There is this part of How It Works from the AA Big Book that talks about standing at the turning point. "We asked his protection and care with complete abandon." I often think of this moment as like standing on the edge of a cliff, and you have to decide whether to let go, completely, and step off. I have found in my years of sobriety that when my faith in my higher power has been tested, and it has been tested, and I am forced to take a so called leap of faith, I find that when I step off the edge, my feet land squarely on the ground. It has been a long time since my faith in my higher power felt strong, or since I have even felt all that connected to it at all. It really takes work to keep that connection strong and to really feel the presence of it and to feel the safety of it. It is very much missing from my life right now because I have let my practice of maintaining that connection slide. For the most part in my sobriety I have believed that my higher power has my back - that things happen for a reason, even if I can't always understand what the reason might be. I have believed that no matter what, things would always be ok, even if ok didn't look the way I wanted it to - that things would turn out right - whatever that would be. And that my higher power always had me on a path to something better. I think I am experiencing a crisis of faith at the moment. I don't believe these things the way I once did. I think they are just things we all tell ourselves to make the unacceptable ok. What I would like to know, is why the hell have I had to suffer so much in life? I must have gotten sober for a reason. I must have changed for a reason. I must have lived for a reason. Faith has been described to me in many ways - one of them being blind optimism. I have been told that you have to live life with blind optimism. I do think faith is something like this, but I have never been accused of being an optimist. I am missing my faith right now. And I am very much at one of those turning points that the Big Book talks about. The thing is - when you let go, finally, after struggling to hang on, you have to let go completely, or it doesn't work. My faith in my higher power has always been the most important part of my sobriety. I am really feeling the absence of it.
The truth is, I have been hesitating to post since getting back those fertility test result. While this blog is mostly anonymous, there are a few people in my real life who do read this, and that means that sometimes I can't say what I mean or how I feel. I simply say nothing instead and let it pass. But I have been basically depressed since Paul left and since the test, so for a couple of weeks now. It's unusual for this type of feeling to persist for me. I'm not depressed because he left - I think it is mostly everything else. I don't want panicked phone calls or emails from anyone really for what I am about to say. I know that feelings are not facts. I know they are not reality - that they flow and change and sometimes it's not even worth mentioning because, well, tomorrow you might feel differently. But I feel pretty certain about this. I guess when you go through something, like a loss, and I think I've had a lot of those, you always go through a grieving process of some sort. I think I've been grieving the loss of ever having the things I wanted in life. My life has "turned out" so to speak. I know what you are thinking - you are 35 - life hasn't turned out to be anything, not yet. But it has actually. You are wrong. It has turned out not to be lots of things. It has turned out to be nothing I ever wanted. I feel like I just have pieces that don't fit together into anything really, and it just makes me really sad. I don't feel like I have much to live for or much to look forward to. Don't take that the wrong way, or freak out, I just don't have much going for me really. I feel like I have tried and tried in life, and I have failed so completely that I don't even know what to try for anymore or where to go from here. I have nothing left. I have no hope, I don't even have faith that it will be ok.
I have a lot of fabric.
I know you want to know about those fertility results. I promise, I'll post what is going on later.
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