yesterday i crashed earlier than intended. so i didn't get a chance to log. but it was a good day. i did the things that i had slated to do, without hesitation or skipping anything, and i didn't do anything that i didn't have slated. i saw Rachel, did the meeting, had the lunch i wanted, ate responsibly, talked to the people i needed to talk to. i prayed and meditated and read and i felt good through the day. good enough that i feel the residual good today. so that's always a plus.
today i got up and decided i'd take the day off from the gym. it's going to be a pretty day, and i'd like to just get this draft done and maybe go get some pictures. i did read my scripture and my meditation books, and i did say my prayers. i am doing this early, and will likely log again later, because i have thoughts on my mind that i think require some processing.
the house, for instance. i can say now that i am glad that i was married, that i lived with that woman, that i had the time, good and bad, that i spent with her, being a family with her and her children. i was still a very immature man at that time. a woman who meant more to me than breath itself left for Colorado, to have a chance at a future that i, at 24 immature years old, could not provide for her or her children. still couldn't today, so i know letting her go without romanticized notions was a good thing. but i hurt. i hurt with her leaving. it was the first real void in my life, other than cocaine when i stopped smoking. and i filled it with the woman who was to become my wife.
i knew we shouldn't have been together. i knew from her being new in recovery. it's called the 13th step. people take that to mean having sex with a newcomer, but of course i have my own understanding of it. there are 12 established steps to recovery. from admitting and accepting powerlessness to having your spiritual awakening and carrying a message to help others, all in between. 12 steps. they are intended to make you a better person, a person that a God of your understanding is capable of using to help other people. so the things that we do to HARM those who are just looking for a way out of our hell, they are all outside of the 12 steps of recovery, they are ALL 13TH STEPS. but in this instance, i got into a relationship with this young lady, 3 months younger chronologically but several years younger in sobriety. i resisted, but not very hard. because she was a woman who wanted someone to want her, and i was a man who needed someone to need me to be of any worth at all. we were made to tear each other apart.
by the time we got married, we were grasping at straws, trying to keep ourselves together, trying to justify something that couldn't be justified. we got married in the front room of that house. the day before, we were speaking of conditions to be met if we didn't stay together. she said all she wanted, if we divorced, was her name back. i asked for nothing at all. what could i ask for? the dish you bring is the dish you take home after the party. i brought nothing; i took nothing. 3 years together, progressively worse. three months after marriage, i left her. the fights got worse and we were now tearing the shreds into shreds. i started doing things with other people, including Syd's mom, and even before she and i were sexual, my wife knew it was going to happen and began playing the wounded woman. but we'd both cheated. we'd both done what we wanted to do. but i was the one with what should have been a sober foundation. i knew better; i just didn't DO better. and it didn't bring back the woman i loved, and it didn't make the situation to come any better. it laid a blueprint for dysfunction. and i built according to that blueprint with my daughter's mother. but things were changing. a new Tim was gestating.
change happens, and it happens often. change comes because instead of pointing at other people you look in the mirror, assess the damage done to you, and start working to fix it. sometimes the damage has come from others, and sometimes it's come from your own actions. but the repair work has to come from you. that is the way change comes about. that's how one grows the fuck up. or its how i did anyway.
yesterday i ate responsibly, despite being in an environment where people eat to dull the quality of silence that is years old and to soothe the ache of living too close to each other. today i will be responsible in my eating as well. that is how you change. that is how you grow the fuck up.
today, i made pancakes for my family. not the 'just add water' box from the cupboard. i have buttermilk left, so i made buttermilk pancakes from scratch. 'redemptive qualities', you asked? well, you didn't really, that was just dramaturge. here's the deal though: i am in the midst of my most vulnerable environment. my mother and father. when i was a child, i was herded through realities that meant nothing to me, while the things that i truly wanted to do were torn away. cooking, the current example. i would use the old Good Housekeeping cookbook, the big blue one, and i'd make pancakes that were heavy as hell. i had no concept of why this went with that, of cooking time or anything else. i was just starting out. so i made the heaviest undone pancakes in the world. i smile writing it, remembering. and most everyone was kind enough to not make me feel bad. except my dad. who would make me feel horrible, because his wife wasn't cooking and he took that out on me. that's the way it was, no resentment now. but i never gave up, because it's what i enjoyed doing, and because it was part of my eating disorder. no point gorging on food you don't enjoy right? today, with no recipe, i put together buttermilk pancakes. they were wonderful. i know without eating a single one. because of the work, the humiliations, the ridicule, the bad feelings from my dad, and because i never gave up. and not giving up gave me something to give to Deja my son as well. he is now a chef, working on his own catering business, working in restaurants, doing what i always wanted to do. and not me living vicariously through him, but me celebrating God in the way He makes things turn out right, no matter what.
my pancakes were wonderful. my chicken was great the other day, nothing undercooked, as when i was learning. my ex-wife is happily married, or married anyway and who cares how happy she is? my parents are still in their quiet war, but at 49 years old, i am not ammunition. i am Switzerland. i am neutral country, making my goodies and laundering money. and that's a good place to be in an ongoing war.
i am grateful for the day. more later.
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