Not for Boys

My daughter has a little heart-shaped lock that goes to her journal...she’s playing with it in the backseat as I’m pulling out to go get a generator at Home Depot for my new place, since I left mine with him, along with pretty much everything else, when I left that ugly life in December (it’s gonna be a hot week... let the power shut-offs begin...)... 

...long story short, she says, “This is MY heart... NOT for boys!” 

YES!

“I agree!” I said. 

I can’t change the fact that I didn’t have parents who gave a damn... so I didn’t know any better... but I’m so glad I do now. 

I’m so glad to be Saved and sober and no longer feeling like I have to use sex to “get a man.” But it’s been SUCH a long journey getting here.

Amazing Grace

God knows what I want - someday... a person I’ll spend my life with, whom I can be intimate with without reservation.  I’ve never been a cheater - I’m a serial monogamist, rather. At least, until now; now, I’m single, I’m celibate, and I’m starting to finally have some respect for myself now that I have an actual “ideal” man to watch out for, with deal-breakers, standards, expectations, preferences, and questions to ask. My sister said - after I shared my list with her - that that man doesn’t exist. That I’m asking too much. “Okay, then I’ll die single,” I said.

But I, on the other hand, truly have faith that God has someone out there for me. I truly believe it’s most likely, quite possibly, no one I actually know now. I could be wrong, but that’s the perspective I’m choosing to have. 

This has provided me with an immense letting go. I finally have the ability, as step 12 puts it, to “practice these principles in all our affairs.” Rather than being resentful, selfish, dishonest and afraid, I feel patience, kindness, tolerance, and love. Not the kind of “love” that isn’t love - the kind of “love” that wants and grabs and is actually fearful, resentful, dishonest, and selfish, no - the kind of love of 1 Corinthians 13 - not towards anyone in particular, although I practice it with everyone in my life - but mostly towards myself, from God... which is ultimately what opens the channel for me to love others, the way St Francis attributedly described. 

It is by dying to the self that one awakens. I finally understand what it means. I finally feel so connected to God that I don’t need anything from anyone. I see all of us as God’s children.

I’m still working on showing the most perfect, selfless Godly love to my daughter, and I will be working on that with my son when he comes home on August 1. I’m putting my children first in a way that I never have, ever. 

I guess I shouldn’t say that I don’t need anything from anyone. I do need to be able to help people. Or at least I need to try. Whether they are helped by my attempts isn’t the point, and it doesn’t affect me negatively if not, because I’ll have done what I have to do to be right with God. I’ll take the action = die to self. 

It’s liberating to no longer want or need anything from you. I’ve been rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence, as the big book says. I’m not afraid of you, and nothing you say or do can really affect me. It can for a brief moment - it always can for a moment. I’m still a reactionary, emotional human. But I’m conscious. Steps 10 & 11 conscious. So nothing can bother me for long.

It’s just amazing.

A New Qualifier? *Wince*

So...I’ve been praying to God every day, multiple times a day to remove my obsession with #40 (see my sex / relationship inventory...I’ve set it as a featured post here on the right of the page, desktop version only). As you know from my posts, ever since I met him on February 02, 4 1/2 months ago, the obsession with him has been insidious. I’m so grateful that I’ve been not only asking God to remove the obsession over and over, but I’ve worked the 12 steps and have thrown myself the harder into helping others through AA. To review, here were the instructions for the sex inventory - the answers to which I didn’t post here, but I did write them on paper with a pen for four hours at Denny’s one night in March, and my patterns were very clear:

“We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where were we at fault, what should we have done instead? We got this all down on paper and looked at it.

“In this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. We subjected each relation to this test - was it selfish or not? We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.

“Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.

“God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final judge. We realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or advice.

“Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble? Does this mean we are going to get drunk? Some people tell us so. But this is only a half-truth. It depends on us and on our motives. If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience.

“To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.

“If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can.

“In this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. If you have already made a decision, and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, you have made a good beginning. That being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself.” Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 69-71

I stayed after last night’s AA meeting to help a female friend who needed some advice on step 10. I noticed when we were leaving, after at least thirty minutes, that one of the male members - who I’ve known since coming to the fellowship for some years now but hadn’t paid much mind to until about 6 months ago when he started talking to me - had been waiting by his motorcycle, and only started to leave when we were leaving. I had shared with the friend earlier my “chosen ideal” man (see this post for reference), since she was having a hard time in her relationship, dealing with her husband's anger - and she pointed at Brandon, saying, "See, that's a good man right there - he's got the things on your list."

So, what's a love addict to do, but to develop a new obsession. Great. #42, here we go.

The First 48

After lots of crying, dancing (thank you James Brown), self-love, praying, and reflection, last night I messaged him to let him know that I’ll be going dark for two days, and that instead of coming early to cook him dinner before my 6/19 engagement shoot at the winery where he lives (that his brother manages) - something I had insisted on doing for him during our conversation earlier in the night - that I’m just going to do my 15-minute mini shoot in the vineyard and go. I messaged him more honestly about my unhealthy obsession with him than I have in recent memory - that I’ve tried to convince myself that I’ve contacted him over the past few days out of God’s love and care for his recovery from surgery, with the bringing him of flowers, and medication, and sushi on three separate days, and checking in on him every day with calls and messages - and I even believed it myself - but that, in reality, I’m still just so completely addicted to him. It must be hurtful to hear, and the best thing I can really do at this point, selflessly, is to let him go.

Thank God he’s a follower of Jesus - not that it should matter for me to set my own boundaries and end contact, but it does make it easier, knowing that he has a relationship with God and doesn’t need me in his life. The selfish part of that doesn’t feel good, but the righteous part does. The selfish part of it feels like death and heartbreak and longing and withdrawal. But the righteous part feels like love and freedom and faith and trust.

So, by Friday night I’ll hopefully have (over) 48 hours - TWO DAYS - of no contact, for a true and final, actual start to my sex-love sobriety. I added “no initiating contact” back to my bottom lines, because, seriously, I need to stop trying to control and enjoy this addiction. If I hold onto him as a friend, I’ve found, it leaves the door wide open to romantic intrigue, and I fantasize about a future sexual encounter...even plan it. I’ve bought way too much lingerie and BDSM gear, basically planning my relapse into sexual demoralization with him, with the hopes that that might make him love me again, and want to marry me. Ugh. Same thing over and over expecting different results. Insane.

After conversing with him earlier last night and facing the reality once again that he isn’t my ideal man anyway - we are seriously NOT compatible - I did cry, for a long time, to God. It wasn’t useless self-pity crying - it was very much a catharsis I needed. I was making a sandwich at the time, crying out, “Why the FUCK did I give up my self-love Pad Thai-cooking dinner time to listen to this FUCKER for over an hour on the phone complain about his situation?!” He’s a negative guy, and it’s draining. Yes he just endured hernia surgery, but he’s always been a depressive. I’m always trying to be a channel for God’s love to him, thy will not mine be done, but what about me? When do I start loving myself? I was so pissed at myself for a moment... but then I put on some music and started dancing in my kitchen, seeing myself in a window and being able to appreciate my own sexiness, loving the fact that no one else gets to enjoy MY body until a someday lifelong commitment. I’m in my house, I own my business, and I can do this.

I pulled out my 4th step relationship inventory where I wrote out my patterns, and asked myself for each one, “What should I have done instead?” The answer is, consistently, nothing. Don’t pursue. Don’t contact. Don’t date. Don’t get into the relationship. Don’t set the ball rolling in the first place.

Today is a day of work and service. Work for my clients and secretary the 5:30 pm AA meeting for the Progress House rehab girls. Maybe put together my bed, my daughter’s bed, and my kitchen table, myself. Love myself and others the way God loves us. 

And you know the Passenger song...

“Only know you love [him] when you let [him] go.”

Fuck

Why can’t I remember this feeling? The way it feels after giving an entire hour of my life to someone over the phone, neglecting myself, not making myself a scrumptious dinner - it’s too late now - because I sat there and listened to this guy for an hour, this guy who doesn’t have any interest in me? Why?!?

Sure, he’s interested in me when he isn’t recovering from surgery and can fuck. And that’s about it.

Fuck!