I feel like Kramer… always running into a meeting or a class, sliding in on my heels - arms flinging as I slam the door open and rush into take my place….whether it be a class at the gym, a doctor’s appointment, a meeting or even coming home, it seems that all I do is rush, rush, rush.  Take yesterday, for example.  I had my day all planned out (yeah, like that’s really going to work).  I had just been to an amazing symposium on addictive disorders and was going to spend the entire day researching and processing all the…

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

I’ve been humming…

I was listening to a speaker talk about how life is often spoken of as a game. I haven’t felt that it was much fun playing the game of life until I came to Al-Anon. In thinking about my life and the stages that I’ve gone through, several things come to mind as to how I’ve played the game.

1. Don’t play at all–just give up. During the last few years when things were so bad and I felt hopeless, I came as close to giving up as I could. I simply had enough of the anger, moodiness, emptiness and depression.…

I moved.  I hate moving but I moved and in the process of moving I came across a bunch of stuff that I thought I’d gotten rid of, among them the letters I received from the last object of my obsession during his last committment to the Idaho State Correctional Institution.

The letters that said he was sorry.  The letters that said he loved me.  The letters that said let’s wipe the slate clean.

The letters that I he sent me before the last time he got out and then showed up in the same meetings I go to and treated me…

what do you do

when you see that one

whom your heart aches for a great deal

whom you want to take

and comfort yet shake

give them something to get them to heal

for i know where you were

and where you could be

since you started from same point as me????

it hurts so much

to see you as such

that i turn away feeling empty

every time i see you

you bring tears to my eye

i’ve decided

the best is to hide

from you, your life

it hurts too much

to see nothing change

while at straws i clutch

and i wonder if joy

is in your life

what thoughts you have

when you close your eyes

do waking moments

mean…

So my husband is back home, somewhat against my will. He’s home against the part of my will that is sane, healthy, and serves my best interest. The other part of my will is thrilled. The other part of my will wanted him to come home for sure, with no reservations, no hesitations.

So far, it’s been ok. The sane part of me set some boundaries and made sure that we have a deadline for checking in to see if those boundaries are being met. The crazy part of me couldn’t wait to get my clothes off, get his clothes off,…

Breaking up is hard. It’s hard in any circumstances, and I’m remembering some of the interesting mental acrobatics that I’ve engaged in previously in breakups as they come back up again. For instance, I am already plotting conversations I can have with my husband in November. I’ve prepaid our veterinary expenses for the year, for instance, so I am planning to be able to talk to him in a few weeks to tell him we need to talk his dog to the vet.

The last time I was engaged in the messiness of ending a relationship, however, I was no longer…

My daughter, Janie, came home from kindergarten this week excitedly telling me about the journal she has started keeping at school.  At five, she and her classmates can’t write much, but her teacher has them draw pictures if they’d like instead.

I told my daughter that I keep a journal too, only it’s in words instead of pictures.  I’ve been keeping journals on and off since about age nine, with early entries consisting primarily of details about what I watched on TV and ate for dinner and later entries increasingly concerning puzzles about myself I was trying to work out.

Before my…