thoughts and minor miracles

Something strange happened to me last night. Something that I’ve wanted to write about all day, but every time I go to write, I can’t find the way to put it into words. It’s inexpressable, in a way. I think I may have experienced a minor miracle – at least, in a way that I can’t explain what happened, or what I saw, or why.

I was feeling pretty low last night. Down and out. Dejected. Alone. My best friend was doing her best to cheer me up, to listen to me, and I talked to the girl for awhile, for the first time in what feels like months, but I was disappointed. And then I brought up the wedding, and felt guilty for telling her how I feel, in the fear that I may have hurt or offended her somehow, which, in hindsight is ridiculous, but part of me being me, in recovery from this personality flaw that is codependence, and learning step by step that there is another way to be – another way that I’m not quite at yet, but may be someday. I went to bed early. I had a hard time sleeping, figures, but the intention was there. So for a long time I stared up at the ceiling, sans ceiling fan and ice-cold air conditioning (how is it that the rest of my apartment stays at 65 degrees, when I have the air set at 80, but my bedroom, the place I go to sleep is actually at 80? I think I need to check to make sure the vent is open. Anyways, I must have drifted off. I sleep with earplugs in my ears, but these were new, and they started hurting, so in my half-sleep state, I pulled them off and heard a noise. So I rolled over, and could see, past the window blinds, which were blowing in the breeze of the fan I bought, water on my windowpane. Rain. It was cascading down the pane, and it looked like the world was crying. I can’t lie and say I didn’t cry last night – I did. Over the disappointment, the frustration – moving was a big deal to me, and I wanted to share that with someone who was a big deal to me, and I was supposed to and I was so excited – and couldn’t. So I cried. I’m not ashamed of it – it happens. I’ll go into disappointments later, because I think I’ve figured something out. But I sat there on the edge of my bed for 3 minutes, and just watched the water come down. Water, rain especially is soothing to me – cathartic – it’s like meditating, watching it. I started breathing easier. After a few minutes passed, I realized I had to pee, so I got up to use the bathroom. Went back into the kitchen to get a drink of water – and the window was dry. Like bone dry. I went to the living room, and the balcony was dry, including my futon which has taken up a home there. It didn’t smell like rain outside. And when I went back into my bedroom, that window I had stared out of for the previous few minutes was dry too. I don’t know how to explain it. I really don’t. It was like a blessing – like something that I was meant to see, just in that particular moment to calm me down and still my spinning head and remind me that everything was okay – everything was going to be okay…that I was right where I needed to be, and it was all for a reason. It sounds crazy, saying it now. I don’t know. I don’t think I”ll ever have the answer to that one.

When i was talking to Dani yesterday, she asked me why I was so upset, and it started making things a bit more clear. I was upset, not because Devon was tired and wanted one night to sleep in her own bed after being gone for almost a week, alone and just in the quiet – I understood and was sympathetic to that. What upset me most, other than the ache of missing her, the hole in my chest that felt like it was near to bursting ( a hole, she said, that she felt just as strongly the whole time she was gone, and last night as well knowing I was so close but felt like so far away…she said I was more than her girlfriend. I guess I am….but I don’t know what that makes me, exactly…I don’t know what that makes her – not sure there is a name for the inbetween that we are) was that I knew this would happen, but I went against my instincts and didn’t prepare myself for it because she promised it wouldn’t. Promises mean something to me and I’ve had so many of them broken, that if you make one – and I trust you (and I trust her) then I expect you to follow through. Some promises shouldn’t be made, I get that – some things you just can’t forsee, you can’t know – no one is a fortune teller who is infallable. My ex did that a lot – it’s a demon that still plagues me and messes with my emotions. She would promise this or that or the other thing, and never follow through. Never. Then get angry when I exhibited the least sign of disappointment, as if I shouldn’t be – as if I just just be okay with everything because shit happens. It burned a hole in me, all those failed and broken promises. Then again I make promises, with the intent for them to be true that I hope I can keep, but can’t say for certain. we all do. My disappointment was mostly with me. Because I knew better – and disregarded the knowledge. I’m not sure any of this is making sense. In the grand scheme of things, was the fact she wasn’t there last night a super big deal? Not really. The big deal was that she promised she would be – and wasn’t. And it was a big deal to me – to bust my ass to get everything moved and unpacked and cleaned up, and ready…to move my whole life, in large part as a showing of faith in our relationship….to come home to our first home together and show her what I had accomplished – what I did for us. But whether it was yesterday or today is really less important than the fact that I did it, right? I just really, really wanted her there, then. Perhaps that makes me somewhat selfish. I can’t really say. How much disappointment is normal, and how much is a lingering trait not quite cured in my recovery?

Is there a cure for codependency? I’d like to think so. Not a pill you can swallow, and poof be better – but I have to believe, I have to have faith that one day, my old patterns, and thoughts and insecurities will have sufficiantly be replaced with healthy ways of thinking enough that i won’t HAVE to go to meetings every week. I wont’ HAVE to continue to work the 12 steps indefinitely just to get a glimpse of what being human is supposed to feel like. A few of us were talking about this on Friday night, after moving in the blackness boxes and some furniture – sitting out on the porch with beer and laughter and darkness, watching the people underneath, communicating. We agreed that at some point, if you’re genuine in your efforts, you would have to see a light at the end of the tunnel – a graduation of sorts. But if the stronger ones make it through and graduate, who’s there to help the people just finding the group? It’s a problem…but for me, for only me – I have to be able to envision an end to this. I don’t know when it will be. I grew into being this way over the course of 31 years. At the 32 year mark, I started learning about another way. I’m hoping that new way will someday come as second nature, and I won’t have to force my thoughts into those new patterns, and out of the old. I’m hoping that someday it will be natural for me. I have hope for that. Where will I be then? I can’t say…but I think I’m on my way.

Speaking of on my way – my klutzy side has returned with a vengence. No, I didn’t fall down (or up) the stairs the entire time I was moving. However- I just introduced my temple to the corner of the coffee cabinet at work. Hard. That’s going to leave a mark – and I’m covered in bruises, scabs, scars and puncture wounds from the weekend. Fantastic.