Musings from Florida

I’ve been thinking about a myriad of things over the past week or so. I thought this week would be a time of great self-exploration for me, and in a sense it has been, but not in the way that I expected.

The first few days of my trip were nice. I ventured out on my own and was having a good time. It was at about day four that I realized that I was tired of doing things alone. My sister was supposed to have come with me and she wasn’t able too. Here I was seeing the “sights” alone, having lunch at a restaurant for one, taking lots of self-portraits, and having no one around to get into trouble with or share stories with. I can’t say to anyone, “Remember when we were in Naples and . . .” unless I’m talking to myself, of course. I was driving down the road telling my sister how bored I was and in frustration at her suggestions I practically hung up on her. I was angry. I was tired of doing things alone. Yes, I repeat myself. I said exactly that to God. I’m tired of always feeling alone. I need good friends. I need my husband. I need community. I’m sick of being alone. So very sick of it. I know that the Lord is always with me, but I feel, guiltily so, that just isn’t enough for me. I don’t know how to get over that. I feel like I’ve failed God. I feel like I can never shake this feeling. It’s not that I don’t believe I will find my perfect husband someday, because I do. It’s the waiting in the mean time that is killing me. I wonder how long I will be alone for. Even scarier, I fear that after being alone for so long I won’t remember how to not be alone. I struggle to find peace with all this. I don’t know what the answer is.

I was also slapped in the face with the great disfunctionality of my family. I went to two AA meetings with my uncle Tom and heard him and others speak of their battle with alcoholism. He suggested more than a few times that maybe I could be the one to get my dad to go to AA. It seemed like a lot of responsibility. Adding in all the complications there already are in my relationship with my dad and my step-mom, all I could visualize was disaster. I asked myself whether it would be worth it to stir up all that trouble. Things didn’t seem all that bad. I have several other issues I need to resolve with Dad and Janean before I even touch Dad’s problem. It is of course possible that resolution of his drinking problem may well affect the other problems. I just feel like their feelings towards my sister and I are conflicted. I feel like half of them is glad we are around and the other half is not. The other half thinks we are a nuisance. The other half is irritated that we threw a wrench in the well-oiled machine that was their life before we re-entered it. I feel like a blow-up is inevitable. I feel like if I am in that house much longer and Janean says just one more thing or Dad tries patronizingly to squelch us being us I might just explode. I never realized until this weekend how ridiculous their “no raised voices in the house” rule is and exactly why they have it. They don’t like to address conflict. They prefer to ignore it. They bottle up their emotions deep inside. Sitting here writing about it makes me angry. I have to be careful because the Michelle that likes to hurt people with words would need all the strength on heaven and Earth not say something in an argument with Dad and Janean that I wouldn’t regret or have to apologize for later.

My uncle told me that I am a strong woman and that is a good thing that I inherited from my mother. I don’t always feel very strong. Last night Tom gave me his five-year sobriety chip from AA. He told me that someone else had given it to him and maybe one day I’d be able to give it to my father. I feel like I am leaving here with more on my plate than I came with. I don’t know what the answer is.