Floating

Life has been going on, here. I was trying to think of how to describe it and all I could think of was surfing.  Though I've never tried it, it's fascinating to watch.  I suppose there are a lot of different emotions when you're actually participating.  Well, I'm actually participating in my own surfing experience, here.  I swam out five years ago.  I spend a lot of time just sitting on my surfboard, legs dangling in the water, nervous and scared about the unseen 'things' bumping into my dangling legs and feet.  Then, a wave comes and I pull myself up and become invigorated, again, by the excitement and freeing experience of riding the wave.  While I'm surfing, it's great, once the exhilaration of the wave is gone, I'm fearful, again, and feeling very alone, floating out there. 

That is  what it is like, here.  We've been surfing a beautiful, life-experiencing wave.  I was beginning to think that this could be the moment when my daughter decides that she's done with drinking.  But now I'm sitting back on the surfboard, afraid and distracted.  She decided to drink, again.

I just don't understand this.  I am tumbling around with all of the thoughts, again:  Will I ever feel normal, again?  Will I never not be distracted by thoughts that revolve around drinking and alcoholism?  Will I ever feel like me, again?

What bothers me the most about her achieving sobriety is that her thinking can be a lot like her father's.  He is the son and brother of an alcoholic.  He's a big controller.  What I found out about a year before I divorced him (started the process, anyway), was that he doesn't see life at it is, he sees it as HE thinks it should be.  I think that is some kind of mutated, distorted thinking that a child develops in his situation, in order to help cope with the uncertainties of a home with an unpredictable alcoholic.  That thinking, I believe mutates as the person gets older and without anyone trying to counsel them, they just get more embedded in that thinking.  It does cause a lot of confusion and uncertainties with the person they are with.  A lot of arguments grow out of that thinking. When is life ever what you think it should be? 

You can tell her she will make new friends.  She's convinced she won't.  She thinks that because no one has been pounding on her door, it's a reflection of what a bad person she is, instead of the reality that people won't call if you continually don't call them back.  Your lack of action not who you are inside is what caused them to not call back after five years.  You've been romancing this addiction.  Turn your attention to being well and healthy, and you will find someone good to romance you.  Regardless of the argument, she finds a way to turn in against her.  That is so disheartening to me. How do you  show someone how valuable they truly are?  How do you help someone who feels so hurt find hope?  That's where I think God should come in and work a brain miracle.  Rewire her brain somehow. 

Anyway, that's where I am, right now.  I'll get ready for work. Pretend my life is good. Pick up my car from the mechanic's (Sunday a hole must have developed in the muffler.  Monday and Tuesday I sounded like a muscle car...people who were waiting for buses and walking were turning around to see what was coming down the road. Me. Embarrassing.) Come home and try to motivate myself to do something other than fall asleep on the couch.  I'm so tired 'floating' out here waiting for the waves.