First Step Forward



They're Hot



But she and I really hit it off...

She's a little tall, and doesn't say much.

I like tall (obviously)...but I certainly wish we had better conversations.

Has anybody seen my glasses?

skepticoley...



Anne and I playing...

I continue to enjoy my new home. I did finally get the driver's license replaced, and will be able to work now. The lack of transportation has hindered me quite a bit...I swallowed my pride and asked the folks for some help, as I'm eager to get my career back on track. Without help, I will be delayed by a few months...but will survive that too I am certain.

I have certainly learned a lot this past year, and continue to learn. The lessons are both hard and wonderful...new "aha" moments everyday...although I am weathering the loss of my marriage (as I have no control over choices made, or feelings others have)..my big challenge now is to navigate anger. With grace.

The current narratives I am told are attempts to invalidate our entire history, and they cast doubts into my mind as to the type of person I really married (and therefore leave me wondering why I am so blind). The fervor with which the "okay, so here is the truth NOW..." is no less than the hundred times I heard before...and so I have no idea what to believe. I have to choose to believe it was real somewhere for her. It was for me...I guess just more grounded.

I also have to remember that regardless of how she feels about it with twenty twenty hindsight..I loved the stuff that was good...and that doesn't change...nor does it need to. These big proclamations are her style, and they are heavily influenced by what is wanted at the time. "I wish I could take it all  back", "I want out life back", "It was always about you, Jo..." and "I never stopped loving you..." SOUND as real as "I was trying to convince myself I don't love her" and "she's the love of my life..." and "I didn't want to make you feel bad." I know that the truth of events still gets twisted by her...things revealed to me about feelings or what she did or lied to us both about are suddenly inconvenient  and then withdrawn. Words and events I was RIGHT THERE a part of are subjected to revisionist history to fit the most current version of "how it is". For reals and for trues this time. No, really! This version is the real one.

 I did not know that truth was so negotiable...and I have to check myself to not do the slash and burn crap I did over the past year in anger and hurt. I did a lot of petty things in pain, anger, out of a sense of betrayal and frustration that deception/cheating came with rewards for her, and pain for me alone. I am NOT proud of what I did, and I know EXACTLY the person I will refuse to be now. I accept the consequences of my own behaviors, confess, and know better than to blame anyone else for feeling a certain way about me...or for disliking me or what I did. BUT I am not really hearing anything but justifications from my ex now...and it angers me. I made BIG choices (and encouraged others to do that as well) based on information I was given. That pisses me off. But I've been doing that for years now, it seems,  so it isn't really a new phenomenon. Of more interest to me now is that I am finally feeling some outrage at being treated badly. I think that is a good sign, to break the "oh please take me back" cycle. 


 The reality is, she has probably really felt ALL of these things at one time or another over the past year. It just gets frustrating. I have lied in my past too...and I guess I can't then get all pissy when anyone I lied to then wonders if I am telling the truth. People might be skeptical of my ex...but to then blame me for it because I told the truth...REVEALED it more likely...or get mad because people start figuring out I am not the psycho nut-job she made me out to be...well, that is like shooting the messenger. If people have a case of "skepticoley" it is probably because I'm not the only one that witnessed the all over the map crap. To realize in retrospect that I was used to invoke feelings in someone else, or that I was an interchangeable "safety card" with someone else really sucks. The "if one is off the line, the other one will be there" type thing.

Now I'm thinking we're both gone to her...and it doesn't make me as happy or satisfied as I might have thought it might. That is probably because I really loved her, and still do. You can dislike a characteristic about someone, but still love the person. It's hard because now I wonder if she ever did love me. And I'm not sure if that even matters...the good times were real to ME. I know the truth of things now and don't need to convince anyone else..and this is all part of my recovery..which isn't about her.

The fact of the matter, as I understand it, is that if I learn from the things I did wrong-that is the point. I can try to make amends for my hurts visited on others, and I alone am responsible for what I do from here forward. I tried to hurt Nicole back. I did. I'm ashamed of that. She has a hatred for me now..and likes to claim I "don't know her, and never did." I know she is angry that I revealed truths in a vengeful way (I never made anything up)...and part of this resentment exists precisely because I DO know her. She's a beautiful person, flawed just like me. And I see "behind the curtain"...born of us weathering a relationship of experiences, challenges, changes, deaths, friendships coming and going, moves, addictions, fears, long talks, laughter, tears, hopes...and she would like nothing more now than to set that all down and recreate herself. I can relate. I'm in Phoenix, for gawdsakes...for that very reason. She told me no one new in her life will ever know that she was ever married, and that hurt quite a bit.

But I can't control that...

God, grant me the serenity...

12 Steps Forward, 13 Steps Back...

...and I don't care...or do I?

It is amazing the tapes that get played over and over in our heads...our "self-talk" that can serve to bolster our courage, or tear us down.

I have discovered that I play a lot of the "I'm not good enough", "I'm never going to make it", "something is  wrong with me" type messages. It partially explains why my parents are so toxic to me when they do what they do with the best loving intentions, or why rejection from my spouse has been so hard for me to overcome. I literally cannot TOLERATE or be around people who have criticisms to offer now...or want to cling to the negative parts of my past...or worse yet, offer their opinions of me based on inaccuracies or rumors...

I am in recovery and completely committed to that. I am protecting sobriety like a fragile egg at the moment, as I am still weak. I am NOT in resolve or in the decision to change my life...I have NO DESIRE at all to use any kind of mind altering substance...but I struggle in coming to the conclusions that:

1.  I am beautiful and someone will find me attractive
2.  Other people's opinions of me are none of my business
3.  Knowing the truth of a thing is enough
4.  Other people's issues, reactions, and opinions belong to them. I don't have to do anything to convince  anybody of anything.
5.  I am worth loving and taking care of, and no one gets to violate that with me.
6. I can expect and demand to be spoken to in adult tones, phrases, contexts-and end interactions when  they violate that
7.  I am as much the sum of my successes as i am my failures, and I can refuse to accept anybody else's definition of me.

Staying "clean"  is not a hard thing for me at all right now. I'm not struggling with that. SOBRIETY is...sobriety being the state of mind that led me to use in the first place. I am unlearning the things that took a long time for me to learn..undoing the patterns that took a long time for me to develop, and challenging the beliefs about myself and my worth that took a long time for me to ingrain.

It is very hard to let go of people and places that are toxic to me...especially when I love them. Some I can't let go of due to other entanglements, and I have to learn how to balance what I will undoubtedly encounter from them, with the coping skills I am learning to deal with them.

First steps into a new life...a whole new life and way of thinking. Not marked as much by "Jo doesn't drink" anymore, or any other "clean"symbolism...but because I am going to learn how to love myself TRULY this time.

For those of you who have believed the best about me all along, or taken the good with the bad without losing faith, or listened to what I said, or helped to LIFT me when I have fallen...I thank you so much.

Yes, I realize the picture is a bit revealing and suggestive...not meant to offend...but I am taking care of myself for once...more and more every day...so if you don't like it, I guess that's YOUR stuff. :)

The Wazzu Way

That damn Andrew, anyway...

So, I had done a search on "Funny Facebook Break-Ups" just to find funny examples...I needed a laugh...and laughter at myself is the best medicine (and if I didn't I would probably just explode).

Anyway, one of the images was of "drunken messaging...," and the WSU Cougar symbol immediately caught my eye out of all of the potential choices.

 There it was...

WSU was once ranked one of the top ten "party schools" in the nation (which the students stumbling into my class late, in pajamas with bloodshot eyes made a believer of me), and the administration has worked hard to change that image. "WAZZU" was  officially blacklisted as an acceptable moniker on any collegiate gear, and much effort was expended to bring a more academic focus to bear.

But some shit is just funny. I don't care who you are.

Go Cougs.

P.S...the image isn't fuzzy. You are drunk.