he did what...?

i have a question of addiction...how does someone who has over indulged in alcohol- and i mean hard-fucking-core imbibing - for over 50 years just...stop?

it's a question that i've been asking myself for a few days now after i found out that someone close to me, who, as much as i am loathe and ashamed to admit,  i personally had accepted would be found dead in a gutter somewhere pretty much any day now, stopped drinking 5 months ago.  just made a decision that he wasn't going to drink anymore and put it the fuck DOWN. no rehab, no weaning, no sponsorship, no 12 step program, nothing. just stopped drinking.  and if that wasn't a big enough chunk to gnaw off, he stopped smoking as well.  cigarettes, not weed...he's not completely crazy.

i know people who have quit smoking and i know people who have quit drinking.  among them are those who just stopped one day, as well as those who struggled and backslid for YEARS before they were successful.  i know people who are sure they will die if they even attempt to quit smoking. i know people that would rather die than quit drinking. i have been exposed to addiction my entire life.  i live in fear of it's grip, not over me as much as over my children.  i firmly believe that the weakness for alcoholism, most likely to addiction in general, is a genetic predisposition. it is too prevalent in my family tree for me to ignore.

so...the question remains - how is it possible?  could he have not been addicted at all...?  over the years, alcohol has cost him jobs, relationships, homes, and other things - all just too numerous to count...is it possible that he just forrest gumped?  did he simply decide one day - after 50 years, 2 months, 14 days and 16 hours - that he was just "pretty tired"?

someday, i will ask him...for now i am still processing.  and happy for him.  really really happy for him.

the Tao and my anxiety

today is anxious.
i can't quite pinpoint why...i'm not sleeping well, i'm not eating much, i have a constant headache, i'm restless and bored, yet don't want to get out of bed.  i have plans to be away next week and i'm wishing i hadn't made them...although being away is always helpful, i know the anxiety always returns as soon as i have to.

i'm about sick of this shit.  i want to be happy when i open my eyes in the morning, not think "fuck...still here, still me".  i want to be enthusiastic about ANYTHING on a daily basis.  about life in general, for cripes sake...and so,

i'm starting to read the Tao...which is really interesting for me because i have never put any stock in anything like it before.  a friend of mine is really into it and just talking to him has helped, but then he turned me onto a video that has really started to change my way of thinking about my life - but it's such a fucking struggle to maintain a straight thought or keep my attention on anything for very long...regardless, it keeps pulling me back - i thought it was totally worth the 2 hours to watch it.  in fact, i've watched it twice already and gleaned even more from it the second time through.  it's about how we set traps for ourselves - and those around us - and get so wrapped up in our surroundings and our accomplishments and our things, that we forget to actually live our lives. it's powerful and practically slapped me in the face when i first started to watch it.  i found myself tearing up - i KNOW! - and furiously scribbling down notes, stopping the video and backing it up so i could hear something again. it's got a powerful message if you are ready to listen, because if you don't listen, you can't hear...

Dr Wayne Dyer: Ambition to Meaning - The Shift

so anyway, Dr Dyer references the Tao Te Ching, the things he had to say made me want to check it out for myself. the Tao is made up of verses to study and apply to your own life, to your own story. it's very cool. it's pretty deep, but so relative and powerful. i needed to read someone else's interpretation, cause it was all too much for my brain, it so happens that Dr Dyer took a full year to study the Tao and gives his interpretation, along with ideas for ways you can practice it in your own life.

Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao

 i can only take one verse at a time, but i study it and try to apply it to my day for a couple of days...it's interesting, and it really is starting to change the way i look at things. AND i just realized that my anxiety has quieted down considerably just writing about it.

baby steps...

I Am Red.

Before you launch into this, make no mistake, this is indeed a pity party - but it was truly intended to be a personal one.  I decided to share it with you for a few different reasons.  Mainly due to the possibility that the mistakes I've made might help you avoid going through something like this down the road.  Personally, I was launched into the real world completely unprepared.  I can't remember if I was ever actually told that I could be anything, do anything, or achieve anything I wanted. What I do know, in retrospect, is that I set out searching for really nothing more than a safe haven in which I could spend the rest of my life...a place where I could love and be loved unconditionally. Never having been accused of being an over-achiever, I realize that this wasn't an incredibly grand plan, not incredibly ambitious or motivated. But it sounded nice to me then - comfortable and happy.   I still crave it to this day. It seems destined to remain just out of reach. and that is one of the shittiest feelings i've ever experienced.

I am red.

I am blue.

I am green.

I am yellow.

I am black.

I am angry.

I am sad.

I am envious.

I am anxious.

I am resentful.

I feel tricked and taken advantage of.  I feel like I have given everything I am and everything I have to people that cannot - or will not - consider giving back in my time of need.  There is no room right now for sacrifice in their hearts or in their lives.  They are too consumed with themselves and what they want.  They know that I am trapped without their help. They care, but not enough to change things.  Not enough to sacrifice for the one who has always done the sacrificing.

I feel devastated that when I finally get on my knees and beg for something that I think I truly need, I am led along like a fool, believing the lies half-truths because my survival depends on the outcome.  Clinging to what I know in my heart is probably too good to be true. And it turns out to be exactly that, just a cruel joke.  "Sorry, changed my mind…thought I could, said I would, but nope turns out I can’t/won’t/whatever help you.  But hey, hang in there buckaroo…it’s only 4 more years in your personal living Hell, you've survived more than that already, what's the big deal. get over it"

The big deal is that I feel such overwhelming, all-consuming sadness because my happiness has been relegated to the back burner, once again.  It’s how it has always been.  Their needs come first.  Mine are still secondary and always have been.  That is what I committed to when I got married, when I had children --- a life of sacrifice and of burying needs, wants and desires if they don’t mesh nicely with everyone else’s.  They don’t tell you when you are signing up that you are really signing off.  And now I have become a martyr.  Grrrrreat, the one thing I have always despised in my own mother is now my personal reality. The apple really doesn't fall far, does it?

Fuck.

I’m envious of those in my life that are fortunate enough to be in a place they love, surrounded by people that they love. Happy in their every days.  Ups and downs, yes.  But genuinely happy in the lives they have created for themselves.  I envy those who didn't make the same mistakes that I made, and those that perhaps made the mistakes, but were able to survive them and become stronger because of them.  My strength has been used up - I have summoned it in the past, it has helped me get through some tough shit along the way and it has gotten me to where i am now.  but...now...here, I no longer feel strong. I now feel broken.

Broken and anxious.  I am almost completely anxiety-driven when I am home.  I rarely eat. I have no motivation – I can’t stop stressing about what my life has become long enough to focus on anything.  I can’t sleep and when I do, I have dreams of stress and of being helpless.  Dreams of things falling apart around me with no clue as to how to stop it, let alone any power to protect those that I love.  I have dreams of spinning in circles with devastation surrounding me and people I love crying out for help, but I can’t find them in my dream.  I can’t find them and I can’t help them.  I have to listen to their cries and their pleas for help. I am powerless to do anything.  Then I wake up and realize nothing has changed.  I might as well still be dreaming.  I am powerless; I am broken.

I am resentful.  I am trying so hard to bury the anger and the hate and the blame and the RESENTMENT.  I know that I am responsible for the choices I have made.  I know that where I am is ultimately because of me.  I know that I chose this life.  But this is not the life I thought I was choosing.  All I ever really wanted was to matter.  To be loved and respected and needed.  By the people that I loved and respected and needed.  It hasn't worked out like that.  My kids won’t learn this shit until the damage is already done.  And yea, I’m pissed.  Between them and their dad, I have given everything I had to give, my body, my mental stability, my livelihood.  I have given up jobs, relationships and homes that I loved. I gave up a life that I had treasured, that brought me joy and happiness. I gave it all up for them.  Because I believed it was the best thing for them. I have gone to bat for each one of them when they felt they were being wronged, I have cultivated enemies on their behalf, I have supported them in everything {legal} that they thought they wanted to do – even the stupid, oh-so-stupid, shit.  I HAD THEIR BACKS.  ME.  Because that was my job.  That was my commitment to them when I married him and conceived them.  I didn't do it for the payback.  I have never asked for a payback.  I have asked for consideration, I have asked for respect, I have asked for cooperation.  And yes, I asked for support, and I dared believe that I would get it.

I have never felt more insignificant or alone as I do in the life that i have created, right here and right now.

(illegal) conversations while driving...

i was talking on the phone with a friend today who has been having some trouble with her teenagers.  (she says as if this is headline news in ANY dimension).  she was very upset at a pretty serious turn of events of late regarding her kids. very upset.  lots of guilt and embarrassment and feelings of failure. again, typical - i think - for the average mother of teenagers to experience. the little bastards suck the life right out of you.  there is a reason God made us love them so fucking much...but, i digress.

so, back to HER story...she was crying and i was trying to put a positive, if not bright, spin on the situation, asking a few questions and getting a few answers in return.  between us we had established that this new situation was probably, ultimately a pretty good thing to have happened.  timing, location...all of it - seemed really shitty on the surface, but when we broke it down we both realized that it was not as horrible as it had at first seemed.  still not an ideal situation, but far from as bad as it could have been in the grand scheme of things. in fact, parts of it were actually going to work out rather awesomely.

having made her giggle at something stupid - yet visually hysterical, i might add - we were wrapping up our conversation and i said to her "i am such a firm believer that things really do happen for a reason - we don't always get it, but that doesn't mean that we won't some day" and she says to me in her soft, tear-hitchy voice, "i've been praying for answers lately, anything to help me help my kids before it's too late."

this may not seem huge, or revelational (is that a word?) or anything out of the ordinary to you, but i experienced a DUH moment that instant...this situation we had been discussing - this PROBLEM - was the answer to those prayers she had just mentioned as an afterthought.  not how she had imagined they would be answered, to be sure...but damn, i pert-near heard the tabernacle choir belting out a hallelujah right then. i literally got goosebumps.

now, you may or may not believe in a higher power.  maybe you believe instead in the power of positive thinking or maybe you think that faith is simply misguided desperation.  whatever, for me this was powerful shit.  so powerful that i'm still thinking about it 7 and a half hours later and it fills me with this...this...hope.  it leads me to think that perhaps my life isn't just a badly written soap opera...that maybe there is a path for me and that i just have to pay better attention to where i am being guided.  maybe i need to allow myself to BE guided.  maybe i need to toss aside my preconceived notions of where i think i should be going and what i think i should be doing, and what i think the answers are, effectively ending the constant struggle i have within myself to direct everything towards my idea of the endgame.  what if i just continue to do what i know to be the right things, but allow other things - things i really have no clue about - to just...........happen?
whoa.
is that lame? is that giving up? bending over? CAPITULATION?
i don't know.
i will tell you that it gave me the first ray of hope that i have had in a long while.  i even experienced a split second of clarity.  so that must be a god thing, right?
that was a total typo.  i swear i typed "so that must be a good thing"

so anyway - there's this

and, on that note...i think it's time for mr nyquil to tuck me into bed   :)

pert near time to shit, or get.

lots to process these days.

big changes are looming, decisions to make, paths to take...it's time to at least pretend like i'm a grown-up for awhile.

*sigh*

divorce papers are signed - after 7 years.  hell, after 20 years - it was a long road, rewarding in so many ways.  no regrets.  we have now each retreated to our corners and are taking a breath.  we are still partners in parenting and we are - amazingly - friends.  seems we have always been headed in two different directions...and now we find that, finally, it works.

i have so many decisions to make and i find that all i want to do is run away.  from everything.  i can't breathe here, i need to breathe.  i'm circling - shit, i'm balls out spinning - around and around.  don't know where to stop, don't know where to start.  i have people depending upon me, depending upon the decisions i make.  i don't want to make any of them, i just want to fade out.  i have people counting on me to do the things that are right for them.  i've rarely ever done the right thing.  and now, it appears that it's really important. totally fucking sucks. (she says in her new grown-up, responsibility-laden voice).

it's changing me. i feel it, from the inside.  it's frightening because i have no idea what the result will be. truly...none.  for such a long time, i've just ambled along just doing my thing.  going where i'm supposed to go, doing what i'm supposed to do, then making the time to do what i wanted. what if i no longer know what i want?  what if i never really did?  i stop, step back and take a look at shawna and wonder what the fuck her life is even about now.

i dig me, i just confuse the shit outta me.  i make things so much harder than they need to be.  it's a great time in my life...i'm starting to feel the freedoms that come when your kids branch off and start to do their own things.  one kid is moved on to do his own grown-up thing.  i feel for him...i remember when i first became aware of real responsibility.  i remember wanting to run back home, dive behind my mom and say "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?".  i feel for him because he is in such a hurry to get moving in his life - we always are.  i get it, but i still feel pangs of sadness for what lies ahead of him. having to back away from mama-bear mode is very hard for me.  i know he has mistakes to make, i know he may fall.  i believe he is strong enough to get back up and straighten the shit out, but it still frightens me.  another kid seems to be growing emotionally right before my eyes.  it may be a temporary thing, but what i am seeing is helping to ease some of the stress.  thank God.  yet a third kid is beginning a whole new chapter in her life these days.  she too, is growing before my eyes - here it is more of a physical/mental thing.  she is growing but she is just now entering a whole new realm of reality for all of us:  a teen-aged daughter/sister/creature-with-snake-hair/whatever thing.  she will change each and every one of us, in one way or another.

i am at a crossroads.  a natural one, i get that, but no less frightening than any other has been for me.  i just don't do change well...looking back into the past on some of the biggest changes that have occurred in my life, i realize that i have rarely handled them well, emotionally.  i realize that after the dust settles, i tend to flail about for a good while longer.  trying to find *my* ground.  sometimes it takes awhile.   i will see to it that the things that need to be taken care of, are...but won't be surprised if i wander off in my head afterwards to sort it all out.

baby steps.  fuck this day-at-a-time crap.  i WANT to take it one bottle at a time, but even *I* know that isn't the way to handle things.  :)

how about we do this one hour at a time. i think i can do that.

all kindsa fucked up.

i was told last week that i was to not blog about what's been going on in my life.  it's private, shawna...keep it that way.  know what?  this is me...giving a shit about what you think.  i communicate, it's what i do...i realize that's a foreign concept to you.  oh, and you know what else?  ...fuck you.  just because you continue to hide everything away so no one will ever discover the truth about you, doesn't mean i have to.  not any longer. you aren't my real dad.  my real dad digs me.


<3 i love you, real dad <3

i am in turmoil.  like i haven't been in a really long time...things keep hitting me from all sides and i'm buckling.  seriously.  i truly am a weak person.  sure, i can be strong on the outside and around people i don't love. i will protect and shield those i do love, when they need it.  but, get me inside, surrounded by my heart and i am a complete mess.  i cry, i question everything i've ever done.  it blows balls.  i am all kindsa fucked up.

out of respect for those involved, i won't go into details, as much as i feel the desire to...i will say that i have hit a wall in one respect - i'm out of ideas. i've beat my head against this for about 3 years now over the same thing.  even when it appears to be, it's not better, just smoke and mirrors.
{hahahahaaaa, omg i just made a joke and you have no clue.  seriously, i think i'm finally going bat-shit crazy.  ok...back to the surface i go.}
the truth is, nothing has really changed in this situation...all of the talking and rationalizing and deal-making.  none of it seems to have made any difference...it's still going downhill.  or at the very least, plateaued at a not-so-great-actually-rather-shitty-when-you-really-look-at-it level.  i went to my final at-bat with regards to this last week and i'm pretty sure i have still failed.  time will tell, but it's not looking good.  does there comes a point in certain relationships where it's better if we say "fuck it, i really truly gave it my all and i don't know what else to do" and let the chips fall where they fall?  is there really is a point in which you can do no more to help someone see a positive path?  this will come back to bite me in the ass, i have no doubt.  somehow, it will fall back on me - but i really truly have no other aces up my sleeve right now.  it's quite possibly time to let what will be, be.

on another front, i have been fucked over by my personal sense of trust and judgement.  it is really messing with my head.  someone i trusted with all of me turned out to be nothing but a manipulative piece of judgmental, psychotic shit.  don't really want to talk about that.  it is very nerve-wracking.  but, i find myself questioning every thing and worse, every ONE right now. good on you, you piece of shit...you have infiltrated the inner sanctum.  you have fun with that...you fucked up mother-fucker.

lastly - i don't mean to be cryptic, but stick with me here, i do have to protect the "innocent" - someone close to me is echoing someone else who used to be close to me.  in a very painful way and, therefore...it really fucking hurts. bad.  like a knife directly into my gut and then twisted over and over again, bad.  back to the questioning everything.  this has me rethinking everything i've spent the last 25 years doing.  everything.  think about it.   go back 25 years and question the direction you set off in back then.  maybe you shouldn't have taken that particular path, eh?  maybe, just maybe, you should have done something COMPLETELY different.   like, oh...i dunno...become an astronaut, a hobo, a fucking nun*, for that matter...ANYthing other than what you chose.  you were clearly not cut out for this shit. in fact, you are definitely sucking at it.  you are sucking at your chosen way of being a contributing member of life right now.


(*hahahhaaaaa...i said "a fucking nun").


these things have me seriously wondering if i may really, honestly be a certifiable head-case. (all together now..."nooooo, really?")  it would maybe not explain everything, but would at least give a reasonable platform for all that is fucked up.  normally, i would think that possibility was totally cool and bask in it, but i still have to be a responsible person for some people in my life.  ball-blowing, i say.

it's a shitty place to be and i'm really trying to find happy-shawna - she is still in there, just squashed a bit by feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness.  usually this passes, but i've never actually been up against what i am facing now.  i'm a little bit scared, and that just doesn't happen that often. i'm not sure what to do with it.

hold on loosely, bisshes....don't let go.