Another two parter

TWO PART ENTRY – PART ONE

"You’re only as sick as your secrets"

This is just one of many of those clever little sayings/reminders that are used by AA/NA.

My first introduction to AA was through a guy I worked with back in the mid 90’s by the name of Steve. Steve was one of those people who I just clicked with right away. We became great friends very quickly and having him there made a good place to work even better. We shared a similar sense of humor, we were both single parents, we were neighbors and we greatly enjoyed each others company. Steve is an alcoholic, having been in AA for several years before we met. Of course I had heard of AA before but this was the first time I had actually been friends with someone in the program. At least as far as I knew anyway, after all it is based on anonymity lol.

I gave Steve quite a bit of ribbing about AA and he laughed as much as I did about my little jokes but I always knew he took his sobriety very seriously. I teased him a lot about what I considered those silly sayings; "One day at a time", "Take it Easy", "It Works if you Work it" and all those other pearls of wisdom you would see on bumper stickers. One of Steve’s famous come back lines to me was ‘we’re saving a seat for ya!". HA!

Well I’ll be darn if he wasn’t right! There was a seat there for me! Always had been and always would be After I had been sober for awhile and was leading meetings, I invited Steve to speak one night. I introduced him by sharing the little "saving a seat for ya" story. Everyone got quite a kick out of it.

But wait – don’t leave! I promise you this is not another entry about my addictions or AA or NA. I think we’ve all had enough of that for a while!

This entry is about what’s wrong with me or if there even is something wrong with me. I’m about to share a crapload of dirty laundry here so get ready. That’s where the secrets part comes in. You see I’m really bad at keeping secrets. I don’t like to do it. I’m okay if it’s a secret that no one will ever ask me about but if it’s something I have to lie about, I don’t want to know. One of the greatest joys of sobriety, for me anyway, is not having to lie anymore. When I was using, pretty much every word that came out of my mouth was a lie. It was such a relief to have no more secrets! No more lies! No one had anything on me cause I put it all out there lol.

Dammit, there I go again. More sobriety stuff. Okay that’s it. Here’s what’s going on in my life that is making me question what is wrong with me or what am I doing wrong.

Basically I am feuding with 3 separate people in my life. Each of them a very significant part of my life. Let’s see if I can give you a briefing on each feud (although it probably won’t be brief).

Feud #1 – This is probably the most insignificant feud of the three only because it’s not that unusual. This feud is with my daughter, Aimee. 95% of the time when we argue, it’s about money. I can say a lot of wonderful things about my daughter, but if I had to list her biggest flaw it would be her inability to handle money. She is not good at budgeting and she likes to spend money as soon as she gets it. It would be nothing for her to spend $100 on payday before she even got home. I, on the other hand, am fanatical about money. This is mainly because I don’t have much extra to play with. I like my bills paid on time, I like to know what I owe, when it’s due and how much money I’ve got to work with. I like things written down, in advance. She is getting better, I will admit, but it is still the one area that drives me crazy.

If you ever heard us fight, you would probably laugh. We don’t fight that much really, maybe once every month or every other month, but when we do we always bring the claws out. The funny part is, when we are slinging insults back and forth, trying to hurt each other with words, we are pretty much saying the same things to each other. They say that the very things we hate in other people, are the things we hate about ourselves. I guess that’s true in our case. It would be comical if we weren’t both so angry. The result of almost every argument is that we stop speaking for a few days and then act like nothing has happened. We rarely rehash the argument or apologize.

The latest argument happened last night. It got very heated and we both swore we were going to keep everything separate and she would pay her own insurance from now on (currently I pay the insurance and she pays the car note – I rarely use the car). She also uses my account as her checking account because she screwed up her own so badly (not the first time either) that they closed it. I just want to be able to die peacefully, some day in the very distant future, and know this girl is not going to end up homeless because of her sorry ass handling of money. That may be a slight exaggeration but not by much. Oh and what started last night’s argument? She had my debit card so she could put gas in the car. But then, she also used it at the grocery store. Her reasoning was that it was only $4 and some change. Well honey in my book, EVERY dollar counts. With my limited funds, that could have caused me to be overdrawn. It’s happened before.

For the record, I’m not looking for advice on how to handle this particular situation. I know what needs to be done, I just have to do it and be strong about it. The grandkids are what makes things difficult for me, I never want to see them go without.

FEUD #2 – This feud is with my sister Sandy. It all started about 2 months ago when I went to visit her and my niece. Sandy lives with her daughter Caren, Caren’s 2 kids (Nick 21 and Amber 15) and Nick’s girlfriend.

A little background about me – I have always been big on family. I have always loved family get togethers and as I grew up I would be the one to make them happen, so to speak. As my family has drifted away and gotten smaller, I have still worked hard to maintain ties with what little family I have left. That basically consists of the those listed above and Sandy’s other daughter Theresa. Theresa has 3 kids, 1 lives with their father and the other two with her (Jessica 22 and BobbiJo who is 14). Theresa and Caren’s families live within a half mile of each other but are worlds apart. You couldn’t find 2 more different sisters, but that’s another story.

Caren has a lovely home. A perfect home and that’s how she likes to keep it. She begged me and begged to come see her and my sister so I took my friend Bonnie and Makayla on a Saturday with plans to stay overnight. I always think it’s going to be different but it never is. Caren is so obsessive about her house that it’s just not a comfortable place to be. I love Caren to death, for most of my life she and I were the closest in the family (she is only 5 years younger than me). She is beautiful and smart and hysterically funny. She also has also dealt with some heavy issues; bulimia, alcoholism, depression. She seems to have those 3 under control but it’s just no fun to go see her when there is so much tension in her house. I wish she could realize that I come to see her smile, not to see her house.

Bonnie and I both thought Makayla behaved very well especially considering how energetic she is. There was one incident where Makayla wanted an apple. Now Sandy and Caren can plead poor better than anyone I know. They never have money, the get food stamps, go to food banks, blah blah blah. Caren lost her job over a year ago and gets unemployment. Sandy gets social security. Nick and his girlfriend both have jobs.

So back to the apple. Kayla got the apple and Sandy took it back from her because she wanted to cut it up. Kayla wanted to eat it whole. What’ the big deal?? Sandy wouldn’t give it to her whole, Kayla got upset and started crying and ran to me. Well this added tension to an already tense situation. To top it off, I had a horrible toothache since before we got there. It was killing me. By this time, I just wanted to go home. It was obvious Sandy was pissed off, Caren had been in bed literally all day (this was Sunday) and I just decided to leave. Sandy went to take BobbiJo home and walked past me without a word. So we left. Sandy and I exchanged a few stiff emails after that.

Now here’s the other thing. Sandy drives me insane with her comments on Facebook. She says such stupid shit and sometimes it’s completely inappropriate. This mostly happens on a page we both frequent, which is all about growing up in our neighborhood, the people, the places, etc. Another thing she does is befriend people from my friends list. I hate that! I never know what she is going to say and one time she even emailed one of my OD friends after seeing a comment this friend made on my page. So about a week ago I saw she had become friends with yet another friend from my list. Someone she doesn’t know and I am positive she has no idea what my relationship is to this person or how I know them. That was just too much for me.

So I wrote her an email and very nicely explained the situation. I told her it made me uncomfortable when she became friends with someone she knew only from my friends list. I asked her to please not discuss me with any of these people. She wrote back that she understood but you could tell by her tone she was pissed. So I decided to be the bigger person and tackle the elephant in the room. I told her that I didn’t know if I had anything to apologize for but I was doing it anyway, saying I was sorry if I had upset her in any way. I mentioned the apple and told her I thought it was made into a bigger deal than it was, after all, it was just an apple. I admitted I was upset by the weekend but I ended by saying I loved her and hoped we could get past this. I let Bonnie read the email to make sure I didn’t come across nasty or accusing and she thought it was fine.

Well Sandy comes back with an email so that was so mean and hateful that I could hardly believe my eyes. Basically she said Kayla was a spoiled brat, that I was a terrible grandmother to let her get away with it, and not to say I loved her (meaning Sandy) because she knew it must have killed me to even contact her. It went on and on. So I sent her a short one back and basically said she needed worry about me contacting her again, that was for damn sure. We went back and forth a few times, me getting as nasty and mean with her as she had been with me. She said some really horrible things and she attacked my baby, a line you don’t cross with me.

Now Kayla is not an angel. And yes I spoil her. I relish my role as grandmother, being her safe place, the one person who will always defend her. But she is not a bad kid. She is high energy, funny, sweet and has a heart of gold. And she was not bad that weekend. Bonnie and I kept asking each other, "what the hell did she do that was so terrible?". My sister has a reputation for turning on people. You can be her best friend and then make her mad and she’ll cut you off in a heartbeat. She has a real mean streak. At one time she didn’t even talk to her own daughter for two years! But she has really mellowed over time.

We’ve always had a strange relationship, mostly due to the 17 year age difference. When I was young, she was more like a second mother. In my early twenties, we became good friends, going out and partying together. After my other sister died, she really seemed to cling to me. I love her but to be honest, I never felt that deep sisterly bond that I did with my sister Bonnie. She left home when I was 2 years old. Maybe that’s why I don’t even feel angry about the situation. Mostly I feel relief. In her defense, I know she is not happy with her life. She broke up about 2 years ago with the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with. She lives with her daughter which I know is not an easy situation. Money is tight but that is mostly because she is much like Aimee in the budgeting department. In other words, she doesn’t. I’ve tried to help her with that several times but it never lasts. I also think she may be in the very early stages of dementia. She is 66. I have blocked her on FB so I don’t have to cringe at her postings any more. I wish her no harm, quite the opposite, but I think I can be okay with us not having a relationship. Does that make me a bad person?

Oh jeez! I can’t believe how long this entry has become. Bless your heart if you’ve come this far. I’ll have to finish it up tomorrow.