The Three C's

When I first entered the world of AA and Al-Anon I saw people wearing t-shirts with the slogan "The Three C's" on the front. I wondered, "What are the three C's and why is it on their shirts?" I didn't ask my then alcoholic husband because I was fearful he would call me an idiot or that he would preach at me for the next 3 hours about AA.  So I went on wondering.....for a long time.

The topic of one of the very first Al-Anon meetings I went to early in my recovery was "The Three C's". This meeting discussion not only helped to give me a since of power but also was enlightening. I learned so much that night about my thought process, my behavior, and choices that I had made.  What does it mean? The Three C's? We didn't cause it, We can't cure it and We can't control it.

My eyes were opened because I was working so hard to cure his problem--alcoholism. I was begging him to go to meetings, I was monitoring his meeting attendance when he was actually going to meetings and I was loving him so hard that he couldn't possibly have a problem. 

I also worked hard to control him.  I woke him up in the morning forced him to go to school. Questioned him about where he was, who he was with and what he was doing.

Ultimately I felt because I couldn't cure him or control him that I must be the problem.  He helped me believe this because he often if not always blamed me for the problems he was having.  When he was working the program he took most of the responsibility for his crap but when he would go back out he would throw all the blame on me. And I believed him. So I worked hard to cure and control....whatever it took.

All of this to say--here I am again. He's gone. We're divorced. He's relapsed. He's been gone out of our lives since July 31st. But oddly I feel like I've done something wrong.

Bunnies, Rainbows and Balloons :)

As promised here is my blog entry with bunnies, rainbows and balloons. I don't really have many real bunnies, rainbows or balloons in my life! So I'll write about how those things reveal themselves to me in other forms: Kate, tenure and the College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award.

I've written most recently about sadness and accepting the past, learning from it, moving on and about being proactive in my life. I've neglected to mention in the most recent writings the wonderful things that surround me and have happened to me this year.

First, I spend everyday with a blessing from God--my Kate. She is truly an amazing being. She has the soul of a 90 year old and the heart of a child. She drives me crazy and fills my heart with love and adoration all at the same time. She is so smart and so caring and can be so full of attitude that my head nearly explodes! She's a wonder. After our prayer tonight I went downstairs to clean up dishes, etc. I few moments later I heard her little voice call for me. I went to the bottom of the stairs and asked what she needed. She said, "I need to talk to you." I went up the stairs to find her sitting in bed holding a small figurine. She showed it to me and I recognized it as an angel my sister, her Aunt Juju, gave her. She asked, "Is this an angel?" I said yes and told her, "Now to go to sleep." She then told me she had three angels and I noticed that her stuffed puppy, Lemon aide, had an angel next to him and Talkie, her baby doll, had an angel in bed next to her. She told me that she needed to talk to me about the angels. She told me, "I know these are not real but they will remind us of the angels that God has sent to surround us tonight." She was stalling! She's truly amazing and maddening at the same time!

After four years at the University of Montevallo and applying for tenure it was granted to me last May. Having tenure has been a blessing. I feel as if I know where I'm going to be for the rest of my career and I can really settle in to carving out my own area within the theatre department. Our playwriting group, The White Cardigan Club, is in its fourth year. It was my creation and I feel it's where I can really begin to make a difference in our department and with our students. We have produced three Original Play Festivals and are preparing for our fourth. Each year the student writers are better, more prepared and the work is interesting and worth of production. I definitely feel as if I'm in the place God intended me to be.

A great indicator that UM is the place for me is that I was awarded the CFA Distinguished Teaching award this past year. It was an amazing feeling to be given this award which is voted on by students. It meant the world to me to walk up on the stage with the students cheering to receive the plaque. Wow, the memory still takes my breath away.

Good things are happening and other great things are on the horizon. Kate and I live in a happy little house with 9000 stuffed animals and a fish named Rosy-Spot. Life is good. When I have bad days which we all have occasionally I remind myself of all the people who love and support Kate and me. When I think that thought my heart fills with love and my step feels light. It's a wonderful feeling to be loved as much as we are loved.

Let's talk about sex, baby! No, money, honey.

I always thought that I brought a multitude of 'great qualities' to the long-term relationships I had. As an adult I've had four 'real' long-term relationships. These relationships were all full of love and dysfunction. Those 'great qualities' I exhibited were loyalty, generosity, kindness, patience, submissiveness and love; lots and lots of love.

The loyalty that I demonstrated included never calling my partner out on his bad behavior whether it be alcoholism, lying, cheating or stealing. Often I would just hold my tongue and become 'passive/aggressive' about the event or even in the entire relationship. Days would go by without me speaking to my partner or him speaking to me. Wow! That should have been a red-flag right? Not when you're sick; it becomes part of the sickness-- 'the game'.

I was generous to a fault; buying the love of my partner. I spent thousands of dollars to be with at least two of my past partners. One partner would lie in bed and call into work sick more days than he ever went to work and another partner went back to school on my dime. I kept supporting these guys because I loved and trusted them. I thought they 'needed' to be supported so they could get back up on their feet. I was sick. Classic enabling. I 'needed' Al-Anon.

Boy, am I a patient person. That's a true statement; I can be patient for a very long time but when the final straw drops on my back I become a wild animal. I was patient with these losers. I, however, have not be patient with myself during my recovery in Al-Anon. I've been rough with myself, insisting that I take the entire blame for the emotional, mental and financial mess I find myself in today. As I continue to recover I need to remember to be gentle with myself but not to make excuses as that is just way of continuing the enabling process. I must continue to 'own' up to my part of the mess. I must accept where I was, where I've come from and continue to move forward.

I love the underdog. I'm a very kind person. I cry at sappy commercials. When my brother, Sam, and I were kiddos each summer we played 'Cowboys and Indians'. It seemed like that was every summer but it was probably when we were ten to thirteen years old. We lived on a farm and we would leave our home early in the morning and some days wouldn't return home until late in the evening. We would be dressed according to character. Once someone called my Dad on the phone at his shop to tell him that there was someone on his back forty wearing an Indian headdress--that was me. We would hide in the woods and chase each other, we would put our food in the stream to keep it cool, we would catch a ride on the back of a cow, we would spend the day in the top of a tree where no one in the universe knew where we were. I was always an Indian. I was always persecuted, I was always walking the trail of tears, I was always picking up the pieces for someone. I wanted to help. I wanted to save the starving, the lost puppy, the sinner. I now know where this desire came from, from my Mom but that's another blog entry to be written in the future. I wanted to save my partner in each relationship. I was attracted to men who had a problem because in short--I wanted to save them.

I'm a strong woman. I was in a man's profession for eight or nine years of my life. I had to play with the big boys and I learned to play hard and well. In my work I had to make many decisions everyday and sometimes the decisions had to be made fast. I was good at this. In my private life I didn't want to make decisions about ANYTHING. I didn't want to decide what movie to go to or what restaurant to eat at. I just wanted someone to take me and tell me what to do. In my personal life I became passive and submissive. Each of my partners was attracted to the woman I was at work. Each of them detested the submissive me but each of them pushed me around. Interesting, isn't it? I was verbally, emotionally and physically abused. My daugther's father, D.W., pushed me, screamed at me and belittled me. I believed that I was a weak, lying, stupid, peasant. His words and actions cut me to the bone; I felt weaker and weaker as the years passed. I had forgotten the powerful woman that I was at work and in my life for all those years. The final year of our relationship I would cry everyday sometimes five or six times a day. I would cry in my car before going in to my office, I wouldn't wear makeup to work because I would cry it all off before I got there. I wasn't just submissive, I was a wet rag, I was a puddle on the floor.

That's all over now. I'm that powerful woman again but while I was that submissive woman I allowed myself to be convinced to make many stupid financial decisions. I co-signed on thousands of dollars of student loans for D.W., he convinced me to take out a second mortgage on my house with a balloon payment, he insisted that we take vacations we couldn't afford, he insisted that I was home from my job before 5:00 each day--I can't believe I didn't get fired! I did all of this and more. Currently, I'm still recovering emotionally, mentally, spiritually and financially. I still hurt but I don't cry as much and I definitely don't let D.W. or anyone else walk on me. I hurt the most financially right now, I'm healing the other parts of me. I want more than anything for my daughter to have what she needs in life; I grew up poor and I don't want her to have the same challenges I had to face.

I have been single for two years and nine months. I haven't had a crush or a date in that long. I loved to love. I loved hard. I don't know if I'll ever have another relationship. Currently I don't/can't see myself in one. I'm working on me and taking care of the most important person in the world; my daughter :)

What, what, what in the hell are you thinking?

My daughter cried herself to sleep on Friday night. She laid in my arms and cried because she missed her daddy. I felt sympathy because I miss my daddy too. My daddy died six months ago prior to his death he was in my life daily. We either spoke on the phone or saw one another face to face. He was one of those daddies; he was my mentor. I miss him and like Kate I often cry myself to sleep because I miss his presence in my life.

Kate's daddy is a deadbeat, alcoholic, narcissitic idiot. He called me on a Wednesday over a month ago and told me that he was having a hard time and needed to see his family so he would miss his visitation with Kate that next weekend. Hum...needed to see his family? Kate's not his family? He also said he would just take her the next weekend an idea that I quickly rejected because it was my weekend and we had plans to visit her grandparents; his parents. He promised he would call and see her during the next week and then he would be available to visit with her his next scheduled weekend.

The next week and a half passed and he never called, texted, or a sent smoke signal. I texted him eleven times and left five voice messages simply asking if he planned to get her for his next visitation and to check on his child support payment which I hadn't received. He didn't respond. Finally on the Wednesday prior to the weekend he was scheduled to have Kate he called and left a message; he spoke about his life and how he was working with a sponsor, going to meetings as well as being treated by a doctor. Never once in the message did he ever ask about Kate. He left a number where he could be reached which I called three times and also sent a text to. It's been a week and a half and I haven't heard a word from him. Obviously he didn't get Kate that weekend for her visitation with him.

She started school on Monday. She's had some rocky times as all four year olds do the first week of school. He hasn't called, texted, fax or sent a smoke signal to check on her and her progress. Some of her issues this week are about his absence in her life. She is easy to cry and so am I. I worry about her because I love her so much and I want so much for her and her life.

But I know in the end She's going to be fine because she is like her mommy. She's a strong, courageous woman; she's a survivor. She's amazing :) She's Kate. Can I say more?

My Daddy

It's been two months since my Daddy passed away. I cry every time I see a group of beautiful trees or a small stream or even a NASCAR bumper sticker; things that remind me of Daddy. He was a quiet, patient, caring, eccentric man. One of my favorite recent memories of Daddy I wrote about in a status update on Facebook last November: "I'm home from visiting Mom and Daddy today :) It was a very good day; my Daddy is feeling better. He opened the gate for my car as we were leaving the driveway this evening and as I was driving by him I looked up to see him throwing kisses at us as we drove away. I love my Daddy :)" My Daddy was a good man who loved unconditionally. I wish they all could be as good as my Daddy was.

Going back to old, non-healthy places...and then moving on.

I chaired an Al-Anon meeting last night. It was my home group and I love them. We talked about Step 6 and thinking.

I often am reminded in meetings that I'm not unique. I'm just like everyone else. I may be the only red-head, the only teacher, the only artist, but I'm not the only one who gets stuck in my head. Everyone that spoke last night talked about getting stuck in his or her head in a whirl of insanity. We discussed thinking and THINKING! I like to think out loud with my sponsor. Others in the group like to think out loud while praying. We have many options when thinking; we can allow ourselves to go to the old behavior of "stinking thinking" or we can choose the path of listening, not reacting, thinking and then behaving rationally. Sometimes that thinking requires other ears.

On Saturday night J.W. was at my house spending time with our daughter. I usually leave when he comes over to visit so I can remain in "NC." When I got home that evening at the end of his visit he began to criticize my recent behavior. He criticized my turning his phone off, he criticized my decision not to let our daughter go to his house for overnight visits, he criticize my "fearful" nature. I usually put on the armor of God when I walk into that kind of situation with him but I was off guard on Saturday. When he finished his diatribe I jumped in with my own criticism of him. I told him that I didn't know his new roommate (who he met on Craig's List) and that I didn't trust him with my daughter. I've done a background check on this person and he doesn't exist. I don't think J.W. gave me the real name of the person with whom he is living because as always he just doesn't want me to know the entire truth. He came back with, "how do I know that your brother isn't a child molester?" My brother is my best friend and of course J. W. knew this would push my buttons good. And it did. I lost my mind and went right back to the insanity. I screamed, "get out of my house, get out of my house!" As I slammed the door behind him I called him a few choice words.

So today I work on that hole in the armor. I work on not becoming completely numb but how to know when he is working me and I'm allowing him to by going back to old, non-healthy places. I work on placing his option of me and my family in a really low position. I remember the phrase, "I just doesn't matter, he just not that important."

Heartbroken.....and just plan broken....

When I was a kid summer was spent outside. My bro and I would leave home early in the morning and not re-enter our home until almost dark some days. We would play baseball hitting cow patties instead of balls because our dog, George, would steal our balls and hide them from us; we would explore pastures having adventures for hours on end; or role play cowboys and Indians. Mom and Dad knew where we were or at least knew within about 200 acres of where we were.

Those were the days before Adam Walsh, Somer Thompson, Charish Perriwinkle, and sadly, many, many, more. Who are these children? These are children who were abducted and killed by sex offenders. There are mean, evil, broken people in the world who do unthinkingly awful, horrible things. Sex offenders are definitely broken people. These broken people do things that render innocent, helpless people heartbroken.

Adam Walsh was watching some older boys play video games in Sears while his Mom shopped for a lamp. He was out of her sight for seven minutes. Somer Thompson was walking the mile home from school with her twin brother and older sister as she did everyday. Somer got in an argument with an older girl and ran the other direction. Her sister thought she would catch up with the group. She didn't. Charish Perriwinkle was with her Mother, brother, and sister in Wal-Mart last Friday night when they befriended a creepy but nice man who offered to buy Charish a cheeseburger at the McDonalds inside the store. Charish disappeared with the man before her Mother could even give her permission to walk away.

My heartbreaks for the families of these children. My heartbreaks for the Mothers. I can honestly say that to lose Kate is my greatest nightmare.

When in a store I NEVER take my eyes off of Kate, I wait to watch her enter in the doors of her school every morning when I drop her off, and I NEVER let her go outside our house in our neighborhood by herself. There are many other precautions I take  to keep her safe but none of this is a guarantee.

I don't blame the victims or their families in these cases. I do think part of the issue is that we feel safe. We trust the people in our communities. Another part of the issue or problem is lack of education. We know our neighbors and love our neighborhood, we love our school, we know many of the people who work in the stores in our area. BUT for us there's a registered sex offender who lives three miles from our house.

And here's my rant: We have a new neighbor. She's eight years old. She moved in to the house two doors down on April 1. Kate loves to play with her.  When school was in session our neighbor, who we will call Jane, came out to play when her Mom or Dad got home around 5:30pm. She and Kate could play for about an hour until we had to go in to have dinner. Now that it's summer and most children aren't in school Jane has no bedtime or curfew. She rang my doorbell on Friday night at 8:20pm looking for Kate. Kate goes to bed most nights at 8:00pm.  "We  have a schedule," I told the girl.  She said, "Why? It's summer."

I'm not really bothered that she rang my doorbell at 8:20pm, I'm bothered because she and a five year old boy from the neighborhood were running the streets without ANY adult supervision at 8:20pm! I don't know her parents and I've only seen them a handful of times but the next time I see them I'll fill their ears full.

Friday night while a little girl was losing her life in Jacksonville, FL these children were wandering our neighborhood alone. I'm heartbroken that Charish won't have a chance to start third grade, to graduate from high school, or go to college. AND I'm heartbroken that some parents don't see the danger that lurks in our quaint, safe neighborhoods.

I'm also heartbroken that Kate will probably never know the freedom that my bro and I knew as children.  Running through pastures without a care in the world and certainly without fear. I can still remember the smell of freedom.

These are certainly different times with different sorts of people.  Broken people as well as heartbroken....