Back from the counselor

The meeting with the rehab counselor went well.

She is directing Evan to make up all the meetings he failed to go to. She also said that she is calling the social worker and that they will monitor his compliance more carefully. They may ask me for feedback, but they will be responsible for responding to any non-compliance. So that is all good.

Evan and I had some discussions which I am pretty sure he still has not "heard."

The counselor realized she had not asked him to sign a release so that she could talk freely to me. Evan said that he did not want to sign it. We explained that she was not going to be revealing secrets, she just needed to be able to keep me reassured that he was "in recovery." He resisted and she told him that she thought that I was probably covered under the general release to the program, but that even if I wasn't she would still be talking to his social worker who would talk to me.

He refused to take all this seriously. He laughed and he left.

Last night I sat down and talked to him about it. I told him that it would be a lot easier if he did sign it. The way it is now it will be like the old game of "telephone" or "gossip." If the social worker misunderstands anything than that is just likely to be exagerated.

Actually, I should say that I tried to explain this to him. He kept interrupting me and asking if I understood how he felt, how vulnerable all this made him feel. I said that I did.

He said, "I could just retract all those releases, right?"

I tried to explain to him that yes he could. If he did, then the agency would stop paying for the treatment; he would no longer get to see the counselor; the delicate balance that allowed us all to feel safe living with him would be destroyed and he would have to move. He laughed. He heard the words, but he responded as though I had said, "Of course, but then God would smite the earth with fire and water and we would all die."

I have come to the conclusion that he will not or cannot understand that I am serious when I say that he can only live here if he is working cooperatively with his social worker and counselor. That is just another thing on a list of long things that I have to accept. Right there next to "Evan will not really accept help with recovery until/unless he fails trying to do it alone."

One way of putting it is though Evan has and continues to be required to attend 12 Step meetings, he has not taken the first step.

He does not think he is an addict. He is just a kid who made a mistake, took some codeine, got dependent and needed a little help with detox. Now he is clean, young, strong, and bullet proof once more. The biggest problem in his life is a bunch of over-anxious adults who want him to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to get what he wants.

In any case I have been in recovery long enough that I understand that I really cannot change this attitude. A few months ago I would be anxiously trying to figure out how to make him understand. I would feel guilty about knowing I was prepared to follow through with consequences and he did not "get it." Now I just find it sad.

responding to non-compliance

Evan's "do it alone" attitude is escalating.

--He forgets to take his meds (which he say make him feel sick), and I think he palms them when I give them directly to him.
--He forgets to call his psychiatrist to talk about getting off his meds or trying to new ones.
--He forgets to go to meetings.
--And finally, he has begun complaining about the rehab counselor.

And, of course, the out-patient program hasn't even started yet.

My problem is that I don't know how to react to all this. I could fight with him, nag, complain. I suppose I could come up with some "consequence" but think the ultimate consequences of that will just be more frustration.

I could do the complete Al-Anon thing and say it is not my problem. He is in charge of his own recovery...yada...yada...yada.

One option seems to be the path to insanity. The other feels irresponsible.

I took a compromise option. I told the rehab counselor that we needed to all have a conversation about what exactly Evan is supposed to do and whether I am supposed to keep her informed as to whether he does them. When I sent this message to the counselor I did not say that he was being non-compliant, but she is a really smart woman. She will figure it out.

I'm glad that I have her, because I really don't know what to do.

no more train-gazing

Evan worked for five hours today at the sandwich store. He thinks he will like it okay, and definitely is happy to have something to do.

The rehab counselor made me feel better about where he is in his recovery. She thinks he is doing well and assures me that though he did not talk to me about his weekend from hell, he did talk to her. I was glad to hear that. He really does not have to talk to me in fact I would prefer he had a sponsor or someone else to talk to.

Now here is the reason why Evan and I feel so comfortable having the same counselor. After giving me reassurances (she has officially granted permission from Evan to give me her assessments of his progress) she said, "Now let's talk about why this has been bothering you this much."

So we chatted. We talked about deep breathing. We also talked about reasons I was obsessing and ways to stop.

I have felt much better since.

Objectively I do think that Evan is doing well. I also do still think that his chances of success without active participation in a program are slim. The counselor agrees, at least if we are talking long-term. Right now though, he is fine and I am okay.

Care to join me on my hill?

I am sitting Recovering Codependent Hill. Anyone want to join me?

The view is fantastic. From my hill the scene is this:

To my far left is a train named Evan's Recovery. To the far right is the Cliff of Relapse. There is supposed to be a bridge there. There isn't though. There are a bunch of workers with "12-Step Program" written on their shirts willing to help, but they cannot proceed unless Evan shows up to work with them, and Evan is not going. There is a really good counselor that gets on the train briefly every week or so. She seems pretty good at applying the break, but from here it looks like the train is gradually speeding up ... just a little bit. No one else really thinks it is, but then no one else has been studying the train as closely.

The social worker has just called to inform us that the expert bridge-building team known as "Out-Patient Relapse Prevention Program" will have its funding approved in two weeks. In other words, though they are authorized to attempt to coerce Evan into doing some bridge-building, they don't get to start working until a month into the journey.

If you don't want to sit with me it will be okay because I do have some company. One is a guy called "Sponsor". I keep telling him that I want to figure out how to stop the train wreck. He reminds me that I really can't. There is nothing I can do to stop that train and I sure as anything cannot build the bridge. He reminds me of the tree that we are leaning against which we normally call by different names but whom we have both agreed to call "HP." "Keep leaning on the tree," he tells me. "The tree will keep you strong."

"But will the tree stop the train wreck?"

"Not necessarily. Remember though, there is a whole lot of forest between the train and the cliff. We don't know what the track is like there. It might go in a direction you don't see. And there are lots of trees there. The train might even stop. And I know you don't want to hear this. But it might be that the train needs to go over the cliff."

Sponsor is right. I don't want to hear that last part. "It doesn't look like the train will stop. I know no one else is worried, but my gut tells me the train is going over that cliff."

"Try not to listen to your gut. Listen to the tree."

The tree says, "Ssshhhhh...."

And today the meltdown was had by...

...me. Yep. The kids are all fine. Evan is fine.

So what set me off? What horrible thing happened that made me go running off to my office on a Saturday morning so that I could cry in peace for an hour?

Nothing. Well, nothing except me. Everyone else was still in bed.

I was sitting here in my favorite chair thinking about everything Evan is doing: he found a job; worked out an educational plan which does not require him to do anything for six weeks; and has been minimally compliant on all recovery activities. He keeps forgetting about AA/NA meetings and goes to counseling because I take him. Meanwhile he spends all his time in his room talking on his phone to his boyfriend.

It occured to me that it was possible that he was lying about the job and school. I would not know. For the entire time he lived here he was using and I did not know. He avoided telling direct lies, but he was not honest. I never had a clue that he was using. I did not know until he told me.

If he started using again, I would not know.

Oh I know I SAID I was not going to worry about that, but you didn't really believe that did you?

It occured to me that he could even be using right now. Since he got that phone he has once again been spending all his time in his room with the door shut. He doesn't have any local friends. He is not trying to make any friends. He is not going to meetings. He does not have a sponsor and does not seem to want one. Am I supposed to believe that he is staying clean with this little (apparent) effort?

So I went to my office and cried.

I don't have any evidence or even a good reason to think he is using, and if he does start using that is what it will be like. I will have no evidence, no reason, I won't know until he tells me. I thought that I wasn't going to worry because he was going to have to be busy. He was going to be doing school work and holding a job and I would tell myself that he could not be using if he was doing all that. But he has managed everything so that he does not have any obligations. Even if he starts working at this job, I will not know if he is home because he is not scheduled or because he called in and said he did not want to work. It will be at least another month before he has to be somewhere every day whether he wants to or not.

So, like I said, I went to my office and cried.

Nothing changed. I did not search his room, make him take a UA, create new boundaries or rules, or decide that I could not do it. I just went and hid in my office and cried for an hour and then came back.

My sponsor sent me a coin with the serenity prayer on it. I've been walking around with it in my pocket.

Now I am going to take him out and buy him the pants that he needs for the job that I do believe he has so that he can wear them to the prison tomorrow to visit his mother. Nothing that he owns conforms to the dress code.

Coping with anxiety

The anxiety/reassurance dance.

Evan is anxious. I think I have mentioned that about a dozen times in my last couple of posts. He is realizing that staying clean is more difficult than he expected; he is afraid we will kick him out; he feels the need to reassure me that he is okay and that he is not as afraid as he is.

I am anxious. Why am I anxious? I am anxious about being anxious. If I get anxious: Evan will be more nervous; the kids will be stressed; and Hubby will suggest that we don't have to let Evan stay here indefinitely.

I have been trying to tell Hubby that I am the one making me tense, not Evan. I have to learn to cope with this for my own sake.

Actually this evening was much better. I got home and Evan was much more calm than he had been before. He said he walked the 4 blocks (one way) to the Driver's license bureau to get the information, and then walked further down town to pick up applications for jobs. He got three. He also talked to the alternative high school and is working on an educational plan.

I am hoping, of course, that he lower anxiety levels was from walking and accomplishing his goals for the day.

Still...at moments I feel like we are all learning a new dance. We are each of us anxious about getting our own steps right and nervous that if we mis-step we will trip someone else up and the whole family will tumble down around us.

Next on Evan

Preparing to visit rehab

So tomorrow is the big day. Hubby and I are getting on a plane (actually two planes) and going to the big exciting city to see Evan. Our agency, whom I currently love, is paying for the plane tickets, rental car, meals, hotel room, and even reimubursing us for paying the college student who will be hanging with bios.

Hubby and I will get to spend an evening in a hotel, far, far away from any children.

Sigh.

When I concentrate on that part of it, it all seems like fun.

On the other side though I am an anxious mess. I have spent 7 weeks working the Anon (Al-Anon and Nar-Anon) programs. I have made so much progress. However, the inner co-dependent is struggling to get out and I am trying to figure out how to shut the b!tch up.

I have let so much go. I have accepted that I cannot change many, many things. I have no control over others. I can only change me. Evan must walk his own path. Yada...yada...yada.

That inner codie though...She is creative. I let go of one anxiety and she comes running up with another..."Let's worry about this!"

Reminds me of Brian at four. "Mom, can I have two cookies?"
"No cookies until after dinner"
"Mom, can I have THIS cookie and then this other cookie?"
"No."
"Mom, can I have THIS cookie now and another cookie later?"
"NO...there will be NO cookies until after dinner."
Confused look on his face...then a smile, "Mother, could I please have two cookies?"
"No! There will be no cookies until after dinner!"
"Well...could I please have just one cookie?"
"Brian...NO! NO! NO! If you ask me again you will not get any cookies for the rest of the day!"
Then he cries, "You didn't have to yell at me!"

Three days not alone

My three days with Georgia were interesting and good. She is, by the way, is the same person who tried to help me make tamales a while back.

She is also a recovering addict.

I made a lot of tasteless jokes with my sponsor and counselor about it. You see, I had worried about whether the strides I have been making in the 12-step program was really going to "stick." I mean, it is easy to pretend to have a "let go" and only worry about my own problems when no one around me has a lot of problems. How could I know if I was ready. I told my sponsor that I wished there was a way to practice.

Ha!

I wanted practice and so the universe sent me Georgia for three days. The universe sent her at that particular point because she was going to get one piece of terrible news after another. She needed to be in a quiet house while she dealt with it, and I after all, had actually said that I wanted to practice staying calm while a recovering addict was stressing out in my house.

I am pleased to report that we both seemed to have come through it fine. I got my practice and I really do feel more confident of my ability to breathe deep and remain calm.

Georgia has it tougher though. I think it was good for her to have several days of quiet.

I hope so.

Recovery lessons -- updated

So here I am in foster parent limbo...one month without Evan, one more to go.

I have been reading blogs of my fellow foster parents and I have been reading posts on the discussion forum for people who are involved with addicts. My observation is not going to surprise anyone:

They are really similar.

The kids in our care can behave a lot like "typical" active addicts sometimes. They may lie, manipulate, and steal. They certainly are masters of getting us to do what they should be doing for themselves. They are needy and self-destructive.

And we love them.

As I have been thinking about the lessons I am learning, and re-learning, about loving addicts, I am coming to some realizations about all the self-destructive behaviors of our troubled teens.

First the bad news:

Our love cannot save them. We cannot heal their hearts. We cannot change basic self-destructive impulses.

Sometimes we can set up good incentive plans with appropriate logical consequences through which we modify particular behaviors. We can often succeed in getting them to stop using language we find objectionable, take their turn washing the dishes, and maybe even do their homework. All this is good and important and necessary, but it is not healing.

All those dreams of the new foster parent are an illusion. "I will take this damaged child into my loving home. I will make them feel safe and teach them a better way to live. I will love them until all the hurt goes away."

And now the good news:

They do have the power to heal themselves. They won't all succeed. For all we can tell, some of them will not even try. But some of them will.

So what do we do?

Well, we love them, but we don't expect that love to make anything in particular happen except keep us going when we want to quit.

We do the things for them which, being children and youth, they cannot do for themselves. We provide food, shelter, clothing, and safety. We help them learn to do what they need to do for themselves, at least as much as they will let us.

We learn not to enable them. We do not do for them what they can do for themselves. We let them fail, pick themselves back up and try again. We trust that they are traveling their own journey in their own time. We express confidence in them by not protecting them. We let them slowly heal their own hearts.

We remind ourselves that even the children who do not seem to be healing at all must travel their own journey too. We cannot choose their path for them. We cannot make them heal at our pace; we cannot make them heal at all.

We take care of ourselves so that we are calm and sane.

Now...as Granny points out...if I can just remember all this when Evan comes home....

A blog identity crisis resolved, for now

When I first started reading blogs I realized that I liked the ones that had a focus. I wanted to listen to other people who were fostering or adopting older kids. I also found that I was thinking a lot about doing foster care: they why's; the how's. My family and friends could only listen to so much and so I thought...I'll write a blog. I'll write down all these thoughts and it will be interesting for me and maybe someone else will want to read some of it.

So I did.

My tone was different in the beginning. I was reflective, philosophical.

Then the s*** hit the fan. Real stuff started happening. Evan confessed to an addiction. For two weeks the blog was all about getting him help. Not all of it, but some, is a pretty decent picture of a co-dependent in action.

Then he went to rehab and I started to do recovery work. The blog is still sometimes reflective and philosophical, but it is often more about the daily anxiety and trauma.

Recently I have had less to write about. I haven't heard from Evan for almost two weeks (which is okay), and I am learning not to worry and stress over him. My mind is occupied with my job, my family, my own recovery.

I write a lot of long emails to my sponsor, and I have thought about posting some of those thought here. Some of it I don't want to share (too private) and some I have been holding back on for a different reason. I was not really clear about it, and then it hit me this morning.

I am not writing a recovery blog.

Such a thing would be interesting for me and maybe for others, and I could even imagine writing such a beast, but that is not what this space is for. This is about doing foster care. Of course I could change that. I could decide that it was about whatever was important to me today, but I don't want to. I want it to stay a blog about doing care.

But how do you write about doing foster care when you are not doing it?

I have been asking myself, how much do I really have to say about foster care right now. The answer is, some, but maybe not a lot. So I suspect that I will be writing a little less for a while. I am going to try to keep this space focused. I am not going to dig for something to write just so that I can post.

Recovery work

The counselor I have been seeing says that it is common for adults, somewhere between 35 and 50, to have to deal with the stuff they pushed away as children. I am, apparently, right on schedule. I spent my adolescent and early adult years whining. I spent the next two decades being "over it" and moving on with my life. Now, the counselor says, some part of my psyche has decided that I am ready to face my demons and so here we are.

Then the counselor asked me to list the ways and times in which I had to behave in age-inappropriate ways as a child. When did have to take on responsibility that I should not have had to? Then a couple of days later someone on the recovery board asked people to describe in what ways was addiction a famiy disease. I started out pretty matter-of-factly sharing my experience...starting when I was four.

A whole lot of feelings came pouring in. I pushed them away on Friday and Saturday because I had to be a teacher and a mother. Today though I went to my office and just had a long cry.

My pre-school experiences with my father, though certainly emotional and physically abusive, are nothing compared to the experiences of the children in the system. I am realizing though that at some level that just does not matter.

If I were in an accident now I could say, "Wow...that could have been so much worse." I would feel relief along with all the other stuff. A pre-schooler though could not. If it was the most horrible, frightening thing that ever happened to her, then it was horrible and frightening. When she grew up that little-girl fear of car crashes might always be there.

So I was afraid in my home, whenever my mother was gone and my father was not, for as far back as I can remember. I learned to retreat into myself, to hold perfectly still, in order to be safe. I learned that at the same time that I learned to walk.

Now this is not a pity party...I don't want anyone to say "poor thing." What I am going to say next may surprise you.

I am today deeply, deeply grateful that the universe sent me Evan, a child with an addiction. Because of my responses to him and his addiction, I had to face my own demons. I have had to deal with the little-girl fear.

My counselor is right. Now I am ready to do it.

Chat Board Lingo List

Someone new on the support chatboard asked about all the abbreviations and I got cute and wrote the following. As I have nothing new in my life to report, I thought I would share it.

A is for Addict who
BTW By The Way our
BF Boyfriend or
D Daughter or
Dd Dad may be

DOC is Drug Of Choice which we were told
F2F Face to Face that our
FD Foster Daughter or
FS Foster Son or
GF Girlfriend or
H Husband might use

HP is our Higher Power who
IMO In My Opinion gives us always and not
JFT Just For Today the gift of
LOL Laughing Out Loud

M is for Mother who leaves us
NM No Message except
OMG Oh My G-d! or something
OT Off Topic about the
PO Parole Officer

S is for Son who told the
SW Social Worker
TFS “Thanks for Sharing” or was it
TFLMS “Thanks For Letting Me Share”
UA the Urinalysis results

W is Wife who exclaims
WTF “What The ****” or
WTG “Way to Go!” depending upon, well, you know.

YW is Your Welcome for this little list

And now I must go, but first I will say:
TTFN which is Tigger for “Ta Ta For Now.”

What a Good Girl am I

So Evan called. He is cheerful. He enjoys the city he is in, but it is just a great place to visit -- you should not try to live there unless you have lots of money. He did, by the way, get around to coming out. He had not realized that coming out was something that he would have to do over and over all his life. And one more thing. He knows the people there want him to stay for 60 days, but he signed up for a 30 day stay and that is all he plans on doing.

He had to hang up quickly because they were all about to go somewhere. That was good because it gave me some time for forumlate a response.

I called the social worker and we started going to town on options. He might leave in about 10 days! What can he do for high school completion? He cannot enroll in the local high school, but maybe he could enroll in the alternative high. The social worker though says she has heard that they have a waiting list. But maybe he could take on-line courses. He could probably even go to the regular high school to work on the on-line courses. They have a classroom in which students who are studying for the GED, but are not enrolled in classes, may work. The teacher for that room knows and likes him. She would let him stay there. Yes, but would he go to the high school?

Suddenly the light in my brain went on. I told her, "This is his job. He is 18. It is perfectly fair for us to say that we are happy to help and support him as soon as he makes a plan. If he needs information that he can't get he can ask us for it and we can mail it to him."

The more I thought about it the more I like it. I only want to help him if I am helping him towards independence. I don't want to enable. HE needs to make a plan for what he will do after rehab. HE has to figure out how he will go from being a dependent child to being an independent adult. If that plan includes me, then I want to hear more.

He can of course walk out of rehab and into the world. That is one of his choices.

He can stay there angry that we won't let him come home until he makes a plan, or not angry and working on a plan. Either way he his life is in his lap.

He can even make a plan and come home and not follow it -- and here is the really, really cool part -- I don't feel like I have to come up with a contingency plan for that! I can let that go and worry about it if it happens.

Wow.

This Al-Anon stuff is not half bad.

Searching for the GSCA

I am the faculty advisor for the GSCA (Gay/Straight College Alliance). I have not been attending meetings because I have been on sabbatical. So tonight I went.

They always meet in B* Hall. So I went there. Young women in long black dresses said the GSCA had gone to the student union to watch a movie. So I walked across campus (it is not a huge campus) down to the basement and there was no one in the theatre. Someone who was in the union knew the cell number of someone in the club and she called told me that they were in A* Residence Hall.

So I went back outside, walked across campus, past B* Hall, to the residence hall. The thing is, the residence halls have a decent security system. You cannot get in without a key. I walked around the *#%#)! building trying every *#%&^#@! door.

Just when I was about to go home and write them all a very angry email, I heard the vice-president of the club calling me.

Sigh.

They had a good meeting and watched A Home at the End of the World.

This combined with the Al-Anon thing is really making me feel that I should not leave the house. It really does not seem to work out well for me.

Searching for Al-Anon

I have tried three times in the past two weeks to go to an Al-Anon meeting. First I went on Thursday to the All Twelve Steps Club. They didn't know anything about Al-Anon but they would call the woman who knew all about it. She told me that the meeting was on Tuesday. I then learned that there was one on Mondays at the parish house behind the church I used to go to. I did that this Monday -- they were not there. On Tuesday I went back to the All Twelve Steps Club, but they have never heard of Al-Anon. A young co-dependent in the making (about 12) kept trying to imagine where it might be. I finally escaped.

I emailed a friend to ask if he knew where one might be. He said he would ask. He emailed me later to say that there was one on Mondays in the parish house behind this church...I told him thankyou.

Anyway, yesterday I went into the city to see the rehab counselor and stayed in to try a meeting there. I got there early and sat in the car waiting to see if people actually showed up.

The meeting was pretty good. There were about 18 people there. Four people decided to talk about how stressed they were at work and how the Al-Anon skills helped them. Two of them were fine about it. They kept it brief. Two went on and on. It was annoying. However one of the annoying ones cornered me after to express concern for me for 30 seconds and then talk to me for 10 minutes about her horrible boss and her anxiety about her review on Friday. She did me the favor of telling me that she was going to every single Al-Anon meeting she could this week and it was the only thing that was keeping me calm.

I say it was a favor because it meant that both she was not a regular fixture at this meeting and that I need to remember that there may be an annoying personality at all of them (maybe even her).

But generally it was good. There were several people whose "qualifier" was a son or daughter. It really bought back memories of Alateen -- things I had not remembered in years. I went to two different regional conferences. I was a speaker at one! I told them that I had done the first three steps as a teenager, looked at the fourth one and said, "Umm...No." They laughed.

They also laughed when I told them that I had had found a genuine peace about my father being an alcoholic when I was 24 and that right after that he joined AA,which really pissed me off. They laughed when I told them that I married a great guy who wasn't an addict and had two cool kids. There was no chaos in my life at all and so I became a foster parent to get some.

Then I told them that I had realized that I had always pushed every person that I even suspsected was an addict, but that Evan had already got in and I really did not want to push him away too. "So -- I'm back." I got choked up with that and they said, "Welcome back."

It was basically a good meeting, but I am going to keep trying to find one closer to home.

[Just for reference: I live in a town with fewer than 30,000 people. The "big city" 25 miles away has a population of about 185,000.]

Happy day

This morning I put a post on a support forum for people involved with addicts (an Al-Anon kind of thing). I did not give the details that I put here, but I did say that I got a letter from my nephew in rehab and I was happy.

When he first went I was nervous that I did not know him at all. He had been using since before I met him and what if the kid that I had come to know and love didn't really exist? The letter was reassuring. It made me feel happy.

So I got responses on the board. Everyone said something like, "thanks for sharing a happy story" but almost everyone also said something to the effect of:

"Careful! Don't get your expectations up...expectations are just resentments-in-waiting."

Fortunately I was happy enough and confident enough that my happiness was not based on expectations that I was able to laugh.

Their responses reminded me of my friend. She took medication for her under-active thyroid, was 6 months pregnant, and had a toddler at home. She told her ob/gyn that she was feeling good.

"Good? Not tired?"
"No. I feel fine."

The physician immediately ordered a test on for her thyroid levels, lowered her medication doses and said that now she would feel like she should: exhausted.

I really did appreciate that everyone there was responding with loving concern. They were afraid I was stepping back on the rollercoaster in which my happiness rises and falls depending upon how Evan was doing.

Today though I am just feeling happy.

And I like it.

It's like drowning...

I just watched the first couple of episodes of Wonderfalls on DVD. I have ordered the whole set.

For those of you (like me) who did not catch any of the four (4!) episodes that were aired before the series was cancelled (there were 13 made, all available on DVD), it is about a 20-something, detached young woman, Jaye, who starts being told by animal figurines to do things. She worries that she's crazy, but the figurines keep her up all night singing until she does whatever she is being ordered to do. Sometimes the orders are pretty bizarre like "Break the tail light." In the end though her actions set off chains of events that make things better.

In the first episode she has a conversation with someone about surrendering to destiny. He tells her that if it is destiny, perhaps we should surrender to it. Life is a whole lot simpler once you stop fighting and just go with it.

"It's a lot like drowning that way." Jaye replies.

It is interesting because I am, metaphorically speaking, sitting on Step Three's porch. Step Three is (re-written to be consistent with my understanding of a higher power): Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the divine stillness.

Now I am not too bad at turning over other people and things. I began to find that peace
with respect to Evan a little while ago. I will love him wherever he is and hope that he comes back here. I will not obsess over what I cannot control.

Turning over my will and my life though...well...that's something else.

I like my will. I like feeling in control of my own life.

Officially my sponser and I have agreed that I am going to take a little break before "working" this step. That's fine...still...I think about it, and I feel like Jaye. Her descriptions of herself keep floating through my head:

"The universe's butt puppet"
"Fate's bitch."

Jaye keeps trying to resist. When the rooster tells her to "destroy Gretchen" she decides that she really can't. A friend tells her to defy the chicken. She tries. She comes back.

"I defied the chicken."
"How'd it go?"
"I may have killed a man."
"So...not as well as we hoped."

Right now...I feel like Jaye. I look at Step Three and think: I will defy the chicken.

Hope no one dies.

Steps

Well, I got a sponser so that I can do the whole Al-Anon/Nar-Anon 12-step thing. He was not especially impressed with my announcement that I had already done at least the first two steps. He asked me to write about them anyway. It has been interesting, and sometimes a bit draining. He has a tendency to ask if I "really believe" something or think I have "really done" something even though I have just said that I do or have. I told him that I feel like he's Regis asking, "Is that your final answer?"

I have written pages and pages on my experience of powerlessness and lack of managability. I don't think I will be sharing any of that here.

Then I wrote pages about my conception of a higher power. Sigh. Some of that I may weed through and post here.

We agreed that I would "sit on the front porch of Step Three" (my imagery) for a while.