Jogging Star!

It cooled off again and I went out to jog today and I was so psyched.  I was like "Finally!  It's cool and  I can just jog and jog!  I can let myself really - JOG FREELY and go go go!"  I have been jogging all through this heat and humidity and I even jogged while we were away and it was hot as fuck there too!  So I figured I was - what?  A jogging star!  I thought I was in some sort of great shape because I jogged in the humidity but went a much slower pace and a shorter distance.  Soooo - turns out that's not how that works.  I mean it was a lot less of a struggle to breathe today but my body was like "Girl!  You are not an Olympian!  What are you doing?"  So I made it farther than I have been but had to stop short of the 6-7 miles I thought I was going to do.  Okay I made it 3 miles.  That's pretty good!  Right?

Anyway it's just glorious to have it be a bit cooler - I can't even tell you.  Um - so.  So I don't really have much else to say today.  Working on myself and doing all the things to try to stay healthy.  Waiting patiently to be able to work more and well - I don't know.  Wait I do know.  Use my time to clean up the things I want to clean up (emotionally and in my physical environment) and write.  I am writing a lot more.  So that is good too.  Breathing. 

Love you Bluebie!

6:30 Coffee?

That didn't work out so great!  I was up until like 1:00 in the morning ugh.  Oh well - it was fun while I was drinking it.  Well I wish things were better in the world and in this country but it's still a shitshow.  It's hot as fuck and okay this isn't very positive.  I'm so in the hallway. 

I just need to be patient and pray for - patience.  We just went away for the weekend and it was so nice.  Was very weird traveling - we just drove but it was still super odd.  Quiet at the rest stops - everything closed. Masks. I keep turning things over to God.  My anxiety - my anxious thoughts.  The care of people I love. Their feelings and anxiety.  I know it's up to me - what happens inside me is up to me.  It's hard to trust.  It's hard to take care of myself, my inner life, while also being in the world - especially now.  I am continuing to practice.  If I stay sober one day at a time I have a chance.  And the more I work towards serenity the more I really have a chance.  It seems like I shouldn't want to be serene with everything that is going on but that's a mental trap and it's not true.

There is a way to stay informed and involved without hurting myself.  But first and foremost I have to take care of myself - or I can not help anyone or anything.  Or even figure out what it is I am meant to do on this earth.

Wooo.  Okay - love you Bluebie bye.

6:30 Coffee

It's dinner time but I am having coffee.  I have been so sleepy all day so I just went for more coffee.  I had a second cup earlier but I think it wasn't very strong.  Anyway - I am having coffee at 6:30 at night but believe it or not it feels like a good choice.  What's up!?  Hmmmmm - I will go first....

I am in between things.  Everything.  I have changed so many things in my life by stopping doing so many things.  So I don't have other things to go to - I just stopped doing the things that weren't healthy or working for me anymore and wow - is that - uncomfortable.  But - that's what's going on.  In other news I realized that I have lacked emotional sobriety all this time which is - HILARIOUS.  I mean ha!  Seriously!  Who the fuck knew?  I guess anyone who really got to know me.  I mean I wasn't behaving as badly or ridiculously as I did when I was drinking but I definitely - well - it's all been inside me.  I was only hurting myself.

I went outside this am to exercise and I was really able to see how the negative thoughts poison me.  The eating the muffin in my car "at" someone else poisons me.  I had no idea.  I have heard other people - many, many people say it over the years in meetings but I never really understood what they meant.  They would say "I am taking the poison trying to hurt someone else" and yes I GET it but I didn't really get it because muffins are DELICIOUS and they make you feel AMAZING even if it's only for 30 seconds until you (I) feel sick.  Ugh.  And the mental part I just didn't get at all.  It's my head - who cares if I am in a rage.  But my body cares!  My poor little body doesn't know that it isn't really happening - it FEELS like it's happening so it is.  All those hormones and fight or flight stuff happening.  The adrenaline!  God.  So much stress on my being.  Plus it's exhausting.  So anyway that's where I am at and the only thing that has really truly been helping?  Since it's so hard to control these thoughts?  They just COME AT ME - all day long.  The thing that has finally helped?

Turning it over to God. My higher power.  Today - all day - I put things in God's hands.  I said here you go God - please take it - I can't hold onto it or be responsible for it.  My sponsor has often said to me that my shoulders can't carry things for other people.  This was one of the few times that made sense to me.  When I finally asked God to take these thoughts and concerns and I put them in his hands - I felt relief.  Mind you - again - I have had to do it all day long with all sorts of things because my brain and my alcoholic mind wants to destroy me for some reason.  It is a miracle I have ever gotten anything done.  Seriously!  How in the WORLD did I manage to do anything with this FIGHT going on in my own head - a lot of the time?  Well I don't know - I had relief sometimes.  Distractions - work, books, shows - class.  It all helped get me out of my head and out of my own way enough for stuff to come through me sometimes.

Okay I have some other work to do - love you Bluebie bye.

Huh!

I have not written very much this year.  How odd.  I have been digging deep though - that's for sure.  And well - it happens.  I wrote other things and well - who the fuuuuck cares - am I right?  Okay so - I forgot what I was going to say.  Huh.

Well anyway I am having a nice day - I went for a nice long walk in the sunshine.  It has cooled off and the flowers, birds and fresh air did me good.  I am feeling better in general.  As I get a hold on my thoughts I am beginning to experience more freedom in my body.  I also am really paying close attention to the level of serenity I am allowing myself to have at any given point in the day.  It's a wonderful tool.  There are so many tools.  I have so many ways to help myself now and it really is empowering.  So.

So what the fuck is going to happen next?  Our world is at such a crucial point in time it seems.  Can we survive?  Can we change?  Can we adjust?  Can more people walk the road less traveled?  Take the path to the new frontier of spirituality and - health?  I don't know.  Jesus I wrote that and then I wanted McDonald's.  What the fuck is that??

Well one thing is for sure - things right now are - for me - going very slowly.  And that's okay.  I had no idea how much inner work I needed to do.  I had no idea how the negative thinking was effecting (affecting?) my usefulness as a (one small simple) person on this planet.  I also really, honestly and truly didn't realize - not taking care of myself is not helpful to ANYONE ELSE. And my mind is someplace that I am also responsible for.

So as they say (I think in the program?) - this is where the rubber meets the road because it is GROWN UP TIME.  Fuuuucking barf am I right?  Haha I am just kidding but wow.  Yeah.  Be kind and responsible - but for myself first.  In a healthy way.  Did you hear about that 14,000 year old puppy they found in the ice?  I guess 10 years ago but I just read about it now.  So wild.  So wild what this world has been and what it has gone through.  All the beings and people that have journeyed around it.  I was just going to sign off with some DRAMATIC statement about my sobriety but I think I will just say

Byyyeeeeeee!

Unlearned Helplessness

What would that be exactly?  Helping oneself?  Being proactive?  I don't even know.  All I know is I  have bottomed out once again on my learned helplessness and I need to UNlearn that shit now for real.  My sponsor says well - no she doesn't say this.  I say this is a character defect of mine.  Feeling helpless and stuck and feeling like a victim of other people's stuff (energy, feelings, addictions, alcoholism, negativity - whatever).

She says - that the only true way to get rid of a character defect is to beef up the asset part of the defect.  So my victim defect, my martyrdom defect, my feeling stuck and at the mercy of others has an asset.  What is it?  Okay let me think......

I don't know.  I must know!  I care about others?  I see and feel others.  I have a lot of energy it's just turned in the wrong direction.  Well I guess I have a lot of strength and passion?  I certainly have a lot of FEELINGS.  So I suppose the asset is that I am willing to do a lot - I am just doing the wrong things.  Especially because no one asked me to be a martyr to them.  If I have the strength to stop myself and ALL of my energy around people that make me feel like this - then I should be able to use all that same energy to detach.  Say what I need if I need to or just - detach.  MOVE on.  Move.  Just go somewhere else.  Good God - if I felt like figuring out the guy thing was impossible this feels even more so.  But it's okay. 

Just TURN that Ocean Liner around!  Slooooooowly.  I never ever thought I could make it through all that chemo.  It seemed fucking endless.  So I suppose this feels similar minus the intense nausea, fatigue and fear.  Although this does feel toxic so that's scary.  For my body.

You know what else my sponsor said?  She asked if I really want peace in my life - but she really asked.  Then she said I must since I pray and meditate.  But she said it like SHE REALLY WASNT SURE.  Ha.  Okay gotta go. 

Byyyeeeee!  

Let's Go!

My sponsor said to me that she had to - at a certain point - have sober thinking.  Jesus!  I have written about this SO MANY TIMES.  It feels even harder to do then stopping drinking and drugging.  To take control of my mind is the fucking MOST DIFFICULT thing to do.  Or at least it feels like it.  Some days are harder than others and today is a difficult day for it, for some reason.

I am all brain fogged and confused.  Part of it is the humidity which is hanging TIGHT and won't let go.  I can relate humidity!  I can relate.  Anyway it's that and who the fuck knows what else but I am very clumsy today and can't put my thoughts in a row.  Also negative.  I feel spacey & like - well oddly enough I feel like I am high.  Sort of high?  I am not high just to be perfectly clear!  Anyway I am doing all the things to take care of myself and at some point today my mind will clear.  I just keep taking it moment by moment.....when I start having an argument with someone in my head who isn't here I just say to myself "No no!  We don't have conversations with people who aren't here!"  Or if I start to remember something that happened 5 years ago or 10 years ago or last week that upset me I say "No no!  That's not helpful!  You don't have to think about that!  Breathe!  Be here now!"  It's like I am completely reconditioning this mind and IT'S SO MUCH FUN.  It's really fucking uncomfortable.

I am also waiting.  Waiting and waiting and waiting.  Waiting for that conversation so I can move on in a healthy way.  Waiting for the right moment to do that thing......Waiting to eat dinner till dinner time.  Waiting, waiting waiting.  Breathing, breathing breathing.  It's tedious.  It's the foot exercises part of dancing.  Tedious, a little boring and seemingly pointless.  But it's not pointless - it's technique.  It's the technique and the skill of being a real dancer.  But wow wow wow - the patience that is required to really gain skill is enormous.  Now I am trying to create a different life and the only way (as far as I can tell) that's really going to happen is if I create that different life with not only a different mindset but also with different tools.  It's the technique of living.  Wait what?  Does that make sense?  Yes.  Nothing changes if nothing changes.  I can't just ACT differently - I also have to THINK differently and have a better attitude.  Agghhhhhh.  Shit fuck piss mother.  So uncomfortable.  I want to live!  I want the pain of life and a life lived well.  I will get on the other side of this - maybe - hopefully and it will be worth it.

I'm going to say cancer treatment was more uncomfortable than this so I can do THIS.  At least for today I can do this.  And that's all I have to do it for - today.

Bye!

91 Degrees Anal.

It's so fucking hot again.  I am in such a grumpy mood and it made me giggle a little to say anal.  Anal.  Anaaaaaaal.  Jesus.  It's hot and humid!  We got up at 6:00 am yesterday so we could go out and jog before it got to hot and I was still sweating over my entire body and I don't even sweat.  I mean it wasn't 6:00 when we went out it was later.  Ugh.  But it was early! 

I am so sleepy.  I went for a walk this am and well - the sun felt great - it feels so healthy and wonderful to get out there - but - it's hot.  Did I mention it's hot?  Okay I am just writing because I have set up a writing schedule for myself but I am so conflicted inside myself I don't know how to write something.

I'm just having feelings.  Angry feelings.  They are the correct feelings.  I know that they are and it's so nice that I can say that to myself.  But man - do I get stuck in my feelings.  Instant conflict inside myself as soon as I get a negative feeling.  Which is ironic since it makes it last 500 times longer - it really does.  Whoa - once again I am getting so tired writing on here.  I am going to lay down.

Love you Bluebie!

Well....

So I woke up today not feeling great and I am upset about some of my relationships and how they have always been what they are.  This is not rational and I am not sure why I am thinking about them at all - maybe a distraction?  I'm sure it's that but I am in this program that tells me to look at my part.  We (alcoholics) always have to look at our part because we think the world is happening TO us instead of just happening.  Also there is a thing called the "spiritual axiom" which says anytime we are upset it has something to do with us.  So - so I am sitting here ALL morning - okay wait not sitting - I got outside and exercised and I did my prayer & meditation - BUT - during all of it thinking about this one friend...and how they have half shown up for me - sometimes not - sometimes yes.  Was very sweet during cancer - which I was surprised about because this person can really be - not nice.  Not just to me - but everyone.  Which is part of what I have been realizing lately.  If the person is doing it to me - they are probably doing it to everyone.  But anyway this is what I really, really realized - ugh and this is so uncomfortable to write.  My part...

Is that - that is exactly what I wanted.  I wanted someone who was half showing up.  Because that's what I was doing.  And instead of looking at myself and seeing why this was okay with me - I was able to blame them for sucking.  I wasn't ready to look at myself or get up - from a place of POWER & LOVE and say - "Oh - oh I see - this how YOU are - this is YOUR behavior and YOUR character and it doesn't have anything to do with me.  I however am not okay with it and I am going to take care of MYSELF and get up and go somewhere else."  Because it is so very, very very uncomfortable to see I am not a victim.  This person isn't even a BAD PERSON.  They are just a person who was playing the exact role I put them in so that I could stay where I was.

Because it is painful to grow.  It fucking hurts!  But I can't go back now.  I am trudging this road to happy destiny so I need to LOOK AT MY PART.  Even though I DONT WANT TO. 

But I do.  And I will.  And I am.  And it hurts but life hurts.  Which pain do I want?  Pain of dying from alcoholism - whether I am drinking or not?  Or the pain of growth?  I guess today I chose growth.  Let this poor friend free from the unhealthy pattern that I only knew about anyway. HA.  This person is just doing their thing anyway.  I just popped in and out having yet another weird one-sided relationship with them.  Not always but a lot!  I wanted and needed something and that is such an unkind way to have a relationship.  Maybe that part is being hard on myself.  And anyway I love this person.  So once again - at least I don't tell people to go fuck themselves and Jesus!  This suuuuucks.  Growing up suuuuucks.  Except for the part where I am free.  Happy (getting joyous) and free.  At least I have a chance this way.  And so does the friendship with this person.  So I can let go of the unhealthy thing and see what grows in its place.

What a weird thing to realize.  That on some level it was exactly what I wanted.  Well good news!  I don't anymore!  I need nourishment now and A LOT of it.  In everyway.

Byeeeee.

Branches.

There was a hurricane the day before yesterday - you might know or have been somewhere where it was happening.  Tons of places without power or cable, trees and wires down everywhere - total shitshow.  Mother Nature was like fuuuuuck you.  So when I went outside to exercise yesterday I see branches EVERYWHERE.  And in the past I have always used branches as a means of symbolic hints towards what direction I am supposed to go in.  So for example when I got sober it was forks and I took that as meaning I was at a fork in the road - get sober or don't get sober and I chose to get sober.  Then over the years it's been more forks, or the fork ends but the path continues.  Earlier this year it was RIGHT TURN or LEFT TURN.  And I took some RIGHT TURNS and LEFT TURNS.  Changed shit UP.  Also for awhile not too long ago - last few weeks - broken branches.  Just pieces of branches broken on the ground.  To which it felt like - ending of relationships.  Or at least an absolute shift in the way the relationships have gone.  Okay so again I made 2 huge decisions and even though (Thank God!) I didn't do what I would have done in the past which is destroy these relationships - I did decide to move on from how I was participating in these things.  So then yesterday I go out there and there's just branches and trees down ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE!

And I was like "What the fuck does this mean?"  Just smashed branches, broken branches, huge pieces of tree trunk - TREES.  I was really struggling to figure out what in the good Lordy fuck it all meant.  I mean I don't have THAT many relationships to get out of or that would need to be destroyed like that for fuck's sake.  So I just kept motoring around the neighborhood and I suddenly got 2 ideas in my head.  One is that all the branches and stuff were like tangles in hair.  You know you lose a lot of hair when you get the tangles out.  So it's a cleaning out you know?  So I then realized this was a symbolic cleaning out for me but how?  Then I realized what it was!

Resentments.  All those branches are all the resentments I have kept swirling around in my head since the beginning of my sobriety and let's face it from before that too.  Oh Jesus - yes 100% form before that too.  I just got SO TIRED writing this.  I have to lay down.  Love you Bluebie!

My Phone Rang!

I was in the middle of writing this post when my phone rang and it was someone from the program that was having a bad day, and her call saved me.  I also was not having a good day and I was writing all about it here - the VERY important why's and how's of my day, blah blah blah and then she rang.  So we talked and I felt so much better.  I got out of myself - got out of my head.  Then I deleted everything I wrote because it was just - I don't know - I don't think it was authentic.  So then I called my sponsor, made lunch and now I feel much better.  I promised myself I would come back on here and write before I did a bunch of other things, get distracted and then get upset later that I didn't write.  So I am writing.

I didn't sleep well last night and I woke up at 5:30 so I still feel off & anxious - but - I am taking care of myself.  I had the craziest dream last night about climbing and jumping through this dome-like metal structure.  It was huge!  There was a man chasing me and I kept leaping from one metal piece to the other and some of them bent and dropped but then I would leap to a different piece.  I kept thinking while he was chasing me "I got this and you can't take this away from me!"  And then I was on this ladder formation piece of metal - it was like a gold/copper color - and it went flying doooooown and then to the side and I reached out and grabbed another part of the dome and in my head I was like "Fuck yeah!"  The man was chasing me from the ground though which is probably where part of my confidence came from - he wasn't even on the dome frame!  Honestly then the dream got really weird but I am going to spare you the details.

Bye!

Actress.

So right as the quarantine happened I started to panic about whether or not I would have enough books to read.  My library had closed and they weren't sure when they were going to reopen so I went to my local bookstore and bought a book.  I'm not exactly sure how long I thought one book was going to last me, but money was tight so I just bought one book.  I bought a book called "Actress."  I saw it advertised as a new book on the bookstores website and I called and got the last copy.  I was so excited!  I was like "Oh this is great - I am going to read this book and get re-inspired to be an actress!  My passion will be re-ignited and moved in a different direction!  I will become a different person and a different artist because of this book!"  That's not expecting too much from a book is it?  So - so the book was good!  Very good!  I was able to lose myself in it and I was pulled into the story.  But - of course there is a but right?

It's the story of a woman who becomes a STAR!  A true-blue, honest to goodness movie star and she is brilliant on stage and screen.  And she can sing!  But that's not what the book is about.  It's about her daughter and the relationship between the actress and her daughter, and the actress's death.  In fact I would say the whole book is about her daughter who is a writer and her feelings about her mother.  Her daughter who is a writer and who did not have one interest in being an actress.  Her daughter who loved her mother and the confusing relationship they had because her mother was FULL TIME DRAMA.  Anyway the book didn't inspire me one teeny, tiny bit to be an actress.  In fact the poor woman's life sounded horrible and weird and unhealthy.  It sounded like she needed a lot of help and didn't get the correct kind because she was a famous star and FULL TIME DRAMA so she somehow slipped through the cracks of the correct care she needed.  Ugh - God - it's not even a true story and that was hard to write.  However there was something that was so intriguing to me and really helped me so much from this book.

This is making me cry for some reason....but at the end of the book - the daughter says (at least this is my interpretation - it's an Irish writer and she uses terms and phrases I don't quite understand) "It's time to be getting on with it."  Meaning - again - I believe - life.  It's time to get on with it.  Live!  Not get over her mother - how do you get over that - ever?  But accept the sadness and move on.  Live on.  You know I don't think that's a direct quote and I have to go on with my own day but that's the gist of it.  And that really, really struck a chord with me.  Because that is honestly and truly how I want to move forward.  Agh - I am saying this oddly.  I feel very much that, that is what I am doing now as well.  I am moving on with it.  Or at least I am walking towards the road where I will begin to walk and the name of that road is "Moving On With It." 

Well so it wasn't quiet what I wanted from the book - in fact it wasn't what I wanted at all.  It was a bittersweet book to ready and I found it painful also.  BUT.  But nonetheless there was something absolutely freeing in her saying it was time to move on with it.  So I have been thinking about that for months & promised myself I would write about it and so I did.

Bye!