I always forget things

Speaking at the meeting went fine - it went great actually. I worry for nothing. Every time I say I won't worry the next time, and then I worry. And then afterwards - I always think damn - there were things I meant to say that I left out - really important things about life and sobriety and the moment and what a gift it is to get to live differently. Did I say enough about faith - I don't know. Cause really - it's hard to cram it all in to 20-30 minutes - I honestly think it would take like 2 hours to tell the whole story. But it was what it was, I said what I was supposed to say - and once I got my name out, that feeling of calm came over me again. That is the grace of my higher power.

The most amazing thing - is what the other people say - it's such a great feeling when someone shares how much your story impacts them or comes up to you afterwards to thank you and tells you that you helped them or inspired them. It's a good feeling. I wish I could help more people. And I don't think my story is that amazing or anything, or that I am oh so cool or anything - but someone said something really nice to me afterwards when he came up to thank me. He told me that he has heard hundreds and hundreds of leads at meetings - and that what I shared tonight is in the top 5 leads he has ever heard. How nice was that?

I believe wholeheartedly in AA. I have complete faith that it can change you life if you want it. Miracles are possible. I know, because my life is one and it is in fact possible to stay sober through anything, no matter how devastating. I just feel overwhelmed with gratitude - I always do when I speak at a meeting. It reminds me how damn lucky I am to be sitting here.

Cracking up

I always like to look at the visitor paths to my blog - to see what people search for that land them here.

Someone in Serbia googled "I had to pee" and "getting desperate." And lo and behold - my blog was the first hit. HA HA HA. I wrote this post - called the "Upscale alternative to peeing in a gas station." This was the hit. Turns out my blog might have helped someone after all. You have to wonder though - why exactly were they having to search for the answer to that dilemma on the Internet? It seems pretty obvious to me.

Hey everyone, my name is ***

I have to speak at a meeting tonight - an AA meeting. I say a meeting, and I think everyone knows what I'm talking about. I speak at meetings - I mean I comment, or I share as we say - though probably not often enough (according to my sponsor). Tonight I am the speaker - the one who has to sit there in front of everyone and talk for 20 -30 minutes and then everyone's comments relate to your "lead" as we call it. Speaking in front of people is my absolute least favorite thing to do, ever. I would rather take the bus to work than speak in front of people (and some of you know how adverse I am to bus taking). Seriously, I don't like it. In college, if a class included "presentation" in the course description, I didn't take it. So one wonders how I got through law school then? Well, I hated that part of it - especially the randomness. And you might think I choose the wrong profession, not liking to speak in front of people, but fortunately, I never have to. I get to sit in my office over here in the Northeast corner of the building and communicate with the partner I work for via instant message (he sits in the office next door). Okay - we don't always do this - but there are days when my job can feel pretty isolating. I like it.

When people ask me to speak at meetings - I can't for the life of me figure out why. It's for one of two reasons - it's because they know my story so they know that the odds of me being sober right now are about 0% - and that makes for a good story I suppose, or - it's because they have seen me around but never heard me say a word and suddenly feel compelled to hear what I have to say. I think this is the case tonight - this person has never heard me say anything. I always have this self-doubt - this moment of - well my story is boring, I can't possibly have anything to say that will help anyone. It comes in waves too - I won't get asked for a while, and then suddenly I'll get asked to do this a bunch times within a few week period. Anyway - it makes me nervous and I don't know why. What could be an easier story to tell than the story of your life - the story you are more intimately familiar with than any other story. Sometimes it's a topic that you are supposed to talk about, sometimes a step. This time it is just my story - what it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like now. Why don't I just say no? Because, anyone would tell you that you should always say yes when asked to speak at a meeting if you are able to do it.

I have to remember that it's not about me. I'm just there to carry the message. It's just there are times that I sit in meetings and I listen to people speak/give leads, and I think, you are such a liar or what you are saying is so fucked up, or you are an idiot even - whatever - I judge people. I worry that people are sitting there listening to me thinking - will you shut up already. So I pray before I have to do this - I pray to say the thing that one person needs to hear. Because that is what I love about an AA meeting - you might say something that saves another person's life today, or they might save yours.

I can do this right? What is my deal? Every part of me wants to feign illness. I think the last time I had to be the speaker at a meeting, was when I spoke at a meeting in my home town back in March - that really might have been the last time. I had to stand on a stage, at a microphone, and tell my story to a few hundred people, for an hour, and it was recorded. How embarrassing is that? I have a copy of it and it's available for download on the website for that meeting. People could be downloading and listening to this embarrassing piece of material. (I've actually listened to it - and it wasn't that bad). If I can do that - surely I can sit in front of 50 people and talk for 25 minutes. The most amazing thing happened that night when I spoke at that meeting - I got up there on the stage and right before I opened my mouth to say "hey everyone, my name is *** and I'm an alcoholic, this amazing feeling of calm and peacefulness came over me, and I wasn't even nervous. Me, in front of hundreds of people, not nervous - it was amazing.

The title of this post - we always introduce ourselves before we say anything in a meeting - hi my name is ***, this has become automatic. So automatic that it scares me sometimes. So automatic that I have to pay careful attention when I am in reality that I don't introduce myself wrong. Especially on a day like today when the only thing on my mind is AA. Probably 75% (maybe more) of the times that I say my name - the very next thing that rolls off the tongue is - and I'm an alcoholic. Can you imagine if I accidentally did that in the wrong kind of meeting - a work meeting? Eeek.

When death finds you, will it find you alive?

I've been thinking tonight, since the meeting that I went to, about how much of my life I lose to fear. A lot probably. Mostly it is the fear of not having a future, but it used to be the fear of a lot of other things. I know from doing 4th step AA inventories that most of my decisions, and the things I've done to other people and myself, were based largely, if not entirely, on fear. It touches every aspect of our lives, as the Big Book says. It is the fear of everything and nothing, or losing what you have and not getting what you want. And I know from the 9th step promises, that those fears go away eventually. I guess when I really think about it - I am not driven by fear like I used to be, I don't feel afraid of the same things.

I love this Wednesday meeting that I go to. There is just something about this meeting that is unlike other meetings. I wouldn't want to give it up. It reminds me how much AA is really about life, and how little it has to do with alcohol, because remember - alcohol is but a symptom of the problem. Anyway, we were talking about fear and about faith. The guy who was giving the lead was talking about the fear of missing out - the fear of missing something. That undefined something. I thought, that's it - that's what it is. The fear of missing that thing that I can't define. I am afraid of missing out on happiness.

I feel free of fear in a lot of ways, yet at the same time, there is this fear that is underlying, constant, unyielding, suffocating, and debilitating. It isn't the kind of fear that motivates you - it paralyzes you. It knocks you over when you become aware of it, it takes your breath away, it is painful, and lonely and indescribable really. It is the fear that I will get cancer again and die. That it will all be over before I even have a chance at happiness. People don't understand what this is like - to live with this hanging over you, and under you and saturating everything around you.

I feel a desperate sense of urgency most of the time. An urgency to get the things I want and to work out this life of mine into this perfect thing that I want it to be, so that I can achieve happiness, before it's too late. I worry about the time that I've already lost. With the advent of the anniversary of my survival - I have a hard time thinking of it positively, instead, I have been thinking of it in terms of one more year less that I get to be here. I think about the numbers - the five year survival rate, and I worry that I only have 4 years left. I know my odds of survival are high - higher than the average numbers - but it doesn't help. Nothing helps. The only thing that helps, even a tiny little bit, is to stay present in the moment - not the day, but the moment - literally the moment, right now, this second.

What if I really only do have 4 years left? Seriously. It is terrifying beyond words. I mean what do you do in the face of fear like that? You live I guess. But how? I don't know how.

Thirteen minutes

I am giving myself 13 minutes to write a post this morning - why - I don't know. I don't feel like working, but I should, but I don't feel like it. And I don't really have anything to say, but I am afraid if I really get going on a post, well, we could be here for a while, so, instead, I am giving myself 13 minutes, now 11, to write about nothing.

My life has returned to the status quo. Hard to believe right, after that near miss we had last week? My life has returned to the boring state that it usually is - so boring in fact that I can hardly keep myself awake most of the time. I sit here in my office trying to shock myself awake by making it really cold, or by drinking caffeine. Last night I left early (5:50 - which is really early lately), and felt like I could have fallen asleep on the drive (short drive) home. Then of course I exercised and had a hard time falling asleep. 9 minutes.

I've been exercising lately - in a desperate attempt to elevate my mood. I've exercised 7 out of the past 11 days. That's pretty good I think. It's hard to say if it's working, or if my current state of status quo is due to the rather cyclical nature of my mood. I just don't know. I do think though that I might not be getting enough light - not that it is making me depressed, just tired. I think that's why I can't stay awake - lack of light. Is that possible? 7 minutes.

Everything really is fine at the moment. Work is good - slightly on the slowish side - and um, well, that's all I do really is work, so there isn't much to say since I don't really talk about it here. Last week it was all chaos and drama - a serious lack of serenity and sanity - and now here we are - la la la la as serene as can be. 5 minutes. Is this serenity or boredom? And anyway, how long will it last? I guess we can all find out - and then the next time I have a near break down like last week - we can look back and see how long it's been. Besides, maybe I am just fooling myself anyway. Is it weird that any time I think I am okay, or even happy, I think I must be lying to myself or tricking myself some how - because it just couldn't be true? 3 minutes.

I was thinking about the comment on my last post - and it really has prompted me to think about this event of telling my father why I don't drink. I realized from that comment that the only thing I thought about was how I didn't want him to react. I never thought about how I wanted him to react. Interesting. I'm glad I have an awareness of that now before I go into it. I honestly don't know what I really want from him. I'm not really expecting a high five - a woohoo, good job for getting off the path of destruction your mother was on. Although - it is true that not drinking is probably my greatest accomplishment. I know how stupid that sounds to the "normal" people reading this - but truly - not drinking is the only thing that has ever been difficult for me to do - more on that later as I approach my anniversary. Oh, and there will be more on the parking dilemma.

For now, I am out of time.

To tell or not to tell

That's always the question I guess - to tell the truth or not tell the truth - to be who you are or to pretend to be something else - or to pretend not to be something - like an alcoholic for example. How do you pretend not to be that, when it's you and so much of the way you are is colored by the "ism" of it. I struggle with this - being myself. With not feeling like I have to pretend to be different things in different situations. Because in some ways I do have to pretend. My work life and my AA life feel very distinct - so much so that I feel like two different people. At least two different people - maybe more - because there is also my non-work and non-AA life which involves people that I don't work with and who are not in the program - and with these people, some of whom don't know I'm sober - I am someone else completely. I have been trying to figure out how to integrate these versions of myself into something authentic and real.

First I should say that I don't believe that telling the truth is always the best thing to do. I'm not advocating for all out lying - but I think there are truths that shouldn't be told.

Anyway, this little dilemma over truth telling and being myself surrounds my father. We have never been close. I don't really know how to describe my relationship with my dad - it just is, because it's supposed to be, but there isn't a lot of substance to it and there never has been. We aren't close, but we aren't not close - it just is the way it's been. I wonder sometimes how to change it. I would not describe it as an honest relationship - he doesn't really know much about me and I don't really feel like it's that easy to be me around him. I just don't find him easy to talk to, or deal with, or interact with. I think the first time we had a conversation about anything real I was maybe 24. My dad was there the whole time we were growing up - watching - participating - yet he seems to have missed the degree to which our lives were completely and utter dysfunctional.

My dad appears to be living under this illusion that my brother and I are happy, functional, well adjusted people, and I think the illusion makes him feel okay about what happened in our house when we were growing up. He is somehow absolved of it. I'm not saying that my brother and I aren't these things that my dad believes us to be - I'm just saying - there is definitely some illusion to the way my dad sees things. For me anyway - he believes these things because I have a successful career - I must be okay, right? And my dad cannot even seem to comprehend that I could possibly feel unhappy or depressed, even given everything I've been through. I've mentioned this recently to him - feeling unhappy - and his response is something just less than shocked.

Every once in a while I feel the urge to shatter my dad's illusion - I feel like saying - do you know just how fucked up I have been, how many bad relationships I've had, what I've let men do to me, how depressed I've been, how much I hate myself? Do you even have any idea how completely horrible growing up in that house was? I would never say those things to him - but sometimes I want to, because it feels like he got off easy. I know I have talked some about my mother, but she is not the only one who has failed to take responsibility.

Out of a feeling of needing to protect my father's feelings and the illusion that he is living under, and out of a fear of his reaction, I have never told my dad that I'm sober. For two years I have wondered whether to tell him that I don't drink and why and that I've been going to AA meetings for the past two years. The years go by and he knows me less and less - and I've been hiding this huge, incredibly huge part of myself from him. I'm worried he will be devastated. I mean, I wouldn't have a clue about what that's like to have your child tell you something like that. Maybe it's no big deal - I mean these days, recovery is perceived differently than it used to be - but my dad is from a different generation. Not only that but he doesn't understand - he may grasp on some level that it can be genetic - so he may be able to fathom it because I have an alcoholic mother (who is not sober) and grandmother (who died of the disease), but I can tell, based on conversations we've had, that he definitely doesn't get it.

I am worried about a couple of things - mostly that he will be angry and that his opinion of me will change. But at the same - I can't keep living this kind of half truth with him. I'm not being honest about who I am with him and it's getting to me after all these years. Our relationship has always been based on half truths - pretending and hiding and covering things up - a legacy of my childhood (maybe if you don't talk about it isn't true, but definitely, don't let the neighbors find out). That's what my life has always been about on some level. I am finding that I can't do it anymore - and not just with him. I'm going to tell him when I go home on the 13th for my anniversary. I really thought that I would never tell him, but I am going to. It isn't to shatter his illusion or hurt him or upset him. It's so that I can be me around him, finally. I just hope he isn't devastated by who that person is.

Thanksgiving and the days after

So for Thanksgiving, instead of spending it alone, which is what I felt like doing, I went to my sponsor's for dinner. I suppose it wasn't really that I didn't want to go - it's just that I like to isolate especially when I feel bad or depressed, and well, my sponsor is probably the last person I want to see when I feel the way I've been feeling lately. It's not that she doesn't care that I feel like crap, it's just that she has limited tolerance for my complaining and unwillingness to take her suggestions. Unless I am going to do what she tells me to do when I call and tell her I feel like shit, there is not a lot of point in calling her. I already know what she will say. I take a lot of her suggestions actually - I am not nearly as stubborn as I was at the beginning - but for me to do something I really don't want to do - I have be broken down, run over, stomped on, flattened basically, before I surrender. I'm getting there. Eventually feeling bad gets to the point where I say, okay, I'll do anything you tell me. Then I do it and I feel better so I stop doing it, and whoops, I feel like crap again. There is a definite pattern here.

Anyway, dinner was really nice. It was nice to spend time with her and her family in another setting - just hanging out and relaxing - rather than talking program all the time - honesty, integrity, making amends, service work blah blah. The food was excellent and the dessert even better. The pies were from my favorite bakery, which is the best bakery on the planet. I had a piece of each. Unfortunately though, I got a headache Thursday night and had it all day yesterday. I pretty much had a migraine all day. I wonder if twas something that I ate that triggered it. I don't get migraines very often, in fact it's been a long time, and I don't really know what triggers it. I did manage to drag myself downstairs to walk on the treadmill anyway, but then my headache came back in full force. I had to sleep all afternoon to get rid of it. Fortunately, it was gone today. Today all I did was go to a meeting, pick up my cat's special cat food from the vet, do some laundry, help a friend with a legal problem, and sit around.

I think part of my problem this week was panic about this holiday (I mean, among a whole bunch of other crap). Not that the holiday itself was all that upsetting, but the days off are what concerned me more. I kept thinking, what am I going to do with four days? I don't do well with downtime. I'm trying to get better at enjoying time off and time to myself and time to relax, but I'm not very good at it. I need the distraction of being busy, otherwise I start to go a little crazy. Get anxious, worried, depressed. I sort of forgot that I can be okay laying on my couch in front of the TV for two days. This week has whacked me out pretty good. The situation with the friend of mine, coupled with everything else, caused me to lose most of the 3 work days this week. I seriously did almost nothing at work this week. My job is either a good distraction from all other stresses in my life, or every once in a very great while, I just can't concentrate. Every once in a while it all just seems so pointless in the scheme of things.

Anyway, I hope things are back to normal on Monday. Cause I really need a little normal.

No longer stalking people on the Internet

Well folks, I put everyone in google reader - or at least those people with the feeds turned on. So, I'll no longer be stalking blogs. I've noticed already that it's kind of taken the fun out of it. I kind of liked obsessively checking certain blogs a gazillion times a day, hoping upon hope that the person posted, though I probably was freaking people out by checking so often. It's just that I would be going along at work, need a distraction, take a run through blogs, work, check blogs, work, check blogs, work, get bored, check blogs, work, check blogs. Anyway - now I have it all at a glance and with one quick check I can assess the situation. It's not the same. I'll let you know if I am suddenly more productive at work!

What is scary about it

It does actually scare me sometimes, this type of a mood fluctuation. Because it seems so extreme, and it happens so fast. And maybe part of the reason I don't always talk about it is because it changes, before I even have a chance to. I can literally go from fine, to not fine, to fine in a four to five day period. And the fine is pretty much fine, but the not fine is, well, dangerous in some ways. And then sometimes I have longer periods of fine or longer periods of not fine, but if the not fine period is long, it's not so extreme. I've never really gotten to the bottom of this - it's just the way I've always been. Sort of on a roller coaster ride that is unpredictable and exhausting. And my perception of reality is heavily affected by it - the extent to which my life is amazing or unbearable. People will mention frequently that perhaps I should take medication, which I have tried before, it's just that I haven't found a doctor really willing to work with me to figure it out. It's not really depression, it's not really bipolar, it's not just anxiety - it's just some weird combination of things. I don't seem to fit any definitions, but it isn't normal either. Or at least, I don't think it is, but then again, I don't have anything to compare it to. Sometimes I wish I knew what a "normal" person feels like.

Two days ago, I would have said yes, absolutely, I'll take something, anything actually, cause I'm desperate not to feel this way and that could be sobriety threatening if I don't get some relief. And now two days later - I'm not back to perfectly fine, but I feel better enough that it seems unnecessary to start this whole trying to find a drug that works mess over again. It's hard for me to convince myself to do it during a time when I actually feel okay. I'm just torn over it I guess. I just don't know. Because it will go away, it's just a matter of waiting it out - it's just sometimes, like earlier today, I can't see that it will end. And then the end is in sight and then I lose sight of it again. But it comes eventually - eventually I don't feel so hopeless or lost or damaged. I don't know what to do about it.

Whenever I come out of the really low of the low (and I don't really know how far out of it or in it I am at the moment) - it almost feels like I was a different person when I felt that way. It just feels like I was someone else - because that just isn't me. Except that it is. And I always think wow - well thank God I didn't do anything stupid. Thank God in a moment of utter desperation I didn't do anything stupid. It's not that I would try to hurt myself, because I wouldn't, it's just that it feels like my sobriety is in danger in these situations because the desperation is incredibly powerful. The things that I feel, when I feel them with such intensity - the pain, it feels impossible to live through and the feeling of needing relief overwhelms everything. And the thing is, there are only so many ways of escaping.

I am an escape artist, a relief seeker. I don't like to feel anything. My favorite feeling, is to feel nothing. I find myself in these moments, of such intense pain, and I panic because I don't have a way out. My options are limited. I don't have anything to take the edge off of the feeling. So what is it going to be? How painful is it? And how long can I stand it? What am I going to give up in exchange for a little relief? For a little temporary oblivion? My sobriety? Am I that desperate? It starts to feel so unbearable that something has to give. And I know lots and lots of people who give up their sobriety because they cannot wait the feeling out. Unfortunately, I know quite a few people who have given up more than their sobriety, they have given up their lives. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, as we say. I think that's why a lot of people don't make it through early sobriety, because you have to be able to sit through it, and for someone who doesn't like to feel anything, that's incredibly hard to do. For me, when I stopped drinking, I went from feeling nothing, and not even knowing it, to feeling everything and not knowing what any of it was. It's not so much that I think about drinking these days when I feel bad - I don't really, except on a rare occasion, because well, I have too much AA in my head to really entertain it for more than a second or two. I'm just reminded how much I loved that "feeling." That feeling you get when you drink enough. The numbness, the nothingness, the oblivion, the feeling of not caring about anything. I am in love with that feeling.

One thing that has helped me a lot that I got from AA, is the ability to sit in something - to sit in the middle of something that feels terrible, to live through it, to wait it out, to not give into it. But I suppose based on the past few days, sometimes I am still not so great at it. Because even though I know it passes, it doesn't feel like it when you are in it. It is very hard to remember that in the moment. I always want to change the name of this blog, but then again, it seems appropriate. So if I can just manage to sit here in this for 22 more days, I will have been sober for two years. But that's another post.

Remind me how I got here again?

This is one of those times, where the bottom just kind of falls out. I'm going along and I'm fine, work is fine, things are fine, everything is fine - or at least, that is what I tell people. Everything is always fine. I am the one who is always fine. It's never really fine. I mean, I felt good in October, but was I really okay? Or was it some kind of cover up? Was I fooling myself, or was I actually fine? I don't even know. I just say that I'm fine because it is easier than telling the truth when I'm not fine. Like these past few days I guess I ventured a little too far into honesty, and kind of freaked people out - and I didn't mean to - it's just sometimes I wish I could tell the truth about how I feel. But I guess if you read these posts recently, well, okay, I can see how it sounds. It's just how I feel, I feel depressed and unhappy, and more so than normal - and I am struggling to figure certain things out, and it's the holidays and my anniversaries and there are times when I think - can't I write it here, how I feel, even if it's crazy and weird and totally irrational and fucked up, or just plain wrong? Can't I just feel how I feel here, or do I have to pretend like everywhere else in my life? I guess it doesn't really matter. The bottom got a little loose a couple of weeks ago, and then it suddenly, without warning, just fell out.

My tendency is to never really talk about not being okay. My tendency is to isolate myself and just deal with whatever I'm dealing with because I sometimes find it difficult to manage peoples' reactions to me, because usually if someone is trying to offer support to me, it's in some really fucked up all about them kind of way. I am used to dealing with things alone, so that's kind of what I do. It takes me feeling pretty bad, to actually say so, and even then, it's not because I actually believe that people will be supportive, and it certainly isn't to draw attention to myself, because I'd much rather go unnoticed. I just don't really know what support looks like actually - I've never had that. Not from parents or anything. I don't know how to ask for or receive help, how to not be okay, how to be honest about it. When I called my mother and told her I had breast cancer - she went hysterical. She was freaking out and crying and I was sitting there on the phone saying, it's going to be okay, everything will be fine. And I remember thinking, wait a second, this is backwards here.

And I think to some people, I just sound like I'm complaining. Oh poor me - isn't my life so terrible. I don't mean for it to sound that way. It isn't about being ungrateful, because of course I am. I am not ungrateful, I am just unhappy. I know that objectively my life looks great. Yes, it is true, I have a fabulous job - I work with great people, I love the work I do, I work for the nicest person on the plant, I have great opportunities ahead of me there, I don't have to worry about money, I live in a nice condo and have a nice office, I drive a nice car, I can afford to pay ridiculous amounts of money to park it at my office so that I never have to go out in bad weather, I have nice furniture and nice things. I know that I am fortunate, and that I also worked really hard for everything I have. But you dress it up nice, and it's still the same unhappiness. I've never been able to be happy. Not for any significant length of time anyway.

I know that material things won't make me happy - and that's not what it's about. I am not trying to fill holes with material things. It's just that my life looks nice, so people always say - we can't understand why you would be so unhappy. I don't understand it either really. It's an inside thing - and lately I just feel like all of the effort I have put into changing myself on the inside has been for nothing, because here we are, having the same old conversation about the same old unhappiness. And lately I feel really angry with my parents, because we got screwed basically, my brother and I. I feel like I have been ruined by my childhood, like it has damaged me and so far, I have been unable to undo the damage. It just feels like I've suffered, more than people should suffer. When I found out I had breast cancer - that was my first thought - haven't I suffered enough already? What the hell did I do to deserve this kind of suffering?

I don't know how I got here. Here, right now, to this moment, where it all feels so fucked up and pointless. Where it feels ruined and like things can never be undone. Like things will never be okay, or right, or the way that I want them to be, or good even. It all seems so complicated.

And thank you to Aurelia for sending some folks my way and for your comments and support. You all seem like such nice and caring people and I am glad to have found all of you and your blogs. I am always astounded when people actually show up for other people and offer support because it seems so unexpected to me, and it's just not what I am used to. I don't know quite what to do with it. But it is good to know that I am not all alone out here.

Last words

Are they better left unsaid?

**Note that I do not mean my last words ever, so don't freak out, okay?

Still here, but barely

The pain is unrelenting, the tears like a waterfall. I can't stop.

I cracked

Under the weight of it. Because the anger gives way into something softer. Something you can stick your hand through even though you don't know what is on the other side. Because it is complicated.

*Amended to add: And I feel like I can't live through this day.

How much time will you give it?

That of course is the question. How many minutes of this day am I going to waste on this person who is occupying my mind? I lost a lot of sleep over it and most of yesterday. How much more time am I willing to give to it? To obsessing in my head, to being angry, to wanting to tell the person off, to writing nasty emails and deleting them, wanting to explain why when why doesn't matter, trying to figure out how to stop. It's 8:25, how many more minutes am I going to give to this? I mean waste on this - how many more minutes am I going to waste?

One by one

One by one I am ending my friendships. Call it cleaning up some messes from the past. The one I ended the other day though didn't mean much to me - it's like the person slips from your existence unnoticed and it doesn't seem like anything is missing. It is easy, ending it - there is really no ending to it, you just stop engaging in it and it goes away. You don't even miss it.

This one though, I'm upset about. And I can't tell you why, I can't tell you the story - but just trust me when I tell you that you would agree with me. You would agree with me in ending it - you might not agree with being upset about it. I wish I could talk more openly about it - for some positive reinforcement, but I can't. The thing is though - this person, for right or wrong, meant something to me. They meant a lot to me actually, and I hate that. It's pretty painfully obvious to me at this point however, that they don't really care about our friendship. I've ended this friendship multiple times. And each and every time I get talked back into it. The person asks for my friendship back and I give it to them. It's never clear to me why they want it, but I give it to them anyway. And then I end it again and give it back again and end it again. And I wonder when I'll ever learn. Maybe this time.

This one doesn't slip away unnoticed. This one leaves a hole, a giant hole and I desperately want to fill it with something. Anything. All that is left is the same hole that was there to begin with, but it's still a hole. It's the same hole and it's the same size, it just has a different shape. This friendship played upon every weakness that I had and the very things I most hate about myself and I was powerless to stop it. It is the perfect example of everything that has ever been wrong about my life and relationships. It is the perfect example of the things that haven't changed, despite all the work I've done, I still feel the same about myself. If I didn't, I wouldn't be writing this post, I wouldn't have had this day. The thing about these friendships that I'm ending - they are very clear to me when they aren't mine. The answer is clear, if it's you. But if it's me, well...it's another story about low self-esteem, actually, this time it's the same story.

And it's been twisted around and convoluted - the story. It's been spun into something else. Because I know that I have a part in it. It's hard to be angry when you've been trained to look at your own part of a situation instead of blaming someone else. It's hard but it's not impossible. My part is that I keep participating, expecting it to be different. I willingly participate. I lose sight of the reason why I was angry in the first place, and that's what I need to remember, because I had no part of that. You know what they say - the first time you treat me shitty, shame on you, the second time, shame on me. What about the third and the fourth and the sixth and the seventh time someone makes you feel bad? You start to look like the stupid one.

I don't know where the anger goes, it just dissipates and that allows me to continue as if what happened didn't. Because if the options are to lose someone, to feel abandoned, or to keep someone, no matter what it says about me - I choose to keep them, because I am so desperately afraid of abandonment. Even if it means I couldn't possibly have any self respect.

There must just be some part of me

There must just be this part of me that holds out hope that some how, one way or another, at some point, eventually - things are going to be different with my mother. Things are going to be different because she is going change. She is going to change and apologize and some how she is going to be the mother I deserved or that I would have wanted. On some days the past seems more resolved than others. On a lot of days what I feel is forgiveness for her, and pity. There are days when I don't feel completely angry. But lately I feel angry about it. Like we got screwed and it wasn't fair.

I had this really messed up dream a couple of days ago. In this dream my mother took my brother and I on a trip (which would never in a million years happen), and she told us she was dying and that she just found out and she would be dead in a week. Now in reality I have imagined this moment - not the moment of my mother telling me she is dying - but the moment when I hear about her death. Of course it is always hard to imagine what something is going to feel like, I mean, you can't really know until the actual moment. But when I anticipate the moment, my reaction is, that I have no reaction, I don't feel anything, I don't care. I know how horrible this probably sounds and I'm sure it makes me sound like a terrible person. I have had times in my life, including recently, where I have felt like if my mother did die, I wouldn't care.

Well, in the dream - I went hysterical. I actually woke up with tears on my face. I was sobbing and saying this isn't right, it can't end this way, things aren't right and they can't end this way. Things need to be resolved. We need more time, we need to fix this.

What does this mean? Does this mean that I'm just not over it? Or that I actually need to do something? The sad fact is, my mother is never going to be different and resolution to the situation falls on her - cause there is nothing I can do and it isn't my responsibility. I think I've done everything I can do - except changing myself. My sponsor always tells me that my part of that - my part of the situation with my parents is simply expecting them to be different. So if I stop expecting that, then I won't be disappointed when everything is just the same. That's my part of that resentment and anger - expecting her to be someone she is incapable of being.

Though it isn't always on my mind, rarely actually, there must be a part of me that just wishes it had all been different and could be different now. On my most days I don't even know that I wish for that. How do I stop wishing for that?

Until next time

I had a follow-up with my oncologist today - just a routine in between mammogram follow-up. Everything is fine. I wasn't worried - I just had a mammogram 3 months ago - I guess it would be surprising if something was found during one of these appointments. Actually, it would be surprising if anything is found ever - cause according to my oncologist, this isn't going to happen again. She has told me that I had the best possible outcome one can ever hope for and that long term odds are significantly better for people with my outcome, and that the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor, that she would be very surprised if I ever had any kind of cancer again. That's what she has said. Shouldn't that make me feel better? The chemo drugs got rid of the tumor completely - quickly - we think maybe after 3 treatments (but I did 8) (and the tumor was almost 4 cm), and when I had surgery, there were no cancer cells left - nothing, and my lymph nodes were clear, and I don't have a gene for it, and I have no family history. But wait a second, why did it happen in the first place? I mean what are the odds, at 29? According to my doctor, less than 1%. Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets.

Frankly, these in between follow-ups don't do much for me, cause well, I have little faith in breast exams. Don't get me wrong, we all need to be doing them - it's just that I want films and I want to see them and go over them and ask questions about things that I see that are so obviously nothing. I mean honestly, how does my doctor know - my chest is lumpy and dense and I have found all kinds of things that have resulted in expensive doctor's appointments for nothing - except - well, my peace of mind. Anyway, I like my oncologist. I like her a lot actually.

So, until next time, which is 3 months from now, can I at least relax and stop worrying that I'm going to die? Can I get a couple of goods months where it isn't on my mind every day, where I get to live without this hanging over my head and coloring everything? Probably not. I'm still going to worry, it's still going to be so terrifying that I sometimes can't breathe. Most likely I'll end up back there before 3 months from now - I used to go in once a month - cause that's how often I freaked out - for the first 6 months anyway. The next time I'm having an MRI in addition to a mammogram, so that will definitely make me feel better, at least for a little while. It just doesn't last, it doesn't take the fear away - just knowing that I'm fine at the moment, doesn't make me feel better in the longer term. The only thing that makes me feel better long term is getting to some goal - like a year - it's been almost one year. They say if it is going to come back, it is most likely to come back in the first two years - so that's one milestone. So making these milestones helps. Except - it's like all things right, you get to the milestone and you realize that you lost all the time leading up to it. That's my big worry - ten years from now, I'll still be here, and won't know where the ten years went - cause I will have wasted it worrying.

A couple of things, like you don't know who you are talking to

Yesterday I wrote a post, and then un-posted it today. I un-posted it because it was emotional, it was honest, but emotional, and very much what I was feeling in the moment, which we all know is fleeting. It was about the holidays, and my anniversaries (surviving breast cancer and being sober) and how upset I am about Christmas and feeling like my anniversaries don't mean anything. On the one hand I feel like I should be able to post whatever I want on my own blog. I should be able to say how I'm feeling, right, without worrying about how other people feel about it. I wasn't blaming anyone for the way I feel - I don't do that, blame other people for the things that I feel. I wasn't saying the way I was feeling was right, because what you feel isn't right or ever wrong, it just is what it is. I was just getting it out, venting. I should be able to vent about how I feel, right? Well, I un-posted it so I wouldn't upset anyone. Anyway, that's sort of beside the point I guess, and I am sure there are better ways to deal with things that slapping your feelings on the Internet.

So today I was talking to someone, and expressing my upset about the very things I posted about in that post - my anniversaries, the holidays - I was just expressing how I felt. I wasn't blaming anyone, just venting about it - because like I said, it wasn't right or justified even, it just was what it was. I get sick of people saying you shouldn't feel a certain way. True, I could take action to change the way I feel, but the way I feel it isn't wrong. Well, this person I was talking to, she said something to me, that frankly, really pissed me off. What it was actually, was a reminder of the very thing that my sponsor likes to remind me of - not to judge people. Why - because you don't ever know what someone else's experience is. Actually, the day reading that I did this morning was about this very thing. It said, let the results of someone's actions be the judge. In any event, I've decided not to be friends with this person, because why, at this point in my life and my recovery, would I subject myself to people who treat me in ways I don't like? That would be old behavior. Yes this might seem drastic, but why would I welcome someone into my life who would say to me what this person said? I'm just not going to.

A lot of years ago - I learned this, about being being careful what you say to someone because you don't ever really know what their experiences are. You don't ever really know who you are talking to. You just don't. You just don't know what they have been through, what it feels like to be them, to be in their skin and their head and their life, what their decisions are based on, why they do what they do. You can't know those things. I learned this a lot of years ago, not because of something I said, but because of something someone said to me. That conversation that I had years ago, it changed my perspective. This person that I was talking to today, that changed my perspective also. It really hammered home my sponsor's point about judging people. Because that's what it was, a judgment of sorts, and harsh one. You might say that I can't blame her for a lack of understanding, she doesn't after all, know the whole story. But that isn't a good enough excuse anymore. What she said to me was quite nasty and uncalled for and I am tired of excusing people's bad behavior. I am holding them to a higher standard.

We all tell the same story

That's why it works - because the details are different but the story is the same. Your story is my story is everyone else's story. You show up, and over and over again, you hear your own story. Some of us lost everything, some of us lost nothing, but the story is the same. I've been feeling a little anti-AA lately. Not that I would ever stop going or anything, it's just some times I get sick of it. I get sick of the meetings I go to, the people who show up to those meetings, the quality of sobriety there, the gossip, the lying, the bullshit, the drama the chaos. Sometimes I just want to be around women with a lot of sobriety - I mean a lot of sobriety, not a couple of years, but 10, 20 years. I want to be around quality sobriety - not a bunch of people who don't have what I want.

I always feel on the outside here - like I've never been connected the way I should be or the way I was where I'm from. Sometimes I try to reach out more than others, and then I withdraw again. So I was talking to this woman after the meeting on Saturday night, because she said she got sober somewhere else and then moved here. And she was talking about being in the middle of AA, versus being on the edge. I always feel slightly closer to the edge than the middle, but close enough to the middle not to fall off. Anyway, she invited me to this Big Book study that someone has at their house on Friday nights. It's a women's meeting and they are about to start over from the beginning of the book. I used to go to one of those when I first got sober. Of course, every part of me doesn't want to go. But I'm going to - cause there is a lot of sobriety there and I want to see if it's quality.

When I get irritated with the program like this, I change up my meetings. I start seeking whatever it is that I'm looking for - strong women, good, quality, long term sobriety. I went to this meeting this morning that I go to sometimes - there is this woman there that I wanted to see. I like her because she got sober when she was 28 (which is when I got sober), and she is still sober 30 years later. The meeting was great though - the lead outstanding. It was this guy who's 54, used to be in the military, cut off half of his hand in a printing press accident when he was drunk, got sober 22 years ago. My story isn't his story, but it is. He was talking about the pain, the unbearable pain of living, the reason why we drank, the way we try to escape ourselves, because when you drink, you can become anyone. He said the very thing that I said yesterday, that it was all so painful that he used to wish he could just be someone else. The good news is, 22 years later, he doesn't wish for that anymore.

I've spent my whole life wishing

That I were prettier, smarter, funnier, more confident, more successful, more outgoing, shorter, thinner, that my hair was thicker, my torso longer, my legs shorter, my feet smaller, that I did better in school than I did, that I could sing, that I had some kind of talent, that I had never stopped playing the piano, that I had different parents, a different extended family, a different child hood, a different life, different memories, that I wasn't negative and pessimistic, that I didn't have anxiety, that I was married by a certain age, that I had had children by a certain age, that I had children at all, that I had a fairy tale wedding, that I had had something other than a completely dysfunctional relationship with every man I've ever dated, that I wasn't afraid to dance in public, that I wasn't so afraid of what you think of me, that some guy would want to be with me, that I hadn't been so afraid to be alone that I was willing to do anything to keep you, that I didn't hate myself, that I had self respect, that I wasn't afraid to tell the truth, that I hadn't made half the choices that I made, or dated any of the people I had dated, that I could take things back, that I could have been a better friend, a better person, and less selfish, that I hadn't tried so hard to make people like me that I lost myself, that I wasn't afraid to be myself, that I hadn't had breast cancer, that I didn't feel like I was always about to be found out or like the rug was about to be pulled out from under me, that I wasn't afraid to cry in front of people or admit that something is painful, that just once, my mother had shown up for me, that she wasn't an alcoholic, that I could tell my father the truth about being in AA, that I could stop pretending to be things that I'm not, and quit pretending not to be things that I am, that I could just be. All I ever really wanted, was to just be someone else.

He has it rough

This is Emerson. I named him after Ralph Waldo. He likes to sleep here on the back of the chair cushion. I'm afraid there may be a permanent dent. He only drinks running water and he has to eat special food that costs $30 a bag (otherwise he throws up). He follows me around like he's a dog instead of a cat. He is persistent and gets whatever he wants. He's always at the door waiting for me - I hear him meowing as I walk down the hall. And when I walk in he takes about 5 steps and then flings himself over on his side for a tummy rub, every time, without fail. He looks so nice and cute here, but he always wakes me up in the morning by biting me if I don't get out of bed early enough - actually I should say by savagely attacking me. But he's cute and cuddly when he wants to be and loves all visitors. If you come over - he will follow you around and keep flopping on the floor in front of you until you pet his tummy. Oh yeah - he likes to be lint rolled and massaged with the electric back massager.

Grace

I went to my favorite meeting last night - it's my home group. It's a candlelight meeting. We have a reading, a silent meditation, a lead and then comments. There is just something about this particular meeting - there is a peacefulness to it - maybe it's the candlelight. There is a calm when you walk in the room, an intensity, an intimacy. Last night we were talking about grace. The grace of God - what it looks like and how easy it is to miss it, or to convince yourself that you deserve the bad things that happen and don't deserve the good things. How to open yourself up to it, or receive it, or tune into it.

My understanding of it has changed in the time I've been in AA. I have heard it defined all sorts of ways - that grace is an unexpected and undeserved reprieve for which you owe nothing in return. It is a gift. It is as huge as the fact that I am sitting here writing this, and as small as not having to sit in an airport bar with the head of my group while traveling back from a client meeting last Friday. It is as monumental as the ability to surrender, and as insignificant as having patience while waiting in the slow line at the grocery store. It is everything. It is all around you, if you know what to look for.

I have these days sometimes, like lately - these past few days, where my level of peace and serenity is so much higher than what I consider to be my best days, my average days. It's like being on some other plane of spirituality or something. It's hard to describe. There are just days like this - when I have faith, for no other reason except that I just have faith, and it's powerful, it's stronger than normal and it's pretty strong to begin with. There are days when I just believe that it will be okay - that it is okay and that it's right and that belief is based on nothing other than a feeling of connectedness. It's just a feeling.

On days like today, when I feel such serenity, such peace, I know it is because I have achieved real acceptance - real surrender, however fleeting that may be. And it is fleeing. On the days that I accept everything as it is, just exactly as it is, and I believe that it will be okay, no matter what that means, I am able to see the grace all around me.

The balance I can't strike

There is a fine line between having just the right amount of work and being way too busy. And then of course there is also being way too slow. In a matter of a couple of hours I can go from just right to overloaded. Last month I was way too busy (241 hours billed - this is way too much), my present goal is to have just enough work (which means I want to keep my cushion so I need 170 billable), however, I am currently falling way below the line (uh, not sure where yet). Rarely do I find that I have just the right amount of work - it's just impossible to nail this balance perfectly because it isn't really within my control. I knew this would happen - that there would be a lull when this recent project ended. I wasn't sure how much of a lull, but I knew there would be one.

You might think I would enjoy it. Why not enjoy the downtime, right? You never know how much you are going to get and it's very possible that you will have multiple months over 200 in a row. So enjoy it, leave early, blog, shop online, take a walk, appreciate that you can leave at 5 p.m. and not work on weekends. Love every second of it. I am trying to bite my tongue and not go into the partner's office and tell him I'm worried about the work load (cause I, uh, did that on Monday). He just laughs at me anyway and then when I am drowning again, he likes to remind me that I was once worried that there wouldn't be enough. He told me on Monday that I should be worried about having too much in the near future. The problem with right now - is that it's unscheduled downtime. That's why I don't enjoy it.

I like to schedule my downtime - you know, take a vacation or something or take a day off. I like to plan my downtime in and choose when it happens and unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. It's just slow when it's slow and rarely when I want it to be slow. Then of course the day that I want to be off, to go home to Michigan for example, I'll be drowning and unable to go. Or the vacation that I do plan way off in the future will coincide with some really big deadline and I'll end up working during my vacation anyway. There really is no such thing as vacation time for us. All time that isn't billable time is just lost time, like now, blogging. Time I have to make up for later in the grand scheme of billing hours. My time never feels like my own.

It is almost inevitable that I will screw around here on the Internet for several hours today and then at 5:05 something will happen and the next thing I know it will be 8 and I will still be here. I don't mean to complain though - I was thinking earlier today how fortunate I am to have a job that I actually really truly like a lot. Most people with my kind of job can't even say that. They might do the job for various reasons but will admit to not liking it at all. I really do like it. Now, if only had some actual work to do.

In retrospect

Everything we learn, I think we learn retrospectively. We live forward, but we learn backwards. Rarely, if ever, in the midst of something, do I appreciate, or even contemplate the point, or the purpose, or the real "why" that underlies it. I never know those things until later, because time changes everything. Then again it might be that what you thought in the moment is as accurate as what you think about it later - both are accurate, they just aren't the same.

I mention it only because I left a comment on another blog the other day - that I immediately felt bad about. I said that I had married my boyfriend because I thought no guy would ever want me again after having breast cancer. That is the truth. That is an accurate assessment of what happened in those weeks after I was diagnosed. But I didn't know that at the time - I didn't mean to sound like I had plotted that out - I didn't. I don't think in the midst of it I was even able to appreciate what was happening. We just did what we did because the circumstances were what they were - and the reason why was something altogether different than it appears to be now. What I thought in those weeks, what I believed to be true, what I felt - those are things that I can't even access at this point because all I know is what I know about it now - I see it only through the lens of time. I have had a year and 4 months to contemplate it, dissect it, undo it, reinvent it - that's why I know what I know to be the truth.

I felt bad about it though - I felt bad about how it sounded. I didn't set out with that intention - to settle for someone out of fear and to alter the course of his life. And it was altered - so was mine. I have to realize that he participated willingly and is responsible for his part, that's true, but just how much falls on me, I'm not sure. I wondered - do I apologize for that, even though at the time, I didn't understand that to be the reason? Do I go back and say why I did what I did, even if that wasn't why I thought I was doing it at the time? Maybe it doesn't matter. I think his version of the story is quite unlike mine. And neither is really accurate at all I suppose. What once appeared supportive and loving and caring, now appears sick and manipulative. Which one was it? I don't think he set out with the intention of taking advantage of my financial situation, but by the end, it had started to look that way.

What was the truth at the time - I'm not even sure. Did I love him? Probably not - but I didn't know it at the time. Does that make what I felt in the moment less real, or more wrong? I can't tell you what I actually thought because I don't know anymore. Like I said, I can't really access anything about those weeks - it is all colored by a different perspective. Sobriety has changed my perception of everything. Nothing looks the same as it used to. I struggle sometimes with that - what is true or not true about the past - how accurate is my memory - how clear is my perception. I used to worry that I remember things incorrectly - like my childhood - was it more or less bad than I remember it, or just exactly the same? When my understanding of it changes - what it was changes also. Time changes the character of everything.

Coming down off the stress of it

This time the project is actually over - the last time I said it was over, on Tuesday, it wasn't actually over. We still had to get the hard copies out and then we decided we needed to supplement something, then we had to travel to the client - and now it is over. Coming down off the stress of it was instant this time. The second we walked out of there, I felt better. Normally it takes a few days - I freak out a little about having nothing to do, I can't figure out what to do with my time, I start to stress about the billable hours - this time - I'm glad to have the 70 hours back, I'm looking forward to a slower month, and I'd be fine just sitting on my couch for a few days watching bad t.v. in my pajamas. I felt the tension go out of my body immediately, and it felt great, and now I'm just tired. I almost went to bed at 7:30 - but that would have been bad - considering the time change - I would have been up in the middle of the night.

In reflecting on this whole experience - this project - I have to say, I actually handled the whole thing really well. I don't normally work that many hours and I maintained a really good balance of working and going to a lot of meetings. I was stressed - but never really freaked out about it. These are the types of situations where I really see the differences in myself between the way I am now and the way I used to be - in my ability to handle things and to maintain my serenity and meetings in the midst of stress. I see the program at work in other parts of my life when it comes to handling things. With respect to the project - it is probably the biggest project I've ever done - not in terms of fees or anything - because I worked on a really big deal last year - but considering I did the bulk of this project alone - it really is an accomplishment. The client was really happy with the whole thing, as were the partners and it is definitely something that is highly marketable and may generate work.

On an unrelated note - I paid off my entire private student loan in one lump sum a few days ago. That had me a bit freaked out - I mean, it cut my savings account in half. But I had talked to multiple financial people and they all agreed that I should pay it if I could and just keep saving for my down payment. It's hard to part with money like that - I have this real (and unfounded) fear of financial insecurity. No matter how much I make, it never really seems to go away. Which only leads me to believe that something else underlies it - it isn't really about the fear of financial insecurity. In any event - I have a good budget and I am planning to rent for one extra year - so I think it was the right thing to do. Although can you tell that I'm still freaked out about it? I still have debt - only student loan debt - that by no means got rid of it - it's just that the rest is federal so it is locked at a low rate. I may up the payment on that one though also.

Anyway - more to follow as I unwind from the past month...

Traveling

Hello from Charlotte, North Carolina. I was really trying to stay off the Internet (for about, 3 minutes). I thought - why charge the client an extra $10 just so I can uh, check my email, which I've, well, which I'm on constantly. I mean, it's already 10:44, what could I possibly need to check my email for? And anyway - if I need to check it - like really really need to, well, there is always the blackberry. I've composed rather long emails and even posts on that thing.

I just needed to check in because my contact with people, that aren't work people, has been minimal today, and well, frankly, traveling takes a lot out of me. I don't really like it actually, though it is easier than when I first came into the program. I remember the first time I traveled in sobriety - it was for my previous job and I had been sober 2.5 months. It was really scary actually. Fortunately I got really sick and came home early. I used to really like to travel, now I just find it one giant temptation to contend with. I think it would be highly unusual to go out of town and not think about it and not be tempted. I actually am really noticing a difference though - the past few times. It used to really freak me out - it used to be terrifying. Now it's more like - well, there are things I would rather do, than go out of town with colleagues, but whatever, I'll be slightly emotionally hungover afterwards and glad to be home. That's about the extent of it.

Plus, when we travel for work, we only stay in really nice hotels - so that's a plus - though it's made me a bit of a hotel snob as my brother would call me. I don't like crappy hotels. I have to say - the Crowne Plaza in London was nice for $450 a night, and the Four Seasons in Houston actually was good too - I rather enjoyed eating my room service in the bathrobe and going to bed early while my colleagues got so drunk that half of them had to skip the meeting the next day. I like the bedspread to be white cotton and I prefer to walls to be painted rather than papered with some weird pastel old looking stuff. I feel a little guilty though - I could have stayed somewhere cheaper - but it doesn't seem to bother anyone else. So, I'm sitting here in the fluffy bathrobe, contemplating what to order to my room for breakfast. Do I just want cereal like I always eat at home, or this yummy looking breakfast flatbread thing?

I just hope I can sleep - cause sleeping in hotels is not my favorite thing. Though I do love this time zone - I definitely love the eastern time zone more than central. Anyway, guess what the first thing I did when I walked in the room was? Checked the mini bar - it was surprisingly locked. Usually it's not locked and I just peruse it - it's just one of those things - you just have to know what is in there. I would sit there and wonder - is it locked, what's in it? I just have to know, I can't explain it really. I think it actually makes it easier to just look. It takes the temptation away for some reason. The truth is, I don't even want any of what is in the mini-bar - it doesn't even sound good - but I just have to open it, or try, otherwise, I won't be able to stop thinking about it.

On to other things. My brother is moving back to the country which is exciting cause I can see my nephew more. We have a meeting tomorrow at the client here in Charlotte and then this project ends. I cannot wait - finally the stress relief I have been waiting for will be mine come Friday night at this time when I get home. Otherwise - a few things have happened lately that are on my mind and bothering me - but I can't blog about them - which means I have to send them in an email to a friend who is the dumping ground for all things in my head that cannot be posted on the Internet. So, I am going to move on to that and think about this time tomorrow.