When one door closes ... I pound on it!

I live my life like a warrior. I put a goal in my head, put blinders on, and charge straight toward my goal. Like a bull charging a red cape, I am going to nail that red thing. I focus on it, snort my nose, stamp my feet and CHARGE. Only to have the Matador sweep the cape away just when I can smell the sweet scent of victory.

My goal can be anything, is often what I think I really want and often not what's best for me. It's often someone else's idea of what "should" make me happy - an aspiration few others have accomplished. An income, a man, a status, a title, or an address that others will envy. It's never something that's in my heart - always from my head - and it's never god's vision for my life. I have my own vision of what's going to get me love because I am so much smarter than god ever was. I'm gonna make it happen. I power through.

The price I pay for charging so hard is that, just like the bull that gets a dagger plunged into his neck, I pay dearly for each pass. I don't pay in blood, too often, but I do pay in broken friendships, a weakened trust in god's goodness, I miss the beautiful scenery along the way, physical wear and tear, long days and short nights, years of wasted trying to "be someone".

The funny thing is; powering through stuff rarely works. Ok, it works when I am itemizing expenses or finishing the last mile of my run but little else.

I do this visualization where I talk to god and most of what I hear from him these days is laughter, which is better than what I got in the past. In the past, when I would ask "when is my father was going to be the father that I want" I could hear the voice of Obi-Wan from Star Wars say "Denial is strong in this one". I hope that means my relationship with god is getting better.

These days, I don't run into the same closed door ... for as long as I used to. I find myself sitting dazed on the shiny hardwood floor in front of the door, fist sore from pounding. My reflex is to contemplate what I did wrong this time and how to do the same thing, only different enough to make it work this time but instead, I remind myself to take a deep breath.

As I breath deeply and wait for the stars circling my dazed head to stop, I breath into my heart. I visualize the breath going into and expanding my diligently pounding heart. I then watch as I breathe out and my heart contracts with the exhale. After doing this for a minute or two my brainwaves sync with my heart waves and my heart reminds me that there are other doors. I turn around and look down the long corridor behind me and realize that I have been charging past, not one, but two doors that are open a crack.

I have plenty of other options. Two that I never knew existed when I was scared and operating out of my head. My head tricks me. My head tells me that there is only one "right way" to do something and if I don't do it that way I won't be happy. My fear lives in my head. There is no fear in my heart. My heart holds only gentleness, love and laughter. The same laughter I hear when I talk to god these days.

Running from Daddy

I hate father's day. I hate ties, I hate socks, I hate semi-automatic weapons. I hate rar rar rar or the tool guy or mowing the lawn. I hate that there was never anyone to protect me...from my own dad. I hate that there was never anyone to lean on.

Men think it's so cool to have a daughter that can take care of herself. A daughter that is tough, that can handle her own, that makes big money. A man likes a daughter that he doesn't have to "worry about" - but that's not the woman that he wants as a wife. A man needs a woman that needs him. That looks up to him. That adores him.

The marriages that last are the ones where BOTH people think they are marrying up.

I never had a dad that took care of me so I grew that muscle on my own. I learned that vulnerability was weakness. I work on cars, I can get things done, I do projects around the house, I protect the people around me. I can play that man role.

It also means that if I am the man then there is no room for a man in my life. It means that at 46, I have been divorced three times. My first relationships were power struggles. Then I emasculated the last one. He didn't feel needed so he found someone that made him feel needed.

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the amazing life that I have had. I'm just grumpy on father's day.

I grew up with crazy...but, we called it normal

I was chatting with a friend of mine last night. She lived with an out of control addict for 20+ years. Her kids got into recovery when they were 8 and 10. For years they begged for her to leave the "bastard". After more than 10 years of recovery my friend was finally strong enough to get a divorce. By then the kids were grown. Now the grown kids; also known as Adult Children, the same kids that could see the dysfunction in their parents, are recreating their early childhood patterns in their adult lives. Both of the "kids" married alcoholics.

They had already walked through that pain and trauma of childhood and survived, why would they choose all of that suffering for themselves?

For me, it's so much easier to see someone else's crazy behavior than it is to see mine. I don't even realize what I do. If I could have seen my crazy behavior from outside the fog of emotion and reaction of the moment, I am sure I was the one that looked totally nuts. I remember having a conversation with a friend about my mom's death and I smiled at an inappropriate time - a signal that I was getting significance from my mom's murder - and I didn't realize I had smiled. I was so disconnected from my emotions that it took the guidance of a friend to know that about myself.

I grew up with crazy and recreated crazy as an adult. I watched my parents fight and get divorced and then my mother's murder. My dad was a narcissist - totally unaware of anyone's needs but his own - so I modeled that "love" by marrying addicts. When I was in my early 30s I was in an abusive relationship. It was a power struggle just like my parent's rocky relationship. I remember thinking - clear as day - this is the man that will kill me. Just like it was having lunch on Friday. I expected to live - and die - the same life of my parents.

I read about this goose that was separated from it's mom while it was just an egg. A kind helpful human incubated the egg and when the chick was born it imprinted on the person. It called the person "mom". That goose ALWAYS walked upright like a person vs waddling like a goose. That was it's model for the world and it didn't even realize that it's not "supposed" to walk that way. That's how I was before I got into recovery, I didn't even know that love doesn't hurt, being hit or called names or stony silence is abuse, or that God's wish for me is perfect happiness.