Why Now...

Since 2009, I've been divorced, gone through 4 or 5 job titles, children milestones, house refinances twice.  Just lots and lots of challenges and redirections and terrible choices in relationships, dates, but some good choices too.  Just day in and day out. Same SHIT. Different Day. I felt like that hamster in a wheel, just running along like the rest of the world.  My purpose was to work, make a paycheck, put food on the table, roof over our heads.

• I was becoming less emotional, more stoic and strong. I was a single parent, that was my choice, right?
• I was learning to be less sensitive, and more rational. Follow instructions.
• Less color in my world, more black and white - less gray areas.
• I knew my boundaries. I learn from past mistakes. I don't make them again.
• I knew my priorities were my health, my children and a roof over our heads and food to eat.

I purposely chose to make less connections with other parents, teachers, neighbors, family members, co-workers, & potential friends by keeping my boundary lines thick and unbreakable.  This helped keep my mental state healthy. No drama - I didn't have the "bandwidth" to deal with other people's problems.

No matter what, my children's safety and my job to keep them physically and mentally healthy was above caring for anyone else - and that was always the bottom line. There was no negotiating with my job as a parent. 

At least I thought I was doing it right.

I've learned today that life doesn't work that way. There has to be a balance. I have to take care of me. There's my happiness too that matters.  Is it healthy for my children to see my cry everyday? To see me in despair, to go to work like a hamster and be a role model of a inhuman robot?

Last July 2017, I witnessed something, to me was black and white thickest boundary line, and no matter what - it was a no-brainer decision to keep my children safe and my emotional and mental health in tact.  So, I made a decision.  It did the trick. It kept my children safe. I sacrificed my own happiness.

However, unbeknownst to me, it wreaked havoc to my emotional, mental and physical health and still does to this day.   It's gotten me into such a deep despair, that I've gone to the last entity I thought could ever help me. - God.    Yesterday and before, I would have laughed and said, "What a joke!  Who could be so far gone beyond hope that you'd seek a god!"

I did, and I'll only admit it here and I admitted it to my Al-Anon group tonight. 

It's my 3rd different Al-Anon group.  Like seeking the right fit, I had to try different groups of meetings to find where I fit in. Tonight, I think I found it. It's a ways away to drive; but it's at night and I can make that work in my schedule and come every week. 

They embraced me.   What made me decide this was my group?

I shared my basic story. My struggle to understand. My challenge to figure out what my part is to play in all this. Why I can't just "let it go". Why I've been spared this kind of thing all my life, and why it's introduced itself in my life now. Nobody says anything at these meetings to your story. You share a part and others share their part, and you pray for peace at the end and then you leave.

I got in my car and as I was driving away, I broke down and sobbed uncontrollably for 30 minutes.

I knew I found 'hope' - that reason to get up in the morning and hope to finding that reason to breathe in and breathe out every day.