happy freakin new year.

so, it's new year's eve. 11:28 pm and i'm home. mildly pissed, trying to forget it and move on. it's one of those things where people would rather draw assumptions and make judgment calls based on what they observe than bother to find out what's really going on. i tend to think that if someone is worried about me they'd talk to me rather than talk to someone else about me so they can decide i'm on my way out if i don't change my attitude/behavior. i would have to agree to an extent that if i hadn't changed my thought process and stopped the spiraling thinking, yeah, i'd probably be a little closer to going out, but i'm not there. i'm doing what i need to to take care of myself and avoiding needing to make amends down the line by hurting anyone around me because of my attitude. i'm talking to people i trust and people i know care about me, being honest with them, taking time to think things through positively, take a minor personal inventory to find out where i am, going to meetings and being honest about/with my feelings... so yeah, it kinda hurts that people who say they care aren't taking the time to talk to me before gossiping about me and making judgment calls on me. i know where they're coming from by saying those things, and i'm accepting that they don't know enough about me to know what i'm like. it still hurts.

Ok. I'm done writing the thought stream spiraling through my head right now. It's freakin New Year's Eve! Tonight is the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007! Pretty freakin cool! Tonight is also my 14 month anniversary. I was talking with my sponsor yesterday about how 18 months ago I didn't even consider being clean/sober as an option I had. Now, it's been 14 months and things really are picking up. I have all these 'tools' to use to stop the downward spiraling thoughts and I'm using them daily. The more I use them, the easier it is to use them effectively. Don't get me wrong, it's not easy by any means, but it's getting easier because I'm realizing what I need to do for myself. Basically, I've been in a bit of a funk lately which started with a using dream after having a couple of really tiring weeks at work and an exhausting holiday weekend. I was in a bad mood, I was a little jealous of my friends who are going out tonight, not for the drinking, but because I really wanted to spend some time with them and I can't right now because it wouldn't be a good choice for me to be out with them tonight. That's a choice I made. I still have a hard time accepting that I'm actually choosing to do what's good for me rather that what I want to do. I was at a dance earlier tonight and I actually behaved myself. Not exactly what I wanted to do, but what I needed to. It's kinda cool really. I don't have to make any amends tomorrow, I got the chance to talk to some people I usually don't get to talk to, and I had fun dancing for a bit. It was a pretty darn good night. Other than feeling a little hurt, I'm in a pretty good place mentally right now. The hurt? This too shall pass. They mean well, and I know they care about me, otherwise they wouldn't have been talking about me.

I am grateful I'm alive, here, sober and am able to forgive people who hurt me without needing an apology.

Ok. I hear fireworks. Happy New Year Everyone!!

Time to spellcheck this and go to bed.

Thank you to all my friends who do care about me.

Hugz.
JD

Home for the Holidays...

Hola! So, I went Home for the Holidays. Actually, it was the first major holiday I've attended with my family in six years. It was pretty decent. The image above is looking out from my parent's back porch in Northern Wisconsin (Bayfield if anyone knows it). I realized how much of a "City-Boy" I've become since moving to Minneapolis. The silence kept me awake! I couldn't believe it. I'm used to hearing sirens, helicopters, traffic... Noise of people around. I walked outside and the silence was almost overwhelming. I had forgotten how different it is up there. OH! The STARS!!! Wow! I couldn't believe how many stars I could see at night! The moon was very bright, but I could still see all the stars! In the city it's pretty easy to pick out the constellations because there aren't so many stars visible, but back home I could see so many stars that I had a hard time even finding "Orion" or "The Big Dipper." It's wierd.
I went to church with my family (Twice in one day) and I'm mildly surprised I didn't burst into flames when I walked in. I didn't, but it sure got 'hot' a couple times in there. Anywho, it was nice to see people I grew up with. I saw a couple people I haven't seen since I left for college in 1994, so it was nice to catch up a bit on what's going on with them. I really don't know what my family has told them about my life now, so I'm always cautious telling them how things are going with me. Not so sure my parents would be gossiping about how "Wonderful" my boyfriends are in their church meetings, or about how proud they are that their alcoholic son is seeking help and changing his career at the same time. You know what I mean? My parents are pretty strict Baptist (Great Lakes Baptist, closer to Southern Baptist than Bible Baptist I guess) and just don't talk much about things like this.
I love my family, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be who I am without them and I'm very grateful for them. They've put up with a lot from me over the past few years. My dark-humor is really coming out tonight though, so I apologize if I gave a bad impression of them. It's a pretty tenuous relationship I have with them. It's a struggle between Tolerance and Acceptance for all of us.
My job's been interesting lately. We had two people quit or voluntarily accept a dismissal, two people have been on vacation, and my supervisor's wife just had a baby, so he's not been around much this week. Out of a team of 10 people, that's a HUGE loss when we're trying to complete our daily tasks. It's actually been kinda fun though. I like to push myself just to see how much I can get done in a day. Fifteen Months ago I would probably have walked out if it came to this, but today I am proud of how much I was able to get done.
Oh! I applied for another job tonight... Keep your fingers crossed for me, I haven't been getting much response from previous postings.
Oh. I had a really disturbing 'using dream' last night.... Kinda threw me for a loop since I haven't had one in a while and never one this realistic. In the dream I was drunk off my a**, trying to 'cruise' a cutie in a bathroom at a bar. What made this one so realistic was that I could feel the cold tile as I put my forehead against the wall to prop myself up (a usual stance for me), the room was spinning and nobody would talk to me once they figured out how drunk I was. Really brought back some memories. Ah, wasn't life glamorous back then? WE THINK NOT.

Ok. I'll sign off with that for now. Hope everyone had a great holiday, and will have a nice New Year's Eve on Sunday.

Gratefully,
JD

Going from Bah-Humbug to Christmas Cheer...sorta.

Hi. So, here's what's going on. Ever since the weekend before thanksgiving I've been in a Bah-Humbug mood about the whole holiday situation this year. I haven't gone shopping, haven't been listening to Christmas music, I've been REAL critical about the Christmas decorations and displays in the stores downtown (Although, I must say that the Ralph Lauren displays are pretty nice this year) and basically had a F*** the Freakin' Holidays type attitude.

Lots of factors going into that attitude including Family, Job situation and Money. One of the things that's really putting me in this mood is that I've actually got a bunch of emotions that have been waking up in me that I don't really remember how to deal with. I shared about how I was homesick over thanksgiving even though I really didn't want to go home, well, there's a whole slew of other things... Unconditional love, regret, hope, joy, compassion... All these are surfacing to a degree I haven't felt in YEARS. It's kinda nice, but wierd. I just don't know how to handle them so well anymore.

Anywho. So, to try and get out of the Christmas-blah's I decided to put up my christmas tree today. It's wonderfully tacky and tasteless. I still have the opalescent white garland from last year on it that looks PINK when just the tree lights are on. I have a "Tigger" hat as the tree-topper that I got a couple years ago from an excursion with my ex to DisneyLand. All in all, I like how it looks. Just the way it's supposed to. Here's a couple small pics I just took, one from inside, one from outside (Sorry about the blurr from the shivers when I took the outside one):



It took quite some time to get the friggin thing up because I wasn't prepared for the little walk-down-memory-lane that came with each ornament I hung. EVERYTHING on the tree has a story to accompany it. Even the tree itself has a story! Basically, the only things I bought for the tree were lights and the garland. All the ornaments, the tree and the decorations around my house were given to me either from friends I am no longer able to contact, or from family. As I hung each ornament I took some time to remember the story that goes with it.

One of my favorites is a frosted-glass wreath with a gold bow that came from my Grandma's house. I remember it from when I was a kid helping her decorate her tree and smelling dinner cooking, my cousins around me, all of us excited for Christmas.

Another ornament is this goofy little guy sitting on a little crate fishing through some plastic Ice with a little blue fish on his line that is WAY too big to fit through the hole he cut in the ice. It's kinda funny looking, but I remember it hanging on my parent's tree. The year we bought that one my dad and I had been making an effort at bonding through Ice fishing. I really hated it, but the one time that sticks in my mind was when the sleigh we pulled behind our snowmobile started bogging down in the ice because the candle-ice was melting. Basically we were going across an expanse of ice that was nothing more than a couple feet of slush. We spent over an hour trying to clean the sleigh tracks, get going, bog down again, clean the tracks, go another fifteen feet, bog down... It was extremely arduous and taxing.

Finally, my dad decided we should try to head back home if we could just get going. I ended up getting behind the sleigh and pushing while he was keeping the snowmobile moving (so it wouldn't' start sinking through the slush as well) It worked and I ended up standing on the runners of the sleigh and holding on for the three miles home, because whenever we would stop so I could get back on the snowmobile we'd have to start the whole cleaning-the-sleigh-runners-to-get-mobile process over. It was scary, but when we were moving I felt like an old-fashioned dog-sled driver, standing on the runners, hanging on to the sleigh full of fishing equipment. It really was a blast once we were in the clear.

So, that's the kind of stuff that went through my mind with each and every ornament, bauble, figurine and knick-knack I unwrapped today. Really, I'm grateful for it. Remembering all the past Christmases has rekindled my passion for the season. Christmas to me is about recognizing the friends and family and remembering all the times we've shared. It's pretty amazing to be able to remember it all, both the good and the not-so-good experiences. I've learned a lot from my friends and family and I wouldn't change any of it. (At least today I wouldn't.)

Gratitude:
I'm grateful I'm past the 13 month mark for staying sober.
I'm grateful for the intense friendships I've developed this past year.
I'm grateful I have a warm house and a warm bed to sleep in.
I'm grateful I had money to pay my bills today.
I'm grateful I had the energy/desire to actually pay my bills today.
I'm grateful for the hugs I was given today when I wasn't feeling so hot.
I'm grateful I am able to be honest with people around me.
I'm grateful that I'm at a point where I do respect myself enough to do what I need to for myself.
I'm grateful my emotions are waking up even though I don't know what to do with them.
I'm grateful for the little walk-down-memory-lane today.

OH! Before I sign off... I always thought it was a myth that a cup of water could explode in a microwave. I understood the physics of the molecules being excited to a point that the liquid superheats and flash-boils. I just didn't think it happened. After cleaning my microwave from a cup of coffee that literally exploded all over the inside, I'm a believer. Yeah. What a mess.

ok. Signing off...
JD =c)