Accepting Change

Tomorrow is the start of school, and I can not sleep. I am very upset about my daughter starting school on an all-day basis. It just breaks my heart. I started thinking about the passage about acceptance and decided to post it again.

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could no stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes. " p448, The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous

I can accept that this is the best and only decision I have for my daughter right now. What is hard to accept is that it is the selfish actions of her father and his family that has brought us to this place. That I can't accept, and I don't know if I will ever be able to accept it.

My daughter is 3-years-old. We can never get this precious time back. I feel like it is being robbed from me. I feel like her happy little spirit is being robbed from her. And I am very, very angry about that.

Earlier today my husband wanted to stop by to get some things and I became upset. Why do we always have to change our plans to accommodate him? When does he ever accommodate us?

I told him not to come. I am tired of having my children's lives upset and turned upside down. I am tired of him pretending to be a father. I am tired of having anything at all to do with him.

His things have all been here for 5 months. There should be no sudden urgency about anything anymore. All he left us with is a bunch of old junk.

I know the passage about acceptance is right. I know it has worked for people. There is just very little I feel like accepting right now.

I re-watched Malcolm X the other day and thought there is a man who didn't live by the status quo or accept the bullshit that was handed to him. And, they killed him. Sometimes I wonder if life for the "successful" is just a puppet dance. Playing by someone else's rules that really don't work for you.

Somewhere in all of this I need to find what does work, for me, and for my children.