Introspection Overload

I overdid it this weekend on the introspection. Friday night, I went out to dinner with an Al-Anon friend and then I went to a meeting. Saturday morning, I met with another Al-Anon friend I just met. We talked for five hours and it was soooo nice. Then I had a piano lesson and we talked about my person life and then I had a haircut with my hairdresser-therapist-friend. Sunday morning, I went to another Al-Anon meeting. I had a gift card to a used book store and I bought a giant and amazing copy of an Audubon bird book.

By time I got to the car wash Sunday morning at 11:00, I was crying. What the heck?

It was too much introspection at once, maybe. Each by itself was good. Together, it was like a Memorial Day picnic, followed by a Fourth of July BBQ, with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, followed by New Year's Eve cocktails. Oy. I feel for the Boy having to gaze at his navel as much as he does. No wonder Wilderness therapy works--they distract the kids with trying to survive in the woods while navel gazing.

At the Sunday morning Al-Anon, the topic on the table was what have you done this past year?

A year ago last December was the beginning of the end. I went to Texas for work a year ago this week. The Boy had a meltdown while I was out of town, and there was nothing I could do about it. Jack was on his own and I felt helpless reading the angry text messages from the Boy. When I came home, the Boy broke his foot in a soccer game on December 16. After that, he stopped going to school.

Before December 2018, Jack and I had bought the condo. Claire-Adele had gone to college. The Boy was struggling but not sinking. After December 2018, the world fell apart.

This morning, I picked up Kindred by Octavia Butler and started reading where I left off a few months ago. It is a fascinating and beautifully written book about an African-American woman in the 1970's who gets transported back in time to the antebellum south where she is mistaken for a slave. My life doesn't suck as bad as hers. If she can survive, so can I.

I remember the saying, pain in inevitable. Suffering is optional. There was lots of pain points this past year, but there was also some good things. I met a sha(wo)man once who said she prays for all that is true, beautiful and good. I realized that I have the truest and kindest friends*--new and old--anywhere in the world who have helped me through this miserable time.

* This includes my dad.