I Did It!

Got a hot date with a good lawyer in a few weeks!

Well an appointment. I think I sounded like an imbecile...just speaking with the lawyer had me shaking. Gosh, here we go again, just like my first ALANON meeting. Took me 3 tries before I could walk into a meeting. A woman welcomed another new woman and me, telling us that the first time she'd come into a meeting- she'd felt like she was betraying her alcoholic. The other woman burst into tears. I was speechless. This woman had explained to me what I was feeling! It was such a revelation. How could I, who lived with all that crazy, actually feel as if I were betraying him. The originator of my family's hell.

I am looking back now, and looking at the here and now. It's as if my thoughts, my feelings were a river. I know this river as if I were a native of these waters. And indeed that I am. Yet there is another current flowing far below the surface. A current, foreign to my waters. As if some other entity, maybe a devastating storm, had done something far upstream, unbeknownst to me to create this treacherous current. This current surfaces at times, taking me unawares. Troubling the water in a way that...startles me? Confuses me? Makes me doubt my ability to navigate the familiar waters of my being.

I feel so alone. I have good friends around me, but I feel I mostly hold my own hand.  They mean well. They want the kids and me out of this and safe, but at times they get a little pushy... I have to step back. Time...It's been 7 years too many. I know this.

This is like that first high dive. You want to do it. (Wouldn't be up there if you didn't.) That fear of unknown. Knowing one thing for sure- once you start...you're in, all in. No turning back. In your head you know the how of it, but if you land wrong...

Nabal had been very low key with his drinking lately. He tries the shy boy act. Innocently coming beside me attempting to casually put his arm around me. (Something he never did all these years.) Trying to touch me in some way. Asking if he can lay down with me. Standing like a toddler with arms outstretched, asking for a hug our kiss. Begging for a kiss in a child's voice. Just kinda creepy knowing what I know.

The IRS is on Nabal again- he didn't pay his quarterlys...again. For the first time he actually had the money. He doesn't want to deal with any of it. He asked me if I had stamps. I told him our boy did. He asked me could he buy then anywhere... He knows he can! He is trying to...I don't know act like a child? Trying to nudge something in me that he believes wants to take care of him? Just mind boggling.

Nabal asked me today if I had the number to the jail. Umm, not something I keep on my speed dial. Pablito got locked up again. My boy saw he was sliding towards the edge...again. That was weeks ago.

My boy turned 21 this week. A man. I truly hope I provided enough influence, soon enough. Soon enough to turn him acting anything like Nabal. The drinking, the way Nabal thinks about women. I told my boy I love him with all my heart, but if I ever caught him in any of those behaviors I'd call him to the carpet on it all.

Lord may he follow your ways not the ways of his earthly father.