Hell yea

It is a masterpiece.

The lack of them is something I don't think anyone but me can appreciate and if that isn't a nice nugget to help build my new foundation of self on, I don't know what is.

This is the beauty of nothingness. A lack of anxiety is relief. It is hard to notice and vital to consciously recognize.

It's hard to say how bad things could have gotten if I'd broken during this divorce and started drinking again. Wouldn't have my kids. Wouldn't have a lick of pride or gratitude. I very likely would be alive and I would hope I'd be in recovery but for sure, I'd be coming across Fallen Soldiers now.

My hair doesn't stand up when there's a cop behind me in traffic. I'm not hiding any bottles. None in the couch. None in the pantry. None in the storage room. Never a hidden bottle in this house.

As I am moving from this place to the next, I have come across no Fallen Soldiers.

Feels good.

I'm learning what living in gratitude is. I'm excited to get a sponsor and do the steps. I want to make my amends. I was once afraid of them but I can't imagine hiding now. Every day I am further away from the clink of glass bottles in the trunk of my car. Over a decade now. I want more.

Jung says to quit explaining yourself. My history with my Dad is why I could never stand up to my husband at the time and tell him that it was me or his games. I don't want to give either of them the option to abandon me and that didn't even work with my ex. But there's more to that than me.

Oppositionally entrenched pretty well displays the dynamic. It feels like no matter what I do, they're going to immediately check the exact opposite option to see if there's a chance that I'm not being rational. If they find something they can rationalize into doubt, they use it to prod at me.

My marriage eventually devolved into the same dynamic of argument/disagreement/fight then we flee then apologies maybe but never any follow-up. Whatever caused the problem was never resolved and if it got brought up again, the same dynamic played out until we became oppositionally entrenched.

I have been rationalizing my relationship with my dad as healthy but now I know that I normalized a lot of fear. I normalized lying and manipulation because of fear of violence. Even if it "wasn't that bad." It wasn't the spankings that were bad. It was that there was no resolution afterwards.

I have been put on this earth to live my life, including my mistakes. All I can do is learn from them every day. The last 2 weeks taught me a lot about myself and why I am still in such deep mourning. My recent abandonment trauma has awakened me to the fact that this has been since my childhood.

I'm over here looking for validation from men who can't validate me because they can't validate themselves and ain't this just generational trauma tumbling downhill like it do?

And I guess it's up to my dumbass to Sysiphus this trauma boulder up and maybe launch it into orbit with feminine rage.

I told her that's why his backyard looks like crap but the soccer field is pristine. My dad loves me. He loves his backyard. He won't do the invisible work to maintain us properly so there are broken bits he ignores. He's rather mow the soccer field again. Everyone will see the work he's done.

Hard agree

I wanna bubble butt my poodle and dye him with Cal Raleigh's jersey number for next year's Mariner's season. Gotta rep the Big Dumper.

They do! I dye a few ears and tails. I don't charge a lot for it so it's not the rich ladies but the funky ones with gregarious pups who get it.