Some Promises.

Having grown tired of looking to other folks to keep their promises, I've started a little collection of promises to myself. They're small things, but they're mine, and I'm going to do my best to keep them. I'm going to list them here so that I have a little accountability:

1. I'm going to walk my doggy every day. She needs the stimulation, and I need the quiet time. Today, I walked her and tried to talk with somebody or something like a God-like person or place or thing.

2. Every day, I want to try to talk to a God-like person or place or thing. In today's effort, I did a great job of weepishly wishing for wonderful things to happen for my friends and my enemies. I smugly, sweetly wished for the people I most loathe to have long, happy lives. I sweetly, truly wished for all kinds of folks to find peace and security and serenity and fulfillment. I didn't have a lot to say for myself. I'm going to work on that.

3. I'm going to try to do yoga at least 3 times a week, and preferably in the morning. It's nice in the morning.

4. Every day, I'm going to write at least a few lines of poetry. It's ok if it sucks. It will get me back in the habit.