Growing Hope - The Gratefulness Thread

I’m grateful to have the opportunity to grow meaningful connections in reality. My relationships with family this week were vitally important to me. My mom helped me through the maze of healthcare encounters I needed to start to unravel my condition.

I am grateful to have someone in my life who I’ve been seeing. (Named, “my man.”) My man didn’t seem to want to run when we had a conversation last week about communicating. He said he’d do better, and he has. He isn’t used to having someone in his life to consider, he said. When I asked what he was doing while I was “spinning” for a week, he said “zoning out” and “napping”. My sister and daughter have commented in the past that my man and I, we have similar energy.

My man has this skill of texting at the funniest moments in my life. If I didn’t know better I’d be paranoid that he knew what I’m doing. He manages to message at climax routinely, or just as I’m doing things like writing him letters. It is uncanny. I think God has a sense of humor with our connection, reminding him of me at the perfect and most humorous moments. My man keeps it real.

Today was a day off. I took my daughter to her college orientation, I only cried once. Then I wrote her a long letter.

Next week I have a trip planned to the Caribbean. It’s a cruise. I started to cry thinking about feeling the tropical breeze alone, or in the presence of my colleagues. It took some digging to remember why I felt so much emotion about taking a journey to a warm sandy beach. Then it dawned on me.

Slowly I recalled that broken draft of the narrative that has been waiting to be rewritten for nearly two decades. Cargo ship queen, my pirate romance that I crafted when I was pregnant with “Jamie” that I thought was sending magic messages from another realm in my state of postpartum psychosis. I remember a draft version where I dreamed of living in a cottage with hammocks by the ocean with my captor on an island in the sea. We were somewhere tropical and south of Boston.

After spending time searching my files, I only found two versions. I can’t find that version of the draft with the hammocks by the ocean loving my captor. I lost it. The only two surviving versions of the story are broken pirate stories that have vampires and one of the stories mentions a siren – it's fantasy fiction. And it seems to be an archetype or model for how my experiences in the future unfold. It’s a totally unacceptable narrative. So, I’m working to apply internal family systems therapy for the benefit of narrative and story development.

It is the weirdest, most strangely funny, and bizarre story I’ve ever touched to read, write, or enjoy.

Since my issue with my health last week, I’m doing well.

I was sitting at my desk when my computer mouse that should have been next to the keyboard went missing. I searched everywhere for it. I worried my eyes were broken so I methodically patted down the desk. I felt and listened for it, but nothing. My screens were misbehaving, it looked like they were glitching hard, so I took my fingertip to drive the touchpad to reboot. I looked out the window, at the trees in the yard, and the string that the hammock ties up to. I took a deep breath, then looked back to where I last remembered the mouse should be and it returned.

After that, I didn’t know what else to do than seek care. I mean, what would you do?

I have been keeping myself entertained with this project while my man I would like to see more is busy with his own work. I will say, when he pulls back, I must deal with my own feelings of loneliness, and comfort myself. I struggle with wanting to love my hope for the physician. It is like a layer that regrows regularly. I must face the delusional situation and explain that the pain of desiring the love of the physician is too high a price for my soul to pay alone forever. I can’t allow vampire memories to reside in my sphere. I’m placing my hope fully in the 12 steps. No longer will I hold onto the hope for the love of the physician. I mean I can’t stop loving him, but I no longer wish to hope for his love, too. It is too painful.

I’m not sure how things will work out, but at least I know how to entertain myself. I’m grateful to have a process and skills to apply to cope with my issues.

I learned SETI conducted a simulation of a message to earth. Some speculate the encrypted message meant mouse. #asigninspace. They sent the message at the same time my computer glitched hard and my mouse went missing. May 24, 2023 at 2:00 pm my time.

I have good news - I'm officially a cougar! It never occurred to me before that I'd enjoy a physically fit partner to motivate me. The other man I was seeing stopped communicating, last time his mom was sick, but I don't suffer from a lack of communication well. So I met someone I like. Although there were a few red flag signs on the way to see him. I almost turned around when the maps took me there by driving along *mod edit*. That was almost too much.

Seeing a 30-year-old personal trainer motivates me to go on walks every day. I don't feel so sad that my love for the physician is not able to be reciprocal. I still dream that someday the physician will call and we have a conversation. I'm not healing all by myself. I've been trying for over 18 years. I don't know what God's plan is, but damn it hurts. so I'm trying to stay in the moment and enjoy my body while I can.

I volunteered for the first time to tell my story of recovery from alcohol and mental illness in a mental health unit today. I got out of the unit and had a moment to reflect, alone in my car listening to my cardio playlist. So grateful to be feeling well and mostly sane (minus the potential for insane thoughts about alcohol and the physician) I’m on the other side of the psychosis situation. And no more major disruptions with technology going missing (the mouse). I’m happy as a volunteer visitor rather than a patient. Volunteering to bring my story of recovery and my journey to work and live a sober life to my teary-eyed new friends who listened curiously to my story filled my cup.

When I left, and had a minute to myself driving, my own tears burned hottest when I thought that I’d want to continue to volunteer even if the physician was in my life and waiting for me at home (I know, it’s an insane thought.) My sponsor doesn’t want to hear the insane thoughts that aren’t about drinking, so I mostly think the thought, cry, love myself through the pain, and try to do something to get out of my head (I clean something, write, or call another person).

I still fantasize there will be a reality where my love wouldn’t be forbidden. Even if he is psycho… I love him. My wires got crossed. I don’t know how to heal this intimate wound on my own and I don’t have anyone willing to love me through healing who I could envision successfully staying with. I’ve looked for over 18 years. I haven’t stopped trying, it’s just getting to the point that I know. I mean, I KNOW… Even my friend the PhD Computer Scientists would feel cheated by my insane thinking about the physician.

It is hard to untwist without a willing partner. I don’t have the energy to “smash” the delusional love and hope relating to the physician today. I just want to love him even if he is psycho and has poor decision-making skills with women, I’m bound to the memory. How can I keep in this reality without having a conversation about the experience? Would he even pick up the phone? Answer my call? I don’t know his number. What would I say, other than, I need to understand… Please tell me how it feels. I’m super empathetic and might get better if you honestly told me how you feel. I am working to let you go, I hold onto love for you and forgiveness, but then I release you and let you go. I‘m exhausted from trying to confront the experience on my own. Denying action based on my visceral reaction to my feelings is a lot of work. I haven’t forgotten my body’s reaction to you. I couldn’t make sense of what happened. I need help, but it isn’t like my therapist can fix it. She just helps me cope to be okay for now.

I’m not ready. But someday, I want to have the courage to fly to visit and ask to speak with him. It’s either that or working on accepting things as they stand today.

The other night out at comedy when I saw the voting card for “funniest” comedian – my name was the only one on the card with 0 votes – I’m not the funniest. Or the romance writing contest where I placed last out of all the entrants. I accept that my brand of romance is off. I want to live authentically. I quit comedy and am taking walks instead. I want to live. Until I do the work to process the experience, how can I be authentic? I believe I need a conversation.

Overall, I’m okay, except when it comes to intimate relationships. I just can’t honestly be emotionally true knowing the way I viscerally react to the thoughts of the physician. I am not able to authentically be in a relationship fully. Maybe in 6 months or a year, I’ll have the courage to ask for a conversation.

Who am I kidding.
A conversation isn’t going to cure me.
But vampire playlists and a reorg at work have removed (reduced) my drive, except that feeling I had at 2:30 pm that demanded attention. The tears came rolling when I honestly remembered. I still love him after all this time. I have no right to love him, but I do. It was as if f he was with me in spirit.

I pray every day for this to resolve and that everyone has the best possible outcome. I’m working to surrender the outcome. I live in the hope that things are in the hands of a higher power. It is uncomfortable for me like this without the ability to get closure. How will I ever learn to relax and trust a man like b

My keypad mistyped.
It autocorrected to “b”. Maybe I should just be…

I should take a trip to the tech store. Ever since all my text histories became corrupted on my phone…. My user experience has been interesting. It’s a long story.

It's the last week before my daughter will be in college. I reached out to friends and family and booked every free day from now till October. Planning to work back through some things with someone I trust, who I can talk to about the insane thoughts about drinking and my love for the physician. I don't want to be alone with these emotions. I'm not acting to fill a void, but planning to not get sucked into the pain and longing. Staying grounded in healthy relationships so I'm not consumed by the feelings of loss and loneliness that I've experienced since the mistake at my daughter's birth. The system error, where the medical system failed to teach the student not to do that. That exam violated my soul and I have yet to heal from it. It was such a spiritual and sexual violation of my being. I was too deep in meditation to deal with it and in too vulnerable a headspace during the experience. My pain pathway took me to the "flower of life".

At this point I don't want to drink over it ever again, I'm getting tired of these feelings. I don't want to live this way. I don't want to feel this epic hurt and the knowledge that nothing compares to that experience of feeling the love from the universe when it happened. The emotions are still so strong that it is hard to show up and be with people. I was at the eye doctor the other day watching his aura and energy move about him, explaining that ever since my experience my vision is a little extra. I told him, I call what I see - my intuition. He said there was nothing physically wrong with my vision other than needing some new glasses. My reflexes and sight tests were good. Maybe it was getting shingles on my optic nerve as a teenager. Maybe it was my trauma. Maybe it was the spiritual experience. I don't know, except when I love that man who made the error, I feel better. And how can I banish and smash a hope that held me for so long and kept me okay when I wasn't okay? But I don't want to live the rest of my life alone. I want companionship.

It feels weird that my daughter, the #1 priority for over 18 years is going away to continue her education she got into a solid program. Grateful for the Duo Bark system, the quirky, loyal, and funny animals in my life. I love dogs, but I want companionship in my life. I'm so done waiting and trying to find a special relationship to help me heal my soul. How will I ever maintain a relationship to heal when the only way I feel okay is to love the physician?

It isn't that I can't try to love someone else, it just has yet to work out.

I need to water my daughter's plants. I keep putting it off. Today, I'm going to water them.

It is something that in reality it hurts my soul to do. My hope for the future is to grow old gardening together with the physician. I call my garden Eden in my mind's eye. I don't want to tend the garden alone because it's too real. Being alone is hard. It reminds me that I'm a long way from that hope being realized. In my mind, we're about 70-80 years old.

I heard something I needed to hear someone say.

“Life is a garden - dig it.”

Why do I have to care for that part that loves the physician or I feel heartache? The only time it doesn't hurt is when I give my power and love to that vision of love towards the physician. It isn't a sexual or romantic love. It is the love from source that flows to me when I share my love spiritually.

When I struggle, I shut down at times. I don't want to love, but I don't know how to live without love. I'm so upset. What happened wasn't right. He wasn't trained right. Nobody was there to protect me, and I failed to speak up due to my vulnerable state. I wish I could go back and have been emotionally savvy enough to have had my mother-in-law present for the experience. If she had been there to witness what happened maybe things would have been easier to deal with. At least she would have known what happened.

I'm still seeing songs by artists that he follows on Spotify, I look at the lyrics and take screenshots to translate them. I tell myself they can't be meant for me. My favorite translated example: "When one is in love One rewrites what has been rewritten, When one is in love Sometimes you lose your mind. For what to be in love its more my nature ....There are always too many words when one is in love"
---

I'm grateful to be feeling the full range of Christmas feelings totally sober and sane. I don't know how to live without showing compassion and loving the person, not the action that happened.

I'm grateful I live a long way away from that place.

I'm grateful to have made my favorite butternut squash soup with cider cream reduction drizzle yesterday. I'm grateful I made delicious and awesome blueberry and apple pies.

I'm grateful for my lovable dogs. Teddy is the most lovable creature I've ever met, and Honey is so loyal, Winnie bonds deeply, and Shea is so sweet. But they may defend us in case of an intruder. Especially Honey and Winnie. Winnie is a military service dog specializing in inert gas smelling. Grateful that last night they were growly barking in the middle of the night warding off any prowlers. Grateful to feel safe and protected with my MIT/Navy man and our pack of dogs.

I'm grateful the family is taking it easy this holiday season. I'm giving myself space and the family time and space to heal from my brother's death earlier this year. He died of an asthma attack, at 46 years old. his kids are still in middle and grade school. I'm grateful my daughter can connect with the kids and grieve with them the loss of my step-brother in everyone's lives.

I am grateful to have the ability to be in and try to stay in my energy.

I'm grateful my boyfriend is retired and disabled so he can be around the house a lot. I love the companionship and having someone to cook together and talk with. I'm grateful he has taken every engine mechanic class up to nuclear scientist and engineer. He even has a PhD. What this means for my house and me is that every appliance has been taken apart, cleaned, inspected, and reassembled, and even more impressively, they all work better now! He sharpened the blades in the sink disposal unit. Got the fan working in the bathroom. I love the intellectual contributions to my home. The best improvement was the improved water quality from the fridge and kerug.

Grateful that I couldn't have written a character who is more compelling and interesting to me.

We have a memory from our twenties when we were both housed on Beacon Hill and encountered eachother on the hill. I still remember it. I wonder how life would be different if we had gotten to know eachother back then.

I'm grateful for the ground effects on my car! with the ghost module sound sync feature that lets the lights beat to the music. Grateful for the Opt-7 car lighting kit, and for Dexter, and his knowledge, skills, and ability to guide the installation! Even the guy at the carwash appreciates my car's underlighting! When the weather gets nice, I'm looking forward to getting some chairs and sitting around watching my favorite songs play with the lights! I think 2024 has car shows in my future!

We even have plans to fix the yard and garden in the future. Just working out the kinks in communication.

Grateful for another sober Christmas!