Acceptance

Here is an excerpt from my favorite part of "The Big Book"

"...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." (448)

Family Reunion

We had our family reunion yesterday for my mom's side of the family.

It was so hard for me to go knowing this would likely be the last year for both my grandma and my great grandma.

My great grandmother latched on to me each time I hugged her with forceful squeezes. She has never been much of a hugger, so I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. It is difficult for her to hear much of anything anymore, so it's hard to carry on a conversation that doesn't consist of me yelling and her saying, "What? What?" to everything directed at her. The most content she seemed all afternoon was when my cousins' 2 year old sat on her lap and played with her necklaces. No conversation was needed. She sat there and smiled at her and the girl smiled back.

For the most part, it was just nice to sit by her side and know she was still there.

My grandmother's cancer has spread everywhere now. It's in her brain and she has an enormous tumor sticking out of her collar bone that is difficult to even look at. She gave in and started some radiation a few weeks ago, as it was the only way to prolong the inevitable. She started to lose her hair yesterday, which was very difficult for her to accept. She has always been a beautiful and well-kept woman. She told me she was going to go out and get a "damned sexy" wig with real hair.

She is keeping a good humor about it all. She does not complain and she hates for anyone to feel sorry for her. She told me she was lucky. The bulging tumor could have been on her face or somewhere that was even more obvious.

It is so difficult for me to watch a woman who has always been in motion, who raised 5 children and many grandchildren, slow down. She was exhausted yesterday, but she wanted to do this picnic for our family, as we have done every year. I am so grateful that she has her boyfriend there and my uncle to take care of her every need. They both adore her.

I didn't see my grandmother's boyfriend until about half way through the party. He was busy taking care of everything so my grandmother wouldn't have to. I asked him how he was doing, and he buckled up and said he was holding in there. I looked him in the eye and told him, "Thank you for taking such good care of my grandma." He started to choke up and nearly lost it. We embraced for a very long time.

They have been together for at least 10-15 years. It took a long time for me to accept him because no one is ever going to be my grandpa. However, over the years, I have come to love him and appreciate how much he loves my grandmother. My kids consider him their grandpa. He's what they have known and he's good to them. He's been good to all of us.

I seem to be breaking up over this grandmother more than the death of the other. I suppose I thought her death was natural and her time had come. But I don't feel that way here. It seems her life has been cut so short, and so unfairly. It is a hard thing for me to accept, but I know I will have to soon.

For now, I am just grateful to have the family that I have. I am trying to appreciate the time that I have had with my gradmother and her mother - and spend as much time with them as possible before it is too late.

To Love

"To love is to allow what is different to exist and be itself. To love is to accept the otherness of the beloved. To love is to refuse to violate the mystery of the beloved."

- Patricia Lynn Reilly, A God who looks like Me

My Father-in-Law

The kids are going to see my father-in-law tonight for dinner with my husband. I have been thinking about this since yesterday because this would usually upset me.

But the divorce is nearly over and it seems so is most of the sting of our relationship.

I've realized that the hardest thing for me to accept about my father-in-law was how he treated me as a daughter-in-law.

He didn't treat me the way I would ever want to treat my daughter-in-law. And I had high expectations based on my relationship with my first father-in-law in Lebanon.

But removing this title of "Father-in-Law" from him, seems to have lowered my expectations for him.

I can look at him as just a man, instead of my father-in-law. And somehow, that makes a huge difference for me.

More specifically, he is the grandfather of my children, and that makes me want a better relationship for their sake.

The Beach

I am heading to the beach this morning with my kids. My wonderful friends are letting us use their beach house, and I have been looking forward to our time there.

I have been thinking and reading a lot these past few weeks. I opted to completely get rid of the TV, and none of us have missed it. The kids seem to be playing more together and asking for less. I'm very glad I did it. We still have a DVD player, so we watch some movies. That's more than enough.

I have been getting along very well with my husband. I feel like I have been able to look at him with much more compassion lately. I think part of that is just the healing nature of time, which brings perspective. But also, several weeks ago, I broke down to him on the phone. And he told me he was sorry. And for the first time, I really felt it.

I am taking less and less personally and just trying to enjoy him for who he is. More than anything, I appreciate that he is kind, accepting and funny.

We have had our share of problems, but I hope we can put them behind us and be friends. I think sometimes when you are divorcing someone, you tend to demonize them. That helps with your pain. But ultimately, you have to move past that, or it will destroy both of you.

My husband will be joining us at the beach a little later. I'm hoping that this can be a week of healing and fun for all of us. I don't want my children to grow up with parents who are estranged. I want them to feel that we loved each other and tried our very best. I want us to work together to do whatever it takes to grow strong and healthy children. That doesn't mean that we will always get along or agree, but we can do our best. We owe the kids, and ourselves, that.

Love

"The highest expression of love...Is to accept without exception ..." - India Arie

Control

Things seem to be moving along fairly well with the divorce. My husband and I have been getting along somewhat better as we begin to separate things out day-by-day. A friend who was divorced fairly recently and has a daughter told me once we finalize things, we will be able to get along better. Now is the tough part.

I am hopeful that will happen.

I have a Parenting Class tonight for 4 hours and mediation Thursday morning.

The issues that I need to practice acceptance on are in protecting my children. I don't know how to do that because I am hyper-sensitive about that. I don't see how I can accept unacceptable circumstances for them. I don't have a lot of peace around that because my husband has not shown behavior that leads me to believe my children are safe around him emotionally or physically.

This morning, he called me to let me know his dad would be joining him when he picked up the kids. He only has them for a 3-hour slot, but I find myself aggitated and worried. My father-in-law is not someone I want my children around. He is a mean and abusive man.

We texted back and forth after a curt phone conversation and I am trying to let it go.

My husband wants the kids to see his dad. I believe that is only because he thinks he will get something financially out of it, which he actually pretty much said over the phone.

The bottom line is I don't have any control over the situation. Unless a judge rules that his dad can not see the kids, my husband can make that choice during his time with the kids.

I told him how I feel about it. I have been telling him for at least 3 years. He does not care what I think about it. He is going to do what he wants to do.

The sad thing is that I was in a fantastic mood this morning - until I spoke to my husband. I let that ruin my mood.

I need to stop doing that, whether it is by not talking to him or just not getting so upset. I still take a lot of things personally.

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.

Some wisdom from Michael J. Fox

Last week at church, the pastor read a quote from Michael J. Fox, so I made a note to myself to go back and read some of what he wrote. She actually talked about acceptance, but there were a lot of good things on this page, so I included a few of them here. I also thought it was interesting that he talks about stopping drinking, and how that was critical for him.

"That’s one of the things the illness has given me: It’s a degree of death. There’s a certain amount of loss, and whenever you have a loss, it’s a step toward death. So if you can accept loss, you can accept the fact that there’s gonna be the big loss. Once you can accept that, you can accept anything. So then I think, Well, given that that’s the case, let’s tip myself a break. Let’s tip everybody a break."

"My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations."

"Acceptance is the key to everything. Which isn’t to say that I’m resigned to it, or that I’ve given up on it, or that I don’t think I have any effect on the outcome of it. It’s just that, as a reality, I get it."

"If you don’t have someone calling you on your shit, you’re lost."

"Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone’s watching or not."

"I make no bones about the fact that I stopped drinking. That was the key to everything. Until I did that, I just couldn’t have the clarity."

"I had to choose not to party anymore. I could’ve chosen to continue doing that, but that would’ve been destructive. Who wants to be a cliché?"

"No matter how much money you have, you can lose it."

"No matter how much fame you have, it’s not something that belongs to you. If I’m famous, that doesn’t belong to me -- that belongs to you. If you can’t remember who I am, I’m no longer famous."

- Michael J Fox

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/michaeljfox0108#ixzz0PaywZ0om

Time

It seems I am spiraling downward this week. I've not been sleeping well. On one hand, the sex my husband had means very little to me. What else should I have expected from him?

But then I think of all the times I was left here to do everything and where was he? How he never woke up with the kids. How I am the one who picked them up from school, drove them there, drove them to everything. Cooked all the food. Changed all the diapers. Did all the laundry. I did everything at my personal expense. And what for? So he could go out and fuck 3 coke-head women without even a condom on his dick?

I suppose acceptance comes in waves. But yesterday was a very, very hard day for me. And today I woke up unrested with a sore body. I think I'm just tensing up. I resent that my husband spent so lavishly on cocaine, booze and women - and now there is no money left for the basics. I have worked so hard. And what for? What for?

Perhaps there was just too much space in the day. Too much time to think. The days prior were so busy, there was no time to ponder. But perhaps I also need the time to heal and to digest everything. And that may just take time.