Memories

[MajestyJo]

Hoping that everyone from all fellowships can relate. Here are some memories that I shared in 2009 on another group. I hope you will share some special memories you have.

I took my father and his girlfriend for a Sunday drive many years ago. They were in the back seat of my VW bug and every once in a while his girlfriend would say, "George behave yourself, what will JoAnne think?" If she hadn't opened her mouth, I wouldn't have known he did a thing, I wasn't watching them in my rear view mirror. My father thanked me for the drive. He said that I had found a road he hadn't known was there. It was a first time experience for him and it gave me the warm fuzzies hearing it from him. He wasn't too good at giving compliments or validation. He was surprised that there was a road he hadn't been on. His family had been in the trucking business for years. They had the farm equipment that they rented to other farms, they had stock trucks that they picked up cattle and pigs and drove to the stock yards in Toronto, they had dump trucks that they used on road construction, and of course they had been joy riding for years.

It was the little things in recovery that I learned to appreciate. A lonely rose in a barren flower bed, a sunbeam out of a dark sky, an inquisitive bird that stopped to check me out, a scolding by a crow who started in a tree, flew down to the grass beside me and walked along with me and rheamed me out for whatever he thought I had done wrong. I remember being very tired, not having ate my lunch and had gone down to grocery store and was carrying back several bags of groceries. I had overdone and was operating on fumes with no fuel in my system and it seemed to me as though my Higher Power was sending me a message.

I really miss not having a car. I don't often get to go out into the country and when I do, it is a real gift and I try to soak it all up. I am guilty of thnking I should let a man back into my life so that I could go for those little rides and sharing them with others would make it an extra special thing. So far, that thought hadn't overruled the other tapes in my head, so I don't see it happening any time soon. Maybe God will have different plans, who knows.

This is the person who use to need glasses to find her glasses. This is the person who puts pots on to boil and they boil dry. This is the person who burnt three frying pans in 6 weeks. For me it isn't insanity, even old age. It is fibromyalgia. I use to beat myself up royally for things that I would do. Put things down and not remember where I put them. Go for something and forget what it was I was looking for, and the list goes on, and on, and on....

Just because I do stupid things doesn't mean I am stupid. Just because I make a mistake, doesn't mean I am one. I try not to take these things personally.

[MajestyJo]

Memories of my mother come up, especially when Mother's Day rolls around. She died 28 days short of her 41st birthday when I was 21.

I had a lot of issues concerning our relationship, and it wasn't until several years in recovery, that I came to realize she had fibromyalgia too.

I had to change my attitude and look at life with new perspective. The biggest thing was, how could she teach me what she had never been taught herself.

I talked to my sponsor after a few years in recovery and told him that I thought I was going crazy, because I found myself, calling her and saying, "Mommy!" He said, "Perhaps now you have forgiven her." I didn't know that forgiveness was needed because most of my memories were buried deep and there were things I didn't want to remember.

I remember my brother being killed. I remember saying, "Dougie, come out of the way." I remember the guilt when my mother told me that I went up to my uncle and said, "Daddy Bun, why did you kill my Dougie." I heard my mother say, "Thank God I have Margaret." I was very hurt, I thought, what am I chopped liver. I was three, my brother two, and my sister was only 6 weeks old. I didn't realize that a new born baby would help her to deal with her pain, and that she had to deal with the baby, and she couldn't bury herself in her grief.

My mother used food to deal with her feelings concerning my Dad's alcoholism and carousing. She was warned about her eating and the need to lose wait, because they said she would not leave the hospital if she came back. Six weeks later she came back, and never made it home.

So much pain that had to be brought out to the light, so that I could heal. I couldn't make a direct amend to my mother, but I did manage to journal, do a meditation, talk to her, and make things right. It was sad, "I remember after one of my escapades saying, "It is a good thing my mother can't see me (denial), she wouldn't be just rolling over in her grave, she would be in perpetual motion." A sure sign of a very sick mind and how the substance we use, can really change us into something we thought we would never become, losing our values and principles along the wayside.

Happy Mother's Day.

[MajestyJo]

Well family I am back. Things seem to be back in order in my life. My fifteen month relationship has ended and I believe my space is back to being my own. I have changed and grown in awareness and understanding, but the circumstances in my life have gone back to normal for me. That in itself can be trip in itself. LOL.

Would you believe I got writers block and couldn't speak! Isolation is a dangerous thing, so I got more involved in service.

Life is good and busy today yet I know I can't get so caught up in busy that I don't have time for my recovery. Without my sobriety (soundness of mind), I have nothing.

Thanks for being a part of my recovery.

Wrote this on another site in 2004. It is something I needed to read today, because I feel myself back there, between my pain, things in my life, and my son's active addiction, I have found myself introverted and not always able to get out, even when the sun is shining. It has felt easier to shut down rather than deal with it. I am so grateful for my program, that I can take each day as it comes, and have the tools to deal with things. Oh so grateful for the Serenity Prayer and the ability to pray for the willingness to be willing.