Thoughts from Panda

I think the the stress level in the little orbit of my life has increased across the board. I cannot begin to describe what that does to the body, mind and spirit. I know that Laura just got layed off and the insurance thing at work has me a little on edge. I know that this will all be another stepping stone on a path to higher ground, however, it is nearly impossible to see that far in front of my face. I am struggling to be positive and little miss optimistic, and I only hope that I will rise to the occasion and shine through.

Terrible news today. Daren, Rachelle’s brother, was found today. He hadn’t showed up to work, wouldn’t answer the phone or the door. So today Betty and Rick went and broke into the apartment. They found him…..but it was too late. I can’t seem to really place how I feel on this. Chelly called me hysterical. Laura and I were on our way home from work when she called. She asked if I could take David home (she left him at our house while she was at work) and then told me that Daren was dead. I became my normal comforting self, and just wanted to help her. I hate hearing anyone that upset. I know that they were close and it is the only brother she has that she gets along with. Rick and her don’t really mesh well and Daren has always been Rachelle’s friend. He was doing amazing too…..he just graduated his program and had been completely sober from alcohol for over 300 days.  That’s amazing to an alcoholic. They just spent the weekend together in Idaho when her grandpa died a few weeks ago. I didn’t even know how to comfort her.

So I dropped Laura off at home, picked David up and took him home. When I was in the car alone that is when I started to think. I started to cry. I never really made my amends to him. We dated while I was pregnant and when Gage was first born. He was amazing to me. I know that I was in a bad situation and I was lonely. I thought that I was doomed to be alone and he payed attention to me. He made me feel like I was alright. Like I could eventually be happty. He was there trying to win me over (an impossible feat unfortunately) while I was starting to do drugs. I started  to do them more and more. I started to do them while we were out on dates. I was high when I was with him. I did drugs in his bathroom. I was high when I slept with him. I was miserable and faking that I was all there.

Then when I got kicked out of my house and my parents took my son I blew him off like he didn’t even matter. He did matter! I cared a lot about him, but in the middle of my addiction I shoved him off.

The worst part about all this is that because of my stupid guilt that I run on, I have avoided him like the plague. He never even knew what went wrong or why I acted like such an ass. Well I am sure that Rachelle and Betty have talked to him and I know that Rachelle says that he was fine with me……hell, I saw him at Rachelle’s wedding to Danny, when I first got out of jail. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I have seen him several times……we took him to an AA meeting with us a couple of months ago. I saw him at Christmas. God has given me so many opportunities to make aments to him and I never did it. I hide inside myself and avoid the uncomfortable. I haven’t even made any of my real amends and I have been sober for 4 years. How pathetic is that.

I have mended the relationships that I wanted to mend. I have made partial amends along the way…..as long as I got what I wanted right. That self centered, self seeking addict is all I feel like I am. Why haven’t I truly made my steps a priority? How have I stayed sober and not made my recovery my number one. I don’t deserve any better than I have right now because I haven’t truly made all the necessary steps towards making the lives of the people I harmed better.

I know that everything happens for a reason…..sometimes I just can’t see it.  He was too young to just die. They don’t even know why he died yet or what he died of. I never got to say how sorry I was and how great of a person I thought he was. It was uncomfortable for me to face him. I don’t like the person that I was back then and it is hard for me to face it. I am starting to realize now how weak I am……..I need to face all of it~!!!! I need to make my amends and say the things that I know that I should before its too late. I only have today!!! I can only count on right now!!! I can only blame me, and I am the only one who can do anything about it.

For the record…..Thank you Daren, for being such a great guy at a time when I had no one I could talk to. Thank you for seeing good in me when I had lost touch of who I was. Thank you for treating me like a lady and wanting me, even if I didn’t feel the same. I am sorry that I wasn’t  fair to you, that I wasn’t honest or trustworthy. I am sorry for all the drugs that I was doing that you didn’t know about. I sorry for bringing them into your home. I am sorry for walking away without giving you any reason, for never telling you what I was really all about. I am ashamed of allot of my actions, and I regret putting you in the middle of my troubles at the time. I know that we did have fun together and I wish I could have understood that we could have been great friends. I know that it is my fault that things went the way they did, and if I could have been honest with myself and you……that we could have been friends to this day. We had so much to talk about and you were always so respectful. So I guess what it comes down to is…….Thank you, and I’m sorry.

Life seems to be focusing in around my sobriety right now. I feel all tied in knots inside, and I need to work it out with words. I remember every day why I am sober, and why I am still involved in recovery. I remember what it feels like to honestly wish that death would take me. I remember so much of the thoughts and feelings I had even if the details are blurry. I had a dream the other night that had me right back inside it all. The high, the escape, the desperation. I woke up to realize that I had carried the dream on into consciousness. Have you ever done that? Realized that you have been awake for a second or two, and your dream is still playing itself out in full technicolor. I don’t believe in coincidences or chance……everything happens for a reason. A lesson to be learned or a challenge to be over come. My mind is my enemy most of the time and it has so much power that I believe for a certainty that it is telling me the truth. The truth, it seems, is as relative as the questions that are asked. I am an addict. I know that because of the evidence that has been so graciously provided over the years. The evidence that is still being provided, sometimes on a daily basis.

After I woke up from that dream we got a phone call. One of our friends in the program died of an overdose on New Years.  He was on the Rockies committee with us last year. He was young and smart, and doing all the service work he could. Here is another reminder of where this disease takes us.

Someone said at the meeting tonight, “He died so that you don’t have to.” It sends a shock wave through my heart to hear that. To realize that just hearing about his death means that I have been given another chance. A chance to take a look at my recovery and see what it means to me to be alive today.

That couldn’t even begin to describe the heart wrenching feeling of tapping our friends shoulder to stop her from nodding off during the meeting. The meeting that we took her to. I need to remember that I am not helping anyone. I give back what was given to me because it saves MY life. Its so frustrating to watch this person. She “messed” up again today. This time back on heroin. I never will understand that drug, but I was a speed freak so I never will. However, so much of her I do relate to. It hurts to watch her go through so many of the motions that I did. The ones that were so in vain.

I remember going home to my parents house so high that I felt like I was detached from my body. I would go home and get into these conversations with my mom. I would talk to her for hours. I would tell her about life and all the things I had figured out. I was trying to make her understand me.  I would tell her all the things I was going to do to fix my problems. I would tell her all my plans and goals. I would pour my brain out for her, and I thought that it was all truth. I thought that I really could be the person that came out of my mouth.

When we picked our friend up, she looked like hell. The first thing she does is get in and start talking. I remember doing the same thing…..”if I just keep talking it will all make sense to them”….She congratulates herself on staying sober the day before and telling us what her goals are and how she is going to fix things. She tells us that it will all be better when…….

I see myself.

Laura doesn’t see herself and she gets frustrated. She tells her that she is not willing. Not willing to really stay sober and do what that takes. Her words are the truth, even though the confrontation in the car has me crawling inside myself.  I see what it feels like to know that she is lying and that she believes her own lies. I feel what it means to try to take those away from her. I can’t do that. I can’t take away the lies from someone, unless they are really ready to give them up. If I didn’t have my lies back then, I would have had no hope at all, and isn’t that what recovery is all about…..hope.

“all it’s about is not using……no matter what.” “your sponsor won’t keep you sober, treatment won’t keep you sober, service work won’t keep you sober, not even God can keep you sober if you don’t put it all together and trust that God can carry you.”

I don’t know what it is that has pulled me this far. Left to my own devices I would have never stopped using. I didn’t want to be sober. All I wanted was to die.  I wasn’t afraid of death, I was more afraid of life. I was afraid that I could never have anything better. I was convinced that this was what life had offered. I was convinced that there was nothing that would take it away. And I look at others now and I think, “How can you not see what you are doing? How can you not see that the world is not going stop for you. How can you ignore all the negative consequences in your life without attributing them to something else”

I know that all the truth, all the reality, and all the consequences couldn’t get me sober. So why is it so hard to look at someone and not understand. It seemed so impossible for me to see what life could be like without the drug, and I didn’t want to try. I felt seriously dependant on it, and yet at the same time……”I must not want to quit bad enough” was my thought process. Because I thought if I wanted to quit bad enough I could. I didn’t realize that without help it was to much for me. Its so easy and in side our comfort zone to follow the patterns of dealing with life. We create this insane process that works for us on the surface, and the surface is so dirty that we can’t see past it.

Did you know that a craving only lasts three seconds. Our mind is what takes it from there and makes it almost unbearable. Even at over four years sober…..I still have to remind myself of that. Stop the thought from turning into a physical feeling. Distract yourself and move on. That is why we live one day…..sometimes one minute at a time.

All I know is that I have a lot of work to do. I have made a promise to myself tonight. No more service work….no more commitments untill I have completed all my step work. I have my own things that need to be worked through. I can’t put anything above my recovery, because without it………..I have nothing else.

I keep wanting to write and I am hoping to have a day when I can play nice and have a good day to write about lol. I am mad right now that my computer for some reason won’t let me on to myspace. Oh well …….. Happy Friday!!!!

So I have decided that in order to get back to the writer inside me I need to start posting on this blog as often as posible. I can’t worry if I have nothing to say or even if I really want to or not. I want to start writing and reaching for that part of me that has always made me happy. I don’t seem to understand myself very much. I strive to do the next right thing and keep my head above water and yet all the things that I know are special to me get pushed to the side. The priority level is so low. Its like I spin my wheels so much that I never seem to remember what I am about.

I am excited to see my son open his presents tomorrow morning and I have  been listening to Christmas music all day, just trying to get in the mood. I am so tired and sore from digging my car out yesterday that all I  really want is to is sleep. We have a half hour before we have to leave and go to my parents house for dinner and it still  doesn’t even feel like Christmas Eve.

I suppose I wonder if I should have done more this year. Besides a serious lack of planning and preparing for the holidays I haven’t done anything for the spirit of the season. No giving to help people or even involved in C.A. which I usually am. I think that in some strange way that if I had done more of that then I wouldn’t have a bah humbug attitude. LOL I don’t know I am just spinning my wheels again and trying to create a habitof writing.

Happy Christmas Eve and I hope that all out there have a beautiful Christmas.

I really don’t know why I don’t just write???? It makes me feel better for some reason to have documented my life in words. That is probably why Laura keeps reminding me that I have to write a book….lol….right….like I have it in me at this point to do that.

I probably shouldn’t write today. I shouldn’t explode onto the screen on a day when it all seems to come crashing down in my head. All the positive walls are striped of their power and the negative and angry thoughts over rule.  I am not in a good mood today although since Christmas is tomorrow I feel guilty for not feeling all cheerful and sickeningly full of holiday spirit. Well this year I don’t feel like I have any. We don’t even have a damn christmas tree. imagin that…the house is sold….so don’t decorate….the house isn’t sold (the day after we had all accepted it of course) but now it’s too late to put up a stupid tree. There are all of nine presents piled in the corner of the living room and that is everything. The pile looks so pathetic. All I got Laura this year is a pair of pants and a sweatshirt. Gage has three presents from me and the rest are family stuff.  This has got to be the worst feeling Christmas I have had. I don’t know why I can’t seem to feel good about anything. Maybe because I don’t have a job with my dad anymore……..lost $1400 a month on that deal. Happened last month……great so I work part time at the Library and have a screwed up schedual so its hard to get another job….grrrr I don’d even want to talk about that. Basically we have no money. We are worse off right now than we were three years ago. At least then Laura had a car……yea its finally done. It failed safety and after we took care of that and got it registered, then it decides to break down at 6AM in a damn snow storm making both of us late to work and pissy. That was yesterday. The snow storm was so bad that I couldn’t come home and sleep in what is my bed at the moment.  I feel very displaced and I hate that my whole life is in storage and as usual I am living out of my car…..the only one we have now. I feel like a guest in this house and yet I claim it because I have to have somewhere that I can be at home.  Well when we can come home…..we spent the night at Laura’s parent last night because of the storm that just so happened to hit the hardest in Utah county, especially Eagle Mountain.  I slept so deep, and restless that it didn’t feel like I slept at all. The got up at 6:30 am and took Laura to work. Then really wanted to come home and sleep for a min before I had to be at work. RIGHT. Well I made it to Eagle Mountain no problem but for some wonderful reason they don’t plow the neigborhood roads…GREAT! So I start to get worried that I am not going to make it, but I still have to shower and get clothes and at least make it in to the house so that I can get on with my day. The 18″ of snow on the roads is making it interesting but my car. ….. despite the bottoming out and sliding seems to be making it.  So I pull onto our road to get to our driveway…..make it about 20 feet and I’m stuck. REALLY STUCK. So I walk to our house and get a shovel. I dig out my car and get as much snow as posibble off the ground around it and I am still stuck. At this point I want to cry, but I keep shoveling and trying to go forward then backwards and shoveling again……….finally I put my car into nuetral and get down in front of the car. Plant my feet in the snow and start to push. I rocked it back and forth for a min…. then I really hurt my self….I pushed as hard as I could twice and I moved it!! I pushed my car enough to go backwards out of the drive. About ten feet from the entrance I got stuck again and the whole proccess started over. I ended up doing this three more times before I parked my car practically in the middle of the other road and went in the house. By this time it is almost 10 AM and I am so mad that I start calling the city and the HOA. What is the point of paying money to HOA when it doesn’t pay for anything. I got so frustrated that I called a snow plow company for a quote to come plow my street!!!!  By this time I have to hurry just to be to work on time.

I am tired and sore and Laura is getting sick….I am staying up to make freakin cupcakes to take to people for Christmas because we dont have anything else to give.  Besides the fact that we did horrible this year anyway. A serious lack of planning like never before….I don’t have Christmas cards…..I still have to go get a present for my stupid spoiled brother and the last part of the present for Laura’s parents. ….and yes I have to do this on Christmas eve. I have no idea what we are even doing for Christmas this year. We will probably waste time and end up doing nothing and getting in a fight…..its a damn holiday tradition ya know…..stress runs high and we fight. I just want to sleep through the whole thing and at this point I feel like I could.

OK I am sorry about the ranting. I needed to get it out and stop. My head hurts and I can’t help but feel drained and hopeless. There is so much more that has added to this but to let it all out at once I think my head would explode from dropped pressure.

I have been writing this in between making cupcakes to take to people for christmas….after I had to shovel and dig my car out again to get it in the driveway. It is now 1:30 AM and I am so tired that it hurts………I would have wrote more, but when Rachelle got home from her date she got on my computer as I was taking more cupcakes out of the oven……that was an hour almost two hours ago…………I thought she closed my window and everything but she didn’t.

I have to say that I am very glad that I am not trying to date right now…..her stress about stupid people is frustrating. I am glad that I have Laura and I am glad that I know deep in my heart that I have found my “someone” ………I didn’t know when I was younger if I would ever be with anyone. I always felt and told people that I was broken. I wasn’t able to put my feelings into reality. I wanted to have crushes and like boys….I wanted to be drawn to them the way I was to girls. I always put my feelings off as something that was supposed to be there. We are supposed to feel closer to our girlfriends…. right. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I was drawn to girls because I wanted more. I don’t think it even really crossed my mind. I just knew that I wasn’t  drawn to guys and that made me more forceful in attempting to be normal. I didn’t feel sexual at all at the time…..even through most of highschool……I didn’t know what sexual attraction was. It isn’t like I can’t look at a guy and think he is attractive…I can….the same way most girls can look at another woman and see her beauty. It wasn’t until I was 18 that I started to realize that there was more to my attention to women. I started to realize….while I was dating the guy I thought I was going to marry…..that I had a sexual attraction to women. I pushed it aside like a disease…..and when Skyler started to come out of the closet….I tried so damn hard to keep him in it…..because I was his living shadow…..and if he accepted that part of himself…that meant I had to….and I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. So I buried myself in drugs the first time. I hated who I was for so many different reasons and I basically thought that going crazy was a wonderful alternative to accepting myself.

All I know is that life keeps moving forward whether we are prepared for it or not. The only way to succeed in life is to keep moving forward with it.  Seeing the truth in life and not the stories we create. I am struggling to live my truth right now and I haven’t even begun to express the tornado that goes on inside me.

So Happy freakin Holidays…….hope I let this out more often so that I can truly have a happy new year.

I believe that my friend Bev is right. I apparently have a lot more anger inside me than I would normally like to admit.  I unfortuanatly remedy that with cigarettes most of the time.  I went to work the other day with my Dad, Bev, and this kid named Brtistol (the one who is the center of my anger at the moment). I rode in the my dad’s truck with all of them up to Ogden to finish a job up there. So I couldn’t smoke all day long and that simply added to the irritation that was already welling up inside me.

Some how I think that no matter what I do I will always be viewed as inferior and weak because I have boobs. That may seem to be unfair to all of the guys out there that believe that there woman has control…..however, most men (no matter how sofisticated) believe that there are certain things that a woman cannot do. We have proven time and time again that women can work in construction, and yet there is this unsaid belief that a woman could just never do as well as a man.

Let me tell you about Bristol. This is a recently reterned missionary (strike one) who has the work ethic of a dog. That is that they work when someone is demanding and doing nothing when no one is watching. He has worked with us for quite a while…..we like Bristol he is a nice guy….he has become the center of this ARS drama that we call work.

He shows up at my Dads house every day. He rides with my dad, therefore paying no gas money to drive to all the different jobs that we have (like Ogden and Alpine and North Salt Lake). My dad buys him breakfast and lunch every day, and sits in the truck while my dad drives to all different places. He clockes in the moment he gets to my parents house and clocks out when he gets back to his truck.

He drives a brand new truck he just bought, but his mom will make the payment if he cleans the kitchen. He lives at home with no bills and nothing to worry about.

Now I’ll tell you about the rest of us girls…..that have to chase them down all over the place just to get half the hours. We support household and pay all our own bills. Bev has three kids she is supporting.  We work twice as hard, to get half as much.

Bristol just got made supervisor over a job that he hasn’t even worked at. Bev and I have cleaned the entire place. So we get to work our butts off so that he gets the credit for getting a job done that he doesn’t even deserve to have.

So here is my smile. I know that no matter how angry I get that my hard work has paid off for me. He has a nice ride right now, and he is getting pretty arogant and self rightous. I will never wish bad for anyone, but I know that this boy does not have it in him to go against the work that we put in…..he can’t compete and I have faith in the fact that he won’t stand a chance against what my dad calls us women….piranas.