First Hurdle

First off, I’m so sorry!  It is so hard to find some private time to write!  Being in a cubical basically makes everything public and Jon is finished with school now, so I have no more time alone.  The really crappy part about it is I actually have quite a few things I want to talk about.  I’ve had quite a bit on my mind.

I’m not sure when I wrote last (sorry!) so I’ll just summarize a bit.  In thinking about my abandonment issues, it always bugged me that it was my mom and not my dad because I tried harder to be important to him than her.  After thinking about that for several days, it hit me.  When mom went to work, she wasn’t there to make dad act a certain way with us kids.  So she left, but tried to keep up with loving us.  My dad just stopped whatever he was doing and all three of us suffered (my sisters and me).  Mom left, but dad stopped giving us what we needed to not feel abandoned.

Once I had that amazing break through, it took a couple weeks, but I got a second one.  Despite how my dad looks or acts or anything else, he loved us the way he knew how.  It wasn’t what we needed in order to blossom and thrive, but it was enough to keep us plugging along.  There was a guy in my meeting though, that talked about his kids and how he regrets things he said.  I made me think of dad.  It dawned on me that he probably knew exactly what was going on and what he was doing, but he was powerless to stop it.  He’s probably expressed regret and wished he could fix it.  He’s probably even had a few conversations with God about it.  Before this guy spoke in my meeting, I’d NEVER thought of dad doing that.  This guy was the last one that spoke and once he finished and all this hit me, I just started bawling.  I went over, gave him a hug, and thanked him for adding a perspective I’d never considered.  I don’t know why, but it helps me a lot thinking my dad has regrets.

Well, so at last night’s meeting, I shared all of this.  And once again, while the last person was talking, I felt that I needed to text my dad and tell him that I appreciate him, that I love him, and that I’m sorry if I’ve ever taken him for granted.  And I told him I was glad he was my dad.  He wrote back and said, “Thanks, that’s nice to hear.”  I’m glad I followed through with that thought. :)

I’m working on new stuff.  I think my journey to undo my co-dependency is basically done.  I’ll never be “cured” because that’s impossible, but I can no identify when I’m doing it and I know how to stop it and change my behaviors.  Now, I’m working on the weight loss.  I feel like I’m in a race with hurdles and I’ve just finished clearing the first one… hopefully the second one won’t be too high.

B