living with the lights on

i really don't know how to title this post - i usually have a better idea of where my writing will take me - so far this one is called "pissed" - it might not end up there - but it's the best i can come up with at this point. it's more "injured" or "wounded" - but the grief is turning into anger and a rage has taken the place of the weakness i have been feeling.

i make a point in my recovery to have structure built into my life so that i am not left to my own defenses. i have intentionally planted and tended seeds that should be bearing fruit in my life and instead of harvest i am left with famine. it makes me angry, and oh so sad.

i have found that therapy, support groups and some kind of what people from my background call "fellowship" (hate that word, but too fried to try to think of something else to call it) give me a good 3-legs when added to my fourth of working my program have a structure and stability that makes for serenity and sanity in my life.

i have been working my program, but my meeting has become incredibly frustrating as 3 of the 4 of us are in major relapse and while their words say they want a meeting what they mean is that they want ME to maintain the meeting so that if they ever work up any semblance of desire to play at recovery i'll be there to support them - but if anything is actually required of them they really don't want to bother. (see, it's called "pissed" for a reason)...

my "fellowship" has been a community of couples and families who have met together for the past 2 years to share a meal and our lives together. since the fall this has collapsed. you see one of my best friends had been "virtually" cheating on the other of my best friends (the couple i talked about being enmeshed in codependency with in the last post) and he did it on my computer - yes MY computer - asshole. this isn't just the run of the mill guy trapped in addiction (previous to this i had no evidence of addiction at all) - he is a senior programmer for a major corporation, a bible professor, fighter for womens rights and a father and husband who to most accounts is quite stable - come to find out that the "womens rights" thing is really mostly a pick-up line and the cross-gender friendship i had been building was mostly a sham to get me to fill in the gaps for attention that his wife - my other best friend didn't seem able to do.

this happened right before our two families were to go camping together this summer. i didn't trust my gut enough to cancel our involvement in the trip and it was the most uncomfortable situation we as a family have ever participated in. we got tarred and feathered for their inability to live in the light and i am still trying to get the shit off me.

i would have NEVER attempted to have a cgf with another sexual addict. NEVER. it is why i kept getting triggered and could never understand the cause. it fed a deep place in my soul to have a male computer programmer care about me spiritually - and validate me spiritually - the call on my life and the education i was participating in - my computer programmer father was never able to and has actually been vehemently opposed to my spiritual life and has never voiced any pleasure or approval, let alone pride in my accomplishments or life choices. his validation was a narcotic to me and somehow he knew that and it took me far too long to figure out. his brain works like my dad's and he understands things like my dad does. we had an easy shorthand in conversation that seemed so natural.

i was accountable to my husband and three of my friends who know me better than i usually know myself for the duration of this friendship - i did not want any of this to stray into dangerous territory - i was so determined to have a cgf to prove that i was not an animal, that i was not dangerous - that it was possible to live and peace with all men - and myself - and it has blown up in my face.

because of my desire to not tell anyone elses story i have kept the real cause of the falling out to myself and it now looks as if i was the obtuse one - as if i had done something wrong. see his wife - my other best friend - liked the role i played with her husband - i did all of the heavy emotional lifting - he had never been so stable and easy for her to manage. what a fool i am.

now i am ostracized while the lot of them meet and eat together and we're left outside of the invitations. the irony in this is that THEY (the couple) keep inviting, they keep trying to rebuild the broken relationship (not a new, healthy one - but the old broken, co-dependent one) - but all of "our" friends leave me out - and i have NO idea what they think. i am crushed and sad and getting angry. i want to shake them all and clear my slate.

but i won't because it would hurt her. i can't expose her pain and shame. i won't do it. it's not my story to tell. but the pain of being ostracized is overwhelming as this is such a small community and i am not leaving it. we are settled here - it feels like a test of all of the glorious rhapsodizing i have made about community and singing it's praises - those words feel like ashes now and i bear the burn scars.

liam tells me that it's easier to leave us out because we live "with the lights on" - we don't tolerate dark corners in each others lives, don't keep our eyes averted from the ugly places - and so we're the constant reminder to the things they'd like to pretend never happened. what they don't understand is that we know that those dark places are there - are willing to sit with them and still love and accept. it is the denial of the darkness that we hate - not the corners.

st. lucy day

i am scandanavian by heritage and growing up i had no spiritual heroines - so st. lucy, the bringer of the light was such a gift to me when i heard about her a few years back.

i so wanted pink to grow up differently than i did - so i figured celebrating santa lucia was a great way to do that. the first year we even made saffron buns, did the wreathe, the white nightgown and candles - it was beautiful. last year we decided that the buns weren't that good, and we liked our raisin tea biscuits better, so we made them instead. this year she had been asking about it (we celebrate st. nicks day for buck and we draw names and make home made presents that we leave in each others shoe the night before) for weeks. i really thought she was looking forward to it.

after our party set up last night (our small group is hosting a blast of a christmas party for our church tonight (my idea) at the university) she intimated that she was feeling put out and her best friend even voiced in about how much work it was for her. it was the first time i have been 'triangulated' by my daughter. i know it won't be the last, but i must say it stung. i don't do social situations well in the first place, let alone with all the weird stress between liam and i - and so this on top of it just bruised me.

i reassured her that st. lucy day was never a punishment and if it wasn't working for her that we could let it go. i grieved it a bit this a.m. as i awoke (liam and i had a lovely morning talk and cleared a lot of the air around here). i realized that sometimes i push on pink those things that i want so badly for myself. so i internalized st. lucy day and was determined to bring the light myself.

as i was getting ready for the party luciano pavaroti's santa lucia came on itunes and i realized again that today was st. lucy day - the day of the party i have been planning for over a month. how beautiful that it was a day that i get to bring light to my community.

i am dressed in my most favorite new clothes, feeling like $10000000 and holding the light inside. no expectations, just going to be present to my community and enjoy all of the hard work i have done with my beloved friends to prepare.

happy saint lucy day!